Simon Gray

Oddly, or perhaps not oddly, come to think of it, the smoking ban came into effect about three days after I got the news - yes, now I do come to think of it, it seems more than odd, it seems eerily consequential, suggesting among other possibilities that I am so innately, organically obedient...

'The funniest book I've read all year.' Julian Barnes When he turned sixty-five, the playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary: not a careful honing of the day's events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. One of...

Simon Gray is determined to give up smoking. Really. At last. Can he kick the habit of sixty years? Will he, sometime soon, be able to leave his house without nervously feeling for his two packets of twenty and his two lighters, and add no more singes to his cardigan? As this wonderful, wayward...

'Thrilling . . . I'm a besotted fan.' Lynn Barber, Observer A great many writers use their own lives as the raw material for their work but few have done it with the wit and courage of Simon Gray. Like his previous bestseller, The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer has the rare ability to...