With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed

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Lynne Truss

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Pages: 224 (Paperback)

ISBN: 1861977492

Pub: Profile Books Ltd

Pub date: 2004-06-10

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 262703

Editorial Review:

With One Lousy Packet of Seed is Lynne Truss's splendidly malicious novel about contemporary celebrity journalism and its intrusiveness. Much of the plot has to do with the attempt to find something new to say about garden sheds by Osborne, a writer who has done so many profiles that famous people have started to blend into each other in his mind--Truss is often at her funniest when her characters get closest to being entirely deranged. Osborne is one of the regular contributors to a small gardening magazine on its last legs--Come into the Garden has a staff almost entirely made up of obsessives of one kind or another, and Truss gets to settle a lot of personal scores with sub-editors and researchers.

Much of the book is also a vicious but genteel hatchet-job on the cosy British crime thriller's casual snobbery--the escalation of mistaken identities and occasional violence heads off into the darkest of dark comedy. Truss is also capable of being charmingly erotic and rather touching--With One Lousy Packet of Seed has a satirical edge and a humane side that balance it neatly. --Roz Kaveney

Reader Reviews:

GARDEN SHEDS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN! (0/0 people found this helpful)

This a very enjoyable and funny book, capturing the hothouse atmosphere of a declining gardening magazine and upping the temperature by introducing a variety of exotic journalistic seedlings vying with each other for attention. The strange goings on in surburban garden sheds will linger long in the memory.

Mick Drake author of the comic novel All`s Well at Wellwithoute.

OK, but mercyfully short (7/8 people found this helpful)

This is a tale about some rather quirky people, who live rather boring lives. Until one day, something upsets their cosy existence.
Though enjoyable, the excessive hype, led me to believe it would be "hilarious." The story is certainly amusing, but I did not find it hilarious. Perhaps, this was because the main protagonist doesn't actually do anything, but act as a pawn in other peoples lives.

It is quite a short book, so you won't loose much giving it a try. The first few pages are rather turgid, but once these are out of the way, it becomes easy to read.