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One Day

One Day

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Author: David Nicholls
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
Category: Book

List Price: £7.99
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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars reviews
Sales Rank: 16

Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3

ISBN: 0340896981
EAN: 9780340896983
ASIN: 0340896981

Publication Date: February 4, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Also Available In:

  • Audio CD - One Day
  • Audio Download - One Day
  • Audio Download - One Day (Unabridged)
  • Audio CD - One Day
  • Kindle Edition - One Day
  • Paperback - One Day (Vintage Contemporaries)
  • Audio CD - One Day (unabridged audio book)
  • Paperback - One Day
  • Hardcover - One Day
  • Paperback - One Day
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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
'A wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate and often unbearably sad. The best British social novel since Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up!' The Times

Customer Reviews:
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5 out of 5 stars If you like life, you'll like this   June 18, 2009
Matthew Gracie (Bristol, England)
268 out of 287 found this review helpful

From being a celebrity in the 90's to having a boss with a large beard, nothing is shied away from in this big pot of life. This book follows every 15th July from 1988 (end of their studentship) to near present day in the lives of two characters; Emma and Dexter, and their relationship with each other and others. Don't be put off by the length (430 odd pages) of this book - it is so ridiculously easy to read it makes the act of putting on a DVD seem like overexertion. That's not to say that the writing isn't thickly layered - it's stuffed with literary calories. Emma and Dexter jump out of the book and start living with you, eat your food and argue over the top of your head about the worthlessness of Scrabble. So much of the sharp-razor sharp dialogue sticks a grin on your face, people are unlikely to sit next to you on the train (read in extra comfort).

So there's Emma: warm, funny and cataclysmically directionless. Dexter: confident, arrogant, and transparent. The book then bends these attributes into the three dimensional. Their relationship treads its own path - there's no inevitability in what the next year will bring - their interactions with others the same. Every supporting character, whether they're on one page or a hundred is given their own space to be believable and interesting, and most likely make quite a bit of a mess of things.

The book finished - I'm missing them both. Time for them to come and bother you.



5 out of 5 stars Brilliant   July 13, 2009
Nicholas F. Holliday
49 out of 52 found this review helpful

One of the best novels I`ve ever read. The characters are likeable and you can`t help yourself willing them to get together. The concept is fantastic; You never really know what happens immediately after the end of each chapter, as the next one takes place exactly one year later. I`m not entirely sure whether this should be classed as a romantic comedy; It`s a novel about relationships that should appeal to both men and women. Sure, Emma Mayhew comes out with a lot of amusing one-liners, but that`s not really what One Day is about. There`s no sloppy romanticism here either, no sex scenes described in elaborate euphemisms. This book is about realistic characters feeling the sort of emotions we have all felt. All human life is here in this novel and it`s utterly compelling.
I`m not usually one to get emotional over books and films, but I found myself close to tears at some points in One Day. One page in particular, I had to go back and re-read several times, it affected me so much.
One more thing: If you`re the type of person who likes to read the last page of a novel to see how it all turns out, don`t bother. The last couple of pages will tell you nothing at all.


5 out of 5 stars A beguiling and magical tale   August 24, 2009
P. Whelerton (York, England)
82 out of 90 found this review helpful

I've never been moved to write a review of any book before but this was simply wonderful. David Nicholls has managed to conjure characters so full of depth that in finishing the book I felt almost bereft at their parting. Unlike a paint-by-numbers romcom brimming with contrivances to keep the characters apart, the tale moves with grace and humour through subtle and unexpected turns. The characters aren't always "made for each other", they're not always perfectly perky with adorable quirks; occasionally, like us all, they can be unpleasant, foolish, embarrassing and cowardly.

It is perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, the characters' genuine flaws that this books pulls so strongly at your heart, ringing so true as we explore the effects of our action and inaction in life. With effortlessly beautiful dialogue, and the ability to pick out the tiny subtleties of life, the story will carry you through on a wave of emotion, nostalgia, regret and hope so strong as to feel like a personal memory.

The "same day each year" idea sounds like high concept but its effect in the book is almost transparent to the reader. In fact, closer inspection shows that it actually works wonderfully to drive the story through a clever mix of drama and the everyday - just like life. On the years when the day itself is unremarkable the discovery of what has happened in between provides the reader with rich rewards whilst, all the while, Nicholls draws warmth and humour from the minutiae of life.

As the book draws to a conclusion, the story has an elegant and wondrous subtlety that prompts the involuntarily butterflies-in-stomach feelings of hope, excitement, fear and optimism that one only gets from falling in love.

I read this on a night flight and was thankful that the overhead light illuminated only the pages in front of me for I know that my eyes would have betrayed my feelings as the story closed. A profound tale woven from ordinary truths about love, life and feelings that will leave you genuinely moved and desperate to lend this to someone else.






4 out of 5 stars Good stuff   February 23, 2010
Marion Pennington (London United Kingdom)
42 out of 46 found this review helpful

I haven't read any other David Nicholls, and this one may have passed me by if it hadn't been chosen for my book club book.

I am a contemporary of the principal characters, and as such could relate to every stage of their lives. It was interesting to read the review by the 23 year old, who found it more moving than funny - I'd really like to know the ages of all the reviewers, to see whether it affected their views.

But on with the review!

I liked the device of dropping into the characters' lives once a year. Yes, initially it meant that there was less of a connection between reader and characters, which is possibly what has led some reviewers to find it hard to get into. But as the book develops over the next 20 years, the characters develop beautifully and realistically with it and you cannot fail to become involved with them, if you don't choose to dismiss them as stereotypes early on. One review stated that it was totally unbelievable that a leftie, Labour-voting northerner would befriend, let alone sleep with, a privileged softie southerner. Well, yes, they would. University broadens the mind, not to mention the sex life, and to refuse to befriend someone on the grounds of social class, geography and politics, despite a deep mutual attraction and a shared sense of humour would be narrow-minded in the extreme. To refuse to sleep with them on the same basis - hahaha! Good grief.

Dexter starts off as a totally superficial person, whose principal motivation in choosing a career is that it must be something which sounds good when you shout it out in a club. Very funny, and I'm sure there's an element of that in all of us - we hanker to have a glamorous answer to the question "and what do you do?". However, Dexter is wryly aware of his superficiality, and it is this which saves him from coming across as a complete and utter waste of space - although not in the eyes of some reviewers - maybe they missed this. Which is a shame, as without it, the book would not work. We need to like Dexter and want good things for him. We need to understand what Emma sees in him. And we need to understand that although there are times when Emma feels that her and Dexter are not together because she is not good enough or glamorous enough, it is actually Dexter's awareness of his shallowness and fundamental flaws which keep him and Emma apart.

Emma, meanwhile, has been written off by other reviewers as being typical two-dimensional trashy novel fodder, a ridiculous female fantasy of the frumpy woman who is too intelligent for her own good (not sure where they got that, but everyone's entitled to their opinion) getting the drop-dead gorgeous bloke. Well, as I said above, I think this misses the point. It also misses another point: that Emma is not frumpy (or overly intellectual). She feels that she is lacking in the glamour stakes, but so does every other woman in Britain who doesn't conform to the current physical ideal of the seven foot surgically enhanced blonde with knees wider than her thighs and ribs you could play a glockenspiel on. Whenever Emma is seen through anyone's eyes other than her own, she is gorgeous, witty, desirable, generous and excellent company. While this is not an uncommon characteristic of female literary heroines in this era, it is also a fair reflection of the general zeitgeist, and I don't think it's particularly valid to criticise a book on the basis of writing realistic characters.

Dexter's shallowness and need for adulation has predictable consequences with him initially trundling and then hurtling down the road to rack and ruin - drugs, meaningless sex, black holes in the memory. Again, this has been flagged up as being predictable. In my opinion it is only predictable in that this is what would happen to Dexter (and happened to many celebrities in the 90s - as it continues today), given his background and character flaws - so it is a logical progression of a well-written character. Just because we can see where he's going doesn't mean he wouldn't or shouldn't go there.

I really enjoyed this book. I think that David Nicholls did a really good job of moving the characters on and allowing them to grow. The device offered him the opportunity of exploring how these two people would react at different stages of their lives, and he grasped this admirably. Emma's comments on her friends' approach to parenthood had me howling with that most enjoyable form of laughter - recognition. Dexter's reactions to his growing fame, notoriety and dwindling star were very well documented. All in all, I think it was a great read and would highly recommend it to all.

So why only four stars?

Well, call me an old romantic, but I was GUTTED by the ending. My mouth dropped into a wide O and tears rolled down my cheeks at that short and totally unexpected sentence. I felt cheated. It wasn't what I wanted to read. I felt like I'd invested twenty years of my life in these peoples' lives (see how effectively he wrote?!) and this... it upset me. Not that I want my books to be all sweetness and tweeting birdies, but it hadn't been. There had been bad times and heartbreak and darkness, and I think they deserved more light.


5 out of 5 stars Best read for years   July 3, 2009
S. Chadwick (England)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

The most thought provoking book I have ever read. I cannot recommend it highly enough - this is no simple chick-lit join-the-dot romance, there is a real depth to the characters and situations making it so much more interesting and enjoyable - and rare. Definitely one to read again and again.

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...72Next »


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