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From the author of 'Stuart: A Life Backwards'; a warm and witty
portrait of a harmless, eccentric, bona fide genius. Alexander
Master's landlord, Simon, lives in the basement of their Cambridge
house. Between teetering towers of outdated maps and slagheaps of
plastic bags, Simon eats endless meals of tinned kippers and plans
trips on the Cambridge public transport system. But Simon was one
of the greatest mathematical prodigies of the twentieth century. He
spends his time between train journeys working on a theoretical
puzzle so complex and critical to our understanding of the universe
that it is known as the Monster. Poignant and comical, 'Simon: The
Genius in my Basement' is about the frailty of brilliance and how
genius matters very little in the search for happiness.
Unique, transgressive and as funny as its subject, A Life Discarded
has all the suspense of a murder mystery. Written with his
characteristic warmth, respect and humour, Masters asks you to join
him in celebrating an unknown and important life left on the scrap
heap. A Life Discarded is a biographical detective story. In 2001,
148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying
among broken bricks in a skip on a building site in Cambridge. Tens
of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent
handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, anonymous
diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few
weeks before the books were thrown out. Over five years, the
award-winning biographer Alexander Masters uncovers the identity
and real history of their author, with an astounding final
revelation. A Life Discarded is a true, shocking, poignant, often
hilarious story of an ordinary life. The author of the diaries,
known only as 'I', is the tragicomic patron saint of everyone who
feels their life should have been more successful. Part thrilling
detective story, part love story, part social history, A Life
Discarded is also an account of two writers' obsessions: of 'I's
need to record every second of life and of Masters' pursuit of this
mysterious yet universal diarist.
'Stuart does not like the manuscript. He's after a bestseller,
"like what Tom Clancy writes". "But you are not an assassin trying
to frazzle the president with anthrax bombs," I point out. You are
an ex-homeless, ex-junkie psychopath, I do not add.' This is the
story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer ('a
middle-class scum ponce, if you want to be honest about it,
Alexander'), and Stuart Shorter, a homeless, knife-wielding thief.
Told backwards - Stuart's idea - it starts with a deeply troubled
thirty-two-year-old and ends with a 'happy-go-lucky little boy' of
twelve. This brilliant biography, winner of the Guardian First Book
Award, presents a humbling portrait of homeless life, and is as
extraordinary and unexpected as the man it describes.
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