The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, Marianne Cronin [top fiction books of all time txt] 📗

person remained the same. I thought that was really interesting. Although Lenni and Margot have sixty-six years separating them, who they are fundamentally is unchanging and their personalities are inherently compatible. Each is exactly what the other needs in a friend. The same is true of Arthur and Lenni. There is a big age gap between them and they have completely different world views, but they become friends without even trying. It’s a natural reaction.

Your book is full of delicious humour. Do friends know you as funny, or do you reserve that for your writing?

Oh gosh, I think you’d have to ask them! One of the things that surprised me when The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot was being read by people outside my immediate family was that they kept mentioning it being funny. I didn’t intentionally set out to write a funny book. Sometimes Lenni would come out with something that would make me smile (usually when talking to Arthur), but finding that people have found it funny has been a really nice surprise.

I’m blessed to be surrounded by entertaining friends and family, and I’m lucky to spend time around funny people through the improv scene in the West Midlands. Doing improv is like writing a story on a piece of paper that’s already on fire. By the time you’ve finished, the whole thing is gone for ever and you can never step back and see it as a whole. That felt almost wasteful at first, at first, but it’s taught me to jump into ‘without overthinking them so much’.

Marianne Cronin was born in 1990. She studied English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, before earning a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham. She now spends most of her time writing, with her newly adopted rescue cat sleeping under her desk. When she’s not writing, Marianne can be found performing improv in the West Midlands, where she lives. Her debut novel The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is to be published around the world and is being adapted into a feature film by a major Hollywood studio.

THIS IS JUST

THE BEGINNING

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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Marianne Cronin 2020

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Lyrics from ‘How Deep Is The Ocean’ on p. 81 written by Irving Berlin. Lyrics from ‘Starry Eyed’ on p. 168 written by Earl Shuman and Mort Garson. Lyrics from ‘I Fought The Law’ on p. 191 written by Sonny Curtis. Poetry extract on p. 268 from ‘The Old Astronomer to His Pupil’ by Sarah Williams.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

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Cover design by Irene Martinez Costa / TW

ISBN: 978-1-473-57842-5

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