The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer.

Broken into four parts, each consisting of tens of chapters, the writing comes in short, poetic bursts. Every line has something profound to say about love and loss, hope and fear, time and memory, and the enduring power of art' Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney. So much space on the page visually transforms each paragraph into a stanza, while lending the words a solemn weight and power .A magical imagining of the fate of a fictional boy whose life is shaped forever when he loses out on the role of Harry Potter. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

Embroidering the edges of Martin’s story are dozens of other tangential narratives, ranging from the story of how his parents first met to coverage of the path that J. An elegant, irresistibly farcical comic mystery based around a library of rejected manuscripts, Foenkinos' playful satire is the perfect feelgood read. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report.a serious author who doesn’t take himself seriously’ L’Express ‘Abounds with Gallic wit and charm’ Waterstones Megan Jones is an in-house translator for Gallic Books and lives in London.

Foenkinos’s] sensitive and empathetic handling of the theme of the also-ran is as instructive as it is entertaining’ Irish Times ‘A brilliant concept for a novel’ Sunday Times ‘Foenkinos has had a gem of an idea .

A genealogy of the haphazard decisions and coincidences that align to create a life, Second Best is a bittersweet novel exploring what it means to live through failure. Foenkinos’ smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and how the lives we wish we’d led might not be all they’re cracked up to be .