Jonathan Coe discusses Expo 58

Jonathan Coe's Expo 58 is our Fiction Book of the Month for September - find out more in our interview with the author...

Good-looking girls and sinister spies: a naive Englishman at loose in Europe in Jonathan Coe's brilliant comic novel. London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk at the Central Office of Information and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Brittania, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 - the biggest World's Fair of the century, and the first to be held since the Second World War. As soon as he arrives at the site, Thomas feels that he has escaped a repressed, backward-looking country and fallen headlong into an era of modernity and optimism. He is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, the lovely Flemish hostess who meets him off his plane. But Thomas' new-found sense of freedom comes at a price: the Cold War is at its height, the mischievous Belgians have placed the American and Soviet pavilions right next to each other - and why is he being followed everywhere by two mysterious emissaries of the British Secret Service?


Look out for the exclusive Waterstones edition of Expo 58, with an article by Jonathan Coe explaining how he came to write the novel...

[stevecadence]

I read The Rotter's Club AND The Closed Circle AND Middle England (I started the "trilogy" with the latter) and I'm surprised to hear the scond one only had half the readership as the first.
Personally, I loved them all three as well as all J C's books and Expo 58 which I'm enjoying right now.

[BeadsandFlowers]

A lovely read! I was quite surprised to find it in English at a bookshop in Rome. I wouldn't mind a prequel on Thomas'mother, as he hinted at the end at the book. I think it would make an amazing story, especially with such a gifted writer.