Life… with No Breaks
Nick Spalding
Nick Spalding tried to write a book in 24 hours. Turns out that’s impossible… it took 30!
Life… With No Breaks is a unique, hilarious and heartfelt look at the modern world we live in, told by a master story-teller with much to say – and only a weekend to say it in. You’ll laugh out loud reading Nick’s odyssey of non-stop writing in a collection of anecdotes, asides and stories – all dredged up from an over-stimulated brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.
The book is a conversation with you, and with Nick you’ll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, sex, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (among many other things). After you’ve read Life… With No Breaks, you may never look at the world the same way again!
Writing… with no breaks. Spalding faces his laptop, armed with cigarettes, coffee, a supply of Pringles & cold chicken, and sets out to write a book in one sitting. Thirty hours and fifty-five thousand words later, the result is a memoir: hilarious anecdotes, short stories and his observations on life, love and sex.
Telling us that he is depending on us, the reader, as his trusty muse, he is accompanied by early birdsong and the later hum of his neighbour’s lawn-mower. Catapulted into his writing den and into his head, he gives us a very honest and personal account of his work, his marriage and his experience with sex. The result is hilarious. I would advise you to read this in the safety of your own home – otherwise people on the bus/ train/ nearby hairdressing chair will think you’re a nutcase when you laugh out loud. Especially at the story of his “team-building” paintball experience or his first (and last) trip to the gym.
The premise of this novel is the ‘experiment’ as to whether Spalding can write a book in 24 hours. There’s no ‘beginning, middle or end’ as such. It’s more a journal of his observations.Yet somehow it works. Somehow you can vividly imagine him sitting in his writing den, perched at his laptop, surrounded by his coffee and snacks, chatting away to you. Because that’s exactly what he does – has a chin-wag with the reader. So there’s an intimacy there, made more obvious by the personal stories he recounts. Part of me wondered if he’d get in trouble with his work or his missus by telling tales. The result is a series of stories and anecdotes that will make you laugh and will keep you reading – just for sheer entertainment rather than anything else.
This guy should be a stand-up comedian. A must-read!
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