Life at the Top Life at the Top Life At The Top is the third novel by the English author John Braine, first published in the UK by Eyre & Spottiswoode and in the US by Houghton Mifflin & Co. in 1962. It continues the story of the life and difficulties of Joe Lampton, an ambitious young man of humble origins. A 1965 film adaptation of the novel was made starring Laurence Harvey. In September 2012, BBC television finally broadcast a two-part television adaptation of "Room at the Top" that had been delayed because of copyright difficulties. Matthew McNulty was in the lead role.
Perfect English Perfect English Perfect English is the second blackly comic novel by British writer Paul Pickering. It is based on his own experience as an "Internationalista" in the war in Nicaragua against the Contras. The novel was long-listed for the Booker Prize and received very favourable reviews. Pickering was for a while under siege in the Nicaraguan town of Bluefields, where he helped former Baader-Meinhof printer, novelist and playwright, Peter-Paul Zahl, build a Bertolt Brecht youth theatre after his first was destroyed in the invasion of Grenada. A central concern of the novel is to illustrate how the best intentions can