What might you expect in a novel such as The Secret Purposes from the talented David Baddiel? Apart from the laddishness of his Fantasy Football TV appearances with Frank Skinner, Baddiel has proved himself to be one of the sharpest and most perceptive of younger novelists, with a sympathetic understanding of human nature (perhaps we can blame Baddiel's TV persona on his co-compere, whose own literary efforts haven't matched Baddiel's highly accomplished Time for Bed and Whatever Love Means). The earlier books were darkly comic pieces shot through with his trademark seriousness; the new book is a striking departure.

The subject is a hidden part of British history, treated with gravity: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man in the 1940s. June Murray is a translator who doesn't share the unsympathetic incomprehension of her colleagues at the Ministry of Information, and travels to the Isle of Man in order to interview the Jews interned there. June hopes to expose the true horror of what the Nazis are doing, but her best efforts are wasted, and she can glean nothing. But her relationship with a man she meets, the highly intelligent (if ineffectual) Isaac Fabian, is to have a profound influence on her life and thinking--and nothing will be the same again for June, Isaac or his wife and daughter.

This is clearly a very personal subject for Baddiel, and he produced his most affecting and (in many ways) timely novel yet. Time and place are evoked with quite as much skill as the rich characterisation--June is a heroine to draw the reader ineluctably into the moving narrative.--Barry Forshaw

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

You're better off squirting bleach in your eyes., 24 Apr 2008
As dull a collection of words as have ever been strung together to disgrace the English language.

Michael Howard said in his thankfully doomed bid to run the country that "it's not racist to talk about imigration." Balls in his case, but it made me think...

"IT'S NOT ANTI SEMITIC TO HATE DAVID BADDIEL." In fact it's your civic duty to hate the whining little ****.

This is a lame book for lame donkeys. And if you enjoyed it, you could do a lot worse than absenting yourself from the human race. I'm told paraquat works well.

Time For Bed, 31 Mar 2008
This was OK, but not a patch on Whatever Love Means. On the positive side, it is quite funny in places (I loved Gabriel's dad) but on the other, the characters are not very convincing. I particularly didn't buy the story of the flat mate. It also read as though it was a semi autobiography and/or stand up routine - you could certainly hear David Baddiel's voice throughout. Worth a quick read, just don't expect too much.

Funny but not a great tale, 16 Oct 2007
I laughed out loud at least five times (v. good).
The story itself isn't that enthralling (not so good). There's no real ending as such.
That's it.

A great surprise, 30 Nov 2006
I hadn't really thought of reading a book by someone who is in essence a TV star but I was bought this for Christmas a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some very dark humour and is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud. Okay, it's perhaps not a highbrow classic but who says literature has to be? Take it for what it is:- an intelligent, damnably funny and well written yarn which is certain to appeal to all readers.

Side Splitting, 21 Sep 2006
I was a little dubious about this read, Id always been more of a Skinner than Baddiel fan. My views have changed! I laughed on ever turn of the page with this book and can say it's the funniest thing I ever read. The explicit content (which had me laughing my head off) means I would recommend this to everyone except my own family members. They'd be too embarrassed at some of the content. I LOVED it!
Brilliant.

Vic is a nearly-famous rock guitarist thinking about shacking up in south London with his foul-mouthed thirty-something girlfriend Tess; Vic's best friend Joe is a geeky, AIDS-researching biochemist who shares a son and a flash yuppie pad with the beautiful and slightly Irish Emma. On the day of Princess Diana's death Vic falls into bed with Em; a few months later Joe sort of does the same with Tess. If that were all there was to this book, it would hardly be worth bothering with: just another Hampstead (or rather, Herne Hill) adultery novel. What raises it up a considerable notch, quite apart from Baddiel's obvious gift for very good jokes, is his less expected gift for deadpan but dryly insightful prose, and his even more unexpected talent for fleshing out character. Every player in this touching, tragic tale: female as well as male, minor as much as major, villainous alongside virtuous, is eminently believable, and harrowingly feasible. Not quite so convincing is the Princess-Diana-death subplot that forms a background to the early chapters. Like the hysteria over the Queen of Hearts itself, the whole thing rather peters out, and provides little more than an excuse for the book's well-chosen title (it's a famous Prince Chuck quote apropos his then fiancée Diana). Taken as a whole, small misgivings aside, this is a fine and impressive novel: funny, sad, warm, dark, tender, wise and bleakly memorable. --Sean ThomasVic is a nearly-famous rock guitarist thinking about shacking up in south London with his foul-mouthed thirty-something girlfriend Tess; Vic's best friend Joe is a geeky, AIDS-researching biochemist who shares a son and a flash yuppie pad with the beautiful and slightly Irish Emma. On the day of Princess Diana's death Vic falls into bed with Em; a few months later Joe sort of does the same with Tess. If that were all there was to this book, it would hardly be worth bothering with: just another Hampstead (or rather, Herne Hill) adultery novel. What raises it up a considerable notch, quite apart from Baddiel's obvious gift for very good jokes, is his less expected gift for deadpan but dryly insightful prose, and his even more unexpected talent for fleshing out character. Every player in this touching, tragic tale: female as well as male, minor as much as major, villainous alongside virtuous, is eminently believable, and harrowingly feasible. Not quite so convincing is the Princess-Diana-death subplot that forms a background to the early chapters. Like the hysteria over the Queen of Hearts itself, the whole thing rather peters out, and provides little more than an excuse for the book's well-chosen title (it's a famous Prince Chuck quote apropos his then fiancée Diana). Taken as a whole, small misgivings aside, this is a fine and impressive novel: funny, sad, warm, dark, tender, wise, and bleakly memorable. --Sean Thomas

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

You're better off squirting bleach in your eyes., 24 Apr 2008
As dull a collection of words as have ever been strung together to disgrace the English language.

Michael Howard said in his thankfully doomed bid to run the country that "it's not racist to talk about imigration." Balls in his case, but it made me think...

"IT'S NOT ANTI SEMITIC TO HATE DAVID BADDIEL." In fact it's your civic duty to hate the whining little ****.

This is a lame book for lame donkeys. And if you enjoyed it, you could do a lot worse than absenting yourself from the human race. I'm told paraquat works well.

Time For Bed, 31 Mar 2008
This was OK, but not a patch on Whatever Love Means. On the positive side, it is quite funny in places (I loved Gabriel's dad) but on the other, the characters are not very convincing. I particularly didn't buy the story of the flat mate. It also read as though it was a semi autobiography and/or stand up routine - you could certainly hear David Baddiel's voice throughout. Worth a quick read, just don't expect too much.

Funny but not a great tale, 16 Oct 2007
I laughed out loud at least five times (v. good).
The story itself isn't that enthralling (not so good). There's no real ending as such.
That's it.

A great surprise, 30 Nov 2006
I hadn't really thought of reading a book by someone who is in essence a TV star but I was bought this for Christmas a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some very dark humour and is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud. Okay, it's perhaps not a highbrow classic but who says literature has to be? Take it for what it is:- an intelligent, damnably funny and well written yarn which is certain to appeal to all readers.

Side Splitting, 21 Sep 2006
I was a little dubious about this read, Id always been more of a Skinner than Baddiel fan. My views have changed! I laughed on ever turn of the page with this book and can say it's the funniest thing I ever read. The explicit content (which had me laughing my head off) means I would recommend this to everyone except my own family members. They'd be too embarrassed at some of the content. I LOVED it!
Brilliant.

THE LIVING ARE THE LIVING,, 06 Oct 2008
and dead the dead shall stay.

Novels about people having affairs, I often think, must have done more for the cause of celibacy and monogamy than the combined bulls and encyclicals of every Pope since Peter. I bought this one only on the strength of its authorship. David Baddiel is or used to be a comedian, of a quiet and intellectual kind. He specialised in insights and apercus, and anyone who specialises in those runs a constant risk of being a crashing bore. However Baddiel did them better than many, so I was hopeful, and in the event I found this story quite interesting even at the start, and absolutely riveting by the end.

Not surprisingly, this edition hypes the book as being set against the background of the death of Princess Diana. In fact that has very little bearing on the story, but Baddiel does not waste material, there is a very telling parallel towards the end, and of course the book's title quotes a notorious piece of crass insensitivity from the heir to the British throne towards his young and sensitive fiancée. How well does this title fit what happens in the following 300-odd pages? Myself, I'd say `quite well'. The torrid bits of the narrative are near the start, and the events never detach themselves from the emotional and sexual relationships among the four main players, but increasingly as the plot develops it turns into a rather interesting tease - who suspects whom and what? As I read it all, the author does not commit himself to answering the question of what love is, nor can I see any reason why he should. Quite apart from the grown-ups and their `adult' behaviour, there is a baby in this story and he is quite unquestionably loved. It is never so unquestionable among the adults, and in fact the actual word `love' does not seem to occur very often.

What seems to me good without any qualification is the storytelling technique. As the plot thickens, the cross-purposes dialogues with the participants uncertain what their interlocutors might be suggesting are very neatly done. The sub-plots are worked into the main narrative very skilfully I thought, and any unresolved suggestions are always picked up and answered, culminating in a genuine thunderbolt of a conclusion. I felt a twinge of suspicion that the final unravelling of the main mystery might have been not completely in keeping with the characterisation that had been very consistent up until then, with a slight hint of Poirot in the way it is explained. Even if I'm right about that, it is a small price to pay for such an original denouement, and I know that my own sense of involvement increased sharply in the last few chapters.

Baddiel is yer genuine deep thinker in the last resort. We get a bit from him about the contest between love and death - eros (more accurately passion) and thanatos -- and of course eros keeps ahead all the way until finally losing as he must. Of the four main dicers with these two fates one dies, one sails through totally unscathed, one I would definitely not have liked to be, and I don't know what to think regarding the fourth. The living are the living/And dead the dead shall stay. I'm not sure who finishes worst off, nor do I think I'm meant to be any the wiser as to what `love' means.

Not great, 23 Sep 2008
Can't say I was taken by this book. I'm a fan of David Baddiel but I didn't feel he really expanded his characters too well and the plot was a little thin. Having said that, it kept me reading until the end just in case it got more 'unputabledownable'. Ok book but not in the same league as a Ben Elton or Nick Hornby !

Whatever Love Means, 14 Mar 2008
This book takes 40 or so pages to get going, and then it becomes a real page turner. I thought the characterisation was very good, as was the plot, although I did have some suspicions about the twist early on. Despite dealing with tragic themes, there is a decent amount of humour, although tending to be of the dark variety. This would have been a 5 star book if it hadn't been for a couple of holes in the plot (to do with the care of Jackson), and also the fact that some of the passages didn't flow at all well and had to be re-read to get the gist of what the author was trying to say. Overall very good though - recommended.

Don't expect too many laughs..., 23 Jul 2006
I don't know why I was expecting someething funny, perhaps becasue of Baddiel's background, but I certainly didn't get it!

Vic starts an affair with his friend Joe's wife, Emma, in the days following the death of Princess Diana. (The blurb describes this as 'an intense and passionately sexual liaison', but don't get too excited becasue there's little evidence of any real passion.)
The book covers the months that follow, how the relationship develops and changes and what happens to all the characters as a result...

....then something strange happens.....

The latter half of the book is filled with the most implauisible set of coincidences I have ever read, you will really need to suspend your disbelief with this one!

I did enjoy this book. Baddiel on his worst day is a lot better than other writers on their best so I would say it is worth a read, but perhaps as it is only his second novel he is still 'cutting his teeth'?

Why any writer would bother to descibe 'parallelogrammatic buttocks' though, is beyond me!

Loved every minute of it, 01 Jul 2004
Fantastic novel which alternates between being hilarious (laugh out loud) in many places and being extremely dark at the same time. Quite a page turner too and got through it very quickly.

What might you expect in a novel such as The Secret Purposes from the talented David Baddiel? Apart from the laddishness of his Fantasy Football TV appearances with Frank Skinner, Baddiel has proved himself to be one of the sharpest and most perceptive of younger novelists, with a sympathetic understanding of human nature (perhaps we can blame Baddiel's TV persona on his co-compere, whose own literary efforts haven't matched Baddiel's highly accomplished Time for Bed and Whatever Love Means). The earlier books were darkly comic pieces shot through with his trademark seriousness; the new book is a striking departure.

The subject is a hidden part of British history, treated with gravity: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man in the 1940s. June Murray is a translator who doesn't share the unsympathetic incomprehension of her colleagues at the Ministry of Information, and travels to the Isle of Man in order to interview the Jews interned there. June hopes to expose the true horror of what the Nazis are doing, but her best efforts are wasted, and she can glean nothing. But her relationship with a man she meets, the highly intelligent (if ineffectual) Isaac Fabian, is to have a profound influence on her life and thinking--and nothing will be the same again for June, Isaac or his wife and daughter.

This is clearly a very personal subject for Baddiel, and he produced his most affecting and (in many ways) timely novel yet. Time and place are evoked with quite as much skill as the rich characterisation--June is a heroine to draw the reader ineluctably into the moving narrative.--Barry Forshaw

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

You're better off squirting bleach in your eyes., 24 Apr 2008
As dull a collection of words as have ever been strung together to disgrace the English language.

Michael Howard said in his thankfully doomed bid to run the country that "it's not racist to talk about imigration." Balls in his case, but it made me think...

"IT'S NOT ANTI SEMITIC TO HATE DAVID BADDIEL." In fact it's your civic duty to hate the whining little ****.

This is a lame book for lame donkeys. And if you enjoyed it, you could do a lot worse than absenting yourself from the human race. I'm told paraquat works well.

Time For Bed, 31 Mar 2008
This was OK, but not a patch on Whatever Love Means. On the positive side, it is quite funny in places (I loved Gabriel's dad) but on the other, the characters are not very convincing. I particularly didn't buy the story of the flat mate. It also read as though it was a semi autobiography and/or stand up routine - you could certainly hear David Baddiel's voice throughout. Worth a quick read, just don't expect too much.

Funny but not a great tale, 16 Oct 2007
I laughed out loud at least five times (v. good).
The story itself isn't that enthralling (not so good). There's no real ending as such.
That's it.

A great surprise, 30 Nov 2006
I hadn't really thought of reading a book by someone who is in essence a TV star but I was bought this for Christmas a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some very dark humour and is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud. Okay, it's perhaps not a highbrow classic but who says literature has to be? Take it for what it is:- an intelligent, damnably funny and well written yarn which is certain to appeal to all readers.

Side Splitting, 21 Sep 2006
I was a little dubious about this read, Id always been more of a Skinner than Baddiel fan. My views have changed! I laughed on ever turn of the page with this book and can say it's the funniest thing I ever read. The explicit content (which had me laughing my head off) means I would recommend this to everyone except my own family members. They'd be too embarrassed at some of the content. I LOVED it!
Brilliant.

THE LIVING ARE THE LIVING,, 06 Oct 2008
and dead the dead shall stay.

Novels about people having affairs, I often think, must have done more for the cause of celibacy and monogamy than the combined bulls and encyclicals of every Pope since Peter. I bought this one only on the strength of its authorship. David Baddiel is or used to be a comedian, of a quiet and intellectual kind. He specialised in insights and apercus, and anyone who specialises in those runs a constant risk of being a crashing bore. However Baddiel did them better than many, so I was hopeful, and in the event I found this story quite interesting even at the start, and absolutely riveting by the end.

Not surprisingly, this edition hypes the book as being set against the background of the death of Princess Diana. In fact that has very little bearing on the story, but Baddiel does not waste material, there is a very telling parallel towards the end, and of course the book's title quotes a notorious piece of crass insensitivity from the heir to the British throne towards his young and sensitive fiancée. How well does this title fit what happens in the following 300-odd pages? Myself, I'd say `quite well'. The torrid bits of the narrative are near the start, and the events never detach themselves from the emotional and sexual relationships among the four main players, but increasingly as the plot develops it turns into a rather interesting tease - who suspects whom and what? As I read it all, the author does not commit himself to answering the question of what love is, nor can I see any reason why he should. Quite apart from the grown-ups and their `adult' behaviour, there is a baby in this story and he is quite unquestionably loved. It is never so unquestionable among the adults, and in fact the actual word `love' does not seem to occur very often.

What seems to me good without any qualification is the storytelling technique. As the plot thickens, the cross-purposes dialogues with the participants uncertain what their interlocutors might be suggesting are very neatly done. The sub-plots are worked into the main narrative very skilfully I thought, and any unresolved suggestions are always picked up and answered, culminating in a genuine thunderbolt of a conclusion. I felt a twinge of suspicion that the final unravelling of the main mystery might have been not completely in keeping with the characterisation that had been very consistent up until then, with a slight hint of Poirot in the way it is explained. Even if I'm right about that, it is a small price to pay for such an original denouement, and I know that my own sense of involvement increased sharply in the last few chapters.

Baddiel is yer genuine deep thinker in the last resort. We get a bit from him about the contest between love and death - eros (more accurately passion) and thanatos -- and of course eros keeps ahead all the way until finally losing as he must. Of the four main dicers with these two fates one dies, one sails through totally unscathed, one I would definitely not have liked to be, and I don't know what to think regarding the fourth. The living are the living/And dead the dead shall stay. I'm not sure who finishes worst off, nor do I think I'm meant to be any the wiser as to what `love' means.

Not great, 23 Sep 2008
Can't say I was taken by this book. I'm a fan of David Baddiel but I didn't feel he really expanded his characters too well and the plot was a little thin. Having said that, it kept me reading until the end just in case it got more 'unputabledownable'. Ok book but not in the same league as a Ben Elton or Nick Hornby !

Whatever Love Means, 14 Mar 2008
This book takes 40 or so pages to get going, and then it becomes a real page turner. I thought the characterisation was very good, as was the plot, although I did have some suspicions about the twist early on. Despite dealing with tragic themes, there is a decent amount of humour, although tending to be of the dark variety. This would have been a 5 star book if it hadn't been for a couple of holes in the plot (to do with the care of Jackson), and also the fact that some of the passages didn't flow at all well and had to be re-read to get the gist of what the author was trying to say. Overall very good though - recommended.

Don't expect too many laughs..., 23 Jul 2006
I don't know why I was expecting someething funny, perhaps becasue of Baddiel's background, but I certainly didn't get it!

Vic starts an affair with his friend Joe's wife, Emma, in the days following the death of Princess Diana. (The blurb describes this as 'an intense and passionately sexual liaison', but don't get too excited becasue there's little evidence of any real passion.)
The book covers the months that follow, how the relationship develops and changes and what happens to all the characters as a result...

....then something strange happens.....

The latter half of the book is filled with the most implauisible set of coincidences I have ever read, you will really need to suspend your disbelief with this one!

I did enjoy this book. Baddiel on his worst day is a lot better than other writers on their best so I would say it is worth a read, but perhaps as it is only his second novel he is still 'cutting his teeth'?

Why any writer would bother to descibe 'parallelogrammatic buttocks' though, is beyond me!

Loved every minute of it, 01 Jul 2004
Fantastic novel which alternates between being hilarious (laugh out loud) in many places and being extremely dark at the same time. Quite a page turner too and got through it very quickly.

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

What might you expect in a novel such as The Secret Purposes from the talented David Baddiel? Apart from the laddishness of his Fantasy Football TV appearances with Frank Skinner, Baddiel has proved himself to be one of the sharpest and most perceptive of younger novelists, with a sympathetic understanding of human nature (perhaps we can blame Baddiel's TV persona on his co-compere, whose own literary efforts haven't matched Baddiel's highly accomplished Time for Bed and Whatever Love Means). The earlier books were darkly comic pieces shot through with his trademark seriousness; the new book is a striking departure.

The subject is a hidden part of British history, treated with gravity: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man in the 1940s. June Murray is a translator who doesn't share the unsympathetic incomprehension of her colleagues at the Ministry of Information, and travels to the Isle of Man in order to interview the Jews interned there. June hopes to expose the true horror of what the Nazis are doing, but her best efforts are wasted, and she can glean nothing. But her relationship with a man she meets, the highly intelligent (if ineffectual) Isaac Fabian, is to have a profound influence on her life and thinking--and nothing will be the same again for June, Isaac or his wife and daughter.

This is clearly a very personal subject for Baddiel, and he produced his most affecting and (in many ways) timely novel yet. Time and place are evoked with quite as much skill as the rich characterisation--June is a heroine to draw the reader ineluctably into the moving narrative.--Barry Forshaw

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

You're better off squirting bleach in your eyes., 24 Apr 2008
As dull a collection of words as have ever been strung together to disgrace the English language.

Michael Howard said in his thankfully doomed bid to run the country that "it's not racist to talk about imigration." Balls in his case, but it made me think...

"IT'S NOT ANTI SEMITIC TO HATE DAVID BADDIEL." In fact it's your civic duty to hate the whining little ****.

This is a lame book for lame donkeys. And if you enjoyed it, you could do a lot worse than absenting yourself from the human race. I'm told paraquat works well.

Time For Bed, 31 Mar 2008
This was OK, but not a patch on Whatever Love Means. On the positive side, it is quite funny in places (I loved Gabriel's dad) but on the other, the characters are not very convincing. I particularly didn't buy the story of the flat mate. It also read as though it was a semi autobiography and/or stand up routine - you could certainly hear David Baddiel's voice throughout. Worth a quick read, just don't expect too much.

Funny but not a great tale, 16 Oct 2007
I laughed out loud at least five times (v. good).
The story itself isn't that enthralling (not so good). There's no real ending as such.
That's it.

A great surprise, 30 Nov 2006
I hadn't really thought of reading a book by someone who is in essence a TV star but I was bought this for Christmas a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some very dark humour and is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud. Okay, it's perhaps not a highbrow classic but who says literature has to be? Take it for what it is:- an intelligent, damnably funny and well written yarn which is certain to appeal to all readers.

Side Splitting, 21 Sep 2006
I was a little dubious about this read, Id always been more of a Skinner than Baddiel fan. My views have changed! I laughed on ever turn of the page with this book and can say it's the funniest thing I ever read. The explicit content (which had me laughing my head off) means I would recommend this to everyone except my own family members. They'd be too embarrassed at some of the content. I LOVED it!
Brilliant.

THE LIVING ARE THE LIVING,, 06 Oct 2008
and dead the dead shall stay.

Novels about people having affairs, I often think, must have done more for the cause of celibacy and monogamy than the combined bulls and encyclicals of every Pope since Peter. I bought this one only on the strength of its authorship. David Baddiel is or used to be a comedian, of a quiet and intellectual kind. He specialised in insights and apercus, and anyone who specialises in those runs a constant risk of being a crashing bore. However Baddiel did them better than many, so I was hopeful, and in the event I found this story quite interesting even at the start, and absolutely riveting by the end.

Not surprisingly, this edition hypes the book as being set against the background of the death of Princess Diana. In fact that has very little bearing on the story, but Baddiel does not waste material, there is a very telling parallel towards the end, and of course the book's title quotes a notorious piece of crass insensitivity from the heir to the British throne towards his young and sensitive fiancée. How well does this title fit what happens in the following 300-odd pages? Myself, I'd say `quite well'. The torrid bits of the narrative are near the start, and the events never detach themselves from the emotional and sexual relationships among the four main players, but increasingly as the plot develops it turns into a rather interesting tease - who suspects whom and what? As I read it all, the author does not commit himself to answering the question of what love is, nor can I see any reason why he should. Quite apart from the grown-ups and their `adult' behaviour, there is a baby in this story and he is quite unquestionably loved. It is never so unquestionable among the adults, and in fact the actual word `love' does not seem to occur very often.

What seems to me good without any qualification is the storytelling technique. As the plot thickens, the cross-purposes dialogues with the participants uncertain what their interlocutors might be suggesting are very neatly done. The sub-plots are worked into the main narrative very skilfully I thought, and any unresolved suggestions are always picked up and answered, culminating in a genuine thunderbolt of a conclusion. I felt a twinge of suspicion that the final unravelling of the main mystery might have been not completely in keeping with the characterisation that had been very consistent up until then, with a slight hint of Poirot in the way it is explained. Even if I'm right about that, it is a small price to pay for such an original denouement, and I know that my own sense of involvement increased sharply in the last few chapters.

Baddiel is yer genuine deep thinker in the last resort. We get a bit from him about the contest between love and death - eros (more accurately passion) and thanatos -- and of course eros keeps ahead all the way until finally losing as he must. Of the four main dicers with these two fates one dies, one sails through totally unscathed, one I would definitely not have liked to be, and I don't know what to think regarding the fourth. The living are the living/And dead the dead shall stay. I'm not sure who finishes worst off, nor do I think I'm meant to be any the wiser as to what `love' means.

Not great, 23 Sep 2008
Can't say I was taken by this book. I'm a fan of David Baddiel but I didn't feel he really expanded his characters too well and the plot was a little thin. Having said that, it kept me reading until the end just in case it got more 'unputabledownable'. Ok book but not in the same league as a Ben Elton or Nick Hornby !

Whatever Love Means, 14 Mar 2008
This book takes 40 or so pages to get going, and then it becomes a real page turner. I thought the characterisation was very good, as was the plot, although I did have some suspicions about the twist early on. Despite dealing with tragic themes, there is a decent amount of humour, although tending to be of the dark variety. This would have been a 5 star book if it hadn't been for a couple of holes in the plot (to do with the care of Jackson), and also the fact that some of the passages didn't flow at all well and had to be re-read to get the gist of what the author was trying to say. Overall very good though - recommended.

Don't expect too many laughs..., 23 Jul 2006
I don't know why I was expecting someething funny, perhaps becasue of Baddiel's background, but I certainly didn't get it!

Vic starts an affair with his friend Joe's wife, Emma, in the days following the death of Princess Diana. (The blurb describes this as 'an intense and passionately sexual liaison', but don't get too excited becasue there's little evidence of any real passion.)
The book covers the months that follow, how the relationship develops and changes and what happens to all the characters as a result...

....then something strange happens.....

The latter half of the book is filled with the most implauisible set of coincidences I have ever read, you will really need to suspend your disbelief with this one!

I did enjoy this book. Baddiel on his worst day is a lot better than other writers on their best so I would say it is worth a read, but perhaps as it is only his second novel he is still 'cutting his teeth'?

Why any writer would bother to descibe 'parallelogrammatic buttocks' though, is beyond me!

Loved every minute of it, 01 Jul 2004
Fantastic novel which alternates between being hilarious (laugh out loud) in many places and being extremely dark at the same time. Quite a page turner too and got through it very quickly.

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

What might you expect in a novel such as The Secret Purposes from the talented David Baddiel? Apart from the laddishness of his Fantasy Football TV appearances with Frank Skinner, Baddiel has proved himself to be one of the sharpest and most perceptive of younger novelists, with a sympathetic understanding of human nature (perhaps we can blame Baddiel's TV persona on his co-compere, whose own literary efforts haven't matched Baddiel's highly accomplished Time for Bed and Whatever Love Means). The earlier books were darkly comic pieces shot through with his trademark seriousness; the new book is a striking departure.

The subject is a hidden part of British history, treated with gravity: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man in the 1940s. June Murray is a translator who doesn't share the unsympathetic incomprehension of her colleagues at the Ministry of Information, and travels to the Isle of Man in order to interview the Jews interned there. June hopes to expose the true horror of what the Nazis are doing, but her best efforts are wasted, and she can glean nothing. But her relationship with a man she meets, the highly intelligent (if ineffectual) Isaac Fabian, is to have a profound influence on her life and thinking--and nothing will be the same again for June, Isaac or his wife and daughter.

This is clearly a very personal subject for Baddiel, and he produced his most affecting and (in many ways) timely novel yet. Time and place are evoked with quite as much skill as the rich characterisation--June is a heroine to draw the reader ineluctably into the moving narrative.--Barry Forshaw

The Secret Purposes, 02 Apr 2008
The first 200 or so pages of this book dragged a bit, but the last 200 were much better. It is a very old fashioned style of novel, well written and clearly well researched - you can tell that David Baddiel must have put his heart and soul into the project. Despite being a serious subject, there is still a reasonable amount of humour. Overall, a good read.

Worth a look..., 03 Oct 2006
An interesting story throwing light onto a little known area of our wartime history; David Baddiel has created a thought-provoking narrative partly based, as I understand it, on his own family's circumstances.

The story starts in pre-war Germany and follows the fortunes of the Fabian family as they experience the ominous events of thirties Germany and escape to an uncomprehending UK. Isaac Fabian is then interned as an enemy alien along with thousands of other Jewish refugees, and meets with a WASP woman working for the Ministry of Information, who is trying to establish the truth behind the many stories coming out of mainland Europe.

There are many ironies uncovered in this novel, and the nature of truth, history and information are all explored to good effect, with romance and Nazis thrown in for good measure.

My only complaint would be a certain clunkiness in the writing just very occasionally; quite strange, almost as if someone else had come in and quickly tapped out a line. I put it down to that Monday morning feeling many writers suffer from!



A really good read, 02 Apr 2006
I'd read that David Baddiel is not just a comic but is also an extremely talented writer and here's the proof. The Secret Purposes is really commendable as it is a meticulously-researched historical novel that's also an enjoyable, lucid read.

Baddiel also very cleverly uses a very small cast of characters to say big things about cultural identity and how that impacts on political decisions. I'm from the Isle of Man and I was extremely impressed with the way that he uses a single Manx character to sum up, accurately in my experience, the attitude that the Manx had (and still have) to outsiders. There's also a great twist towards the end of the book that really stays with you and which has relevance way beyond the time in history that it is set in. I won't spoil the book and say what it is!

Saying all that, this book's not "high literature" and I mean that as a positive comment: it's a really good read, pure and simple. I doubt that anyone's going to be studying it for English A Level but I can see it being made into a very good film.

Good old-fashioned melodrama, 23 Jun 2004
There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes. It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’.

The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended, and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who might scare members of the public by speaking with a German accent until the government can decide how to deal with the situation.

Caught up in this situation is Isaac Fabian, a German Jew who has turned against his religion in favour of Communism and a forbidden marriage to a non-Jewish girl of Aryan appearance, Lulu. When Isaac is repatriated to the Isle of Man, Lulu petitions for his release, but this puts her into an awkward situation with a man who volunteers to help her out. Meanwhile, June Murray, a translator for the Ministry of Information is becoming aware of the growing problem in Germany and is appalled at the seemingly callous indifference of the Ministry, so she sets out, unauthorised, to the Isle of Man to gather some first-hand reports for herself. There she meets Isaac, and despite the circumstances, a relationship develops between them that is to have unforeseen consequences.

The relationships that are struck-up between June and Isaac and between Lulu and Douglas rely too much on coincidence and contrivance to be really convincing, but Baddiel makes a good case of presenting the contradictory elements of desire and responsibility and how the characters accommodate their actions to best suit their circumstances and rationalise those actions later. The characterisation is thoroughly convincing in this respect – each character having their own motivations and personalities, intensely pragmatic and driven – whether by desire or by their situation – by who they are and what they believe in – an immigrant, a German, a Jew, a wife, a mother, a prisoner, a government official. This kind of characterisation is carried through to even the smallest of secondary characters – the bumbling Army officials who dither between doing their duty (while not being entirely sure what their duty is) and not wishing to appear incompetent or even ungentlemanly to a lady. Only Douglas comes across as a something of a pantomime cad, but if you are prepared to go along with the whole old-fashioned romantic melodrama of the story, you’ll not worry about this too much.

This is a remarkably good book, carrying the reader along through some brilliantly constructed and insightful prose. From the premonitory musing of the elder Rabbi Fabian on the seven deadly sins as he crosses the seven bridges of Konigsberg, presaging the weaknesses of man to the culmination of those evils in the holocaust forcefully brought home in the epilogue of the book – and from all the smaller human dilemmas of love, loss, duty and responsibility in-between – Baddiel presents a story that is clear, coherent, purposeful and serious in its tone and themes, yet is still a good, old-fashioned read. Absolutely superb.

You're better off squirting bleach in your eyes., 24 Apr 2008
As dull a collection of words as have ever been strung together to disgrace the English language.

Michael Howard said in his thankfully doomed bid to run the country that "it's not racist to talk about imigration." Balls in his case, but it made me think...

"IT'S NOT ANTI SEMITIC TO HATE DAVID BADDIEL." In fact it's your civic duty to hate the whining little ****.

This is a lame book for lame donkeys. And if you enjoyed it, you could do a lot worse than absenting yourself from the human race. I'm told paraquat works well.

Time For Bed, 31 Mar 2008
This was OK, but not a patch on Whatever Love Means. On the positive side, it is quite funny in places (I loved Gabriel's dad) but on the other, the characters are not very convincing. I particularly didn't buy the story of the flat mate. It also read as though it was a semi autobiography and/or stand up routine - you could certainly hear David Baddiel's voice throughout. Worth a quick read, just don't expect too much.

Funny but not a great tale, 16 Oct 2007
I laughed out loud at least five times (v. good).
The story itself isn't that enthralling (not so good). There's no real ending as such.
That's it.

A great surprise, 30 Nov 2006
I hadn't really thought of reading a book by someone who is in essence a TV star but I was bought this for Christmas a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has some very dark humour and is one of the few books to make me laugh out loud. Okay, it's perhaps not a highbrow classic but who says literature has to be? Take it for what it is:- an intelligent, damnably funny and well written yarn which is certain to appeal to all readers.

Side Splitting, 21 Sep 2006
I was a little dubious about this read, Id always been more of a Skinner than Baddiel fan. My views have changed! I laughed on ever turn of the page with this book and can say it's the funniest thing I ever read. The explicit content (which had me laughing my head off) means I would recommend this to everyone except my own family members. They'd be too embarrassed at some of the content. I LOVED it!
Brilliant.

THE LIVING ARE THE LIVING,, 06 Oct 2008
and dead the dead shall stay.

Novels about people having affairs, I often think, must have done more for the cause of celibacy and monogamy than the combined bulls and encyclicals of every Pope since Peter. I bought this one only on the strength of its authorship. David Baddiel is or used to be a comedian, of a quiet and intellectual kind. He specialised in insights and apercus, and anyone who specialises in those runs a constant risk of being a crashing bore. However Baddiel did them better than many, so I was hopeful, and in the event I found this story quite interesting even at the start, and absolutely riveting by the end.

Not surprisingly, this edition hypes the book as being set against the background of the death of Princess Diana. In fact that has very little bearing on the story, but Baddiel does not waste material, there is a very telling parallel towards the end, and of course the book's title quotes a notorious piece of crass insensitivity from the heir to the British throne towards his young and sensitive fiancée. How well does this title fit what happens in the following 300-odd pages? Myself, I'd say `quite well'. The torrid bits of the narrative are near the start, and the events never detach themselves from the emotional and sexual relationships among the four main players, but increasingly as the plot develops it turns into a rather interesting tease - who suspects whom and what? As I read it all, the author does not commit himself to answering the question of what love is, nor can I see any reason why he should. Quite apart from the grown-ups and their `adult' behaviour, there is a baby in this story and he is quite unquestionably loved. It is never so unquestionable among the adults, and in fact the actual word `love' does not seem to occur very often.

What seems to me good without any qualification is the storytelling technique. As the plot thickens, the cross-purposes dialogues with the participants uncertain what their interlocutors might be suggesting are very neatly done. The sub-plots are worked into the main narrative very skilfully I thought, and any unresolved suggestions are always picked up and answered, culminating in a genuine thunderbolt of a conclusion. I felt a twinge of suspicion that the final unravelling of the main mystery might have been not completely in keeping with the characterisation that had been very consistent up until then, with a slight hint of Poirot in the way it is explained. Even if I'm right about that, it is a small price to pay for such an original denouement, and I know that my own sense of involvement increased sharply in the last few chapters.

Baddiel is yer genuine deep thinker in the last resort. We get a bit from him about the contest between love and death - eros (more accurately passion) and thanatos -- and of course eros keeps ahead all the way until finally losing as he must. Of the four main dicers with these two fates one dies, one sails through totally unscathed, one I would definitely not have liked to be, and I don't know what to think regarding the fourth. The living are the living/And dead the dead shall stay. I'm not sure who finishes worst off, nor do I think I'm meant to be any the wiser as to what `love' means.

Not great, 23 Sep 2008
Can't say I was taken by this book. I'm a fan of David Baddiel but I didn't feel he really expanded his characters too well and the plot was a little thin. Having said that, it kept me reading until the end just in case it got more 'unputabledownable'. Ok book but not in the same league as a Ben Elton or Nick Hornby !

Whatever Love Means, 14 Mar 2008
This book takes 40 or so pages to get go