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The Arthur Less 2 Books Collection Set By Andrew Sean Greer
Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched
The Arthur Less 2 Books Collection Set By Andrew Sean Greer (Less & Less is Lost):
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (New York Times Book Review). Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world..
Less is
For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a zigzagging adventure across the US. Less roves across the 'Mild Mild West', through the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace, with an ever-changing posse of writerly characters and his trusty duo - a human-like black pug, Dolly, and a rusty camper van nicknamed Rosina.
The Arthur Less 2 Books Collection Set By Andrew Sean Greer (Less & Less is Lost):
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (New York Times Book Review). Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world..
Less is
For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a zigzagging adventure across the US. Less roves across the 'Mild Mild West', through the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace, with an ever-changing posse of writerly characters and his trusty duo - a human-like black pug, Dolly, and a rusty camper van nicknamed Rosina.
544 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2023
32 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Sean Greer
33 books3,153 followersAndrew Sean Greer (born 1970) is an American novelist and short story writer.
He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.
The child of two scientists, Greer studied writing with Robert Coover and Edmund White at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, where his unrehearsed remarks, critiquing Brown's admissions policies, caused a semi-riot. After years in New York working as a chauffeur, theater tech, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Montana, from where he soon moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives. He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center. He is an identical twin.
While in San Francisco, he began to publish in magazines before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me. His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009. His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001.
He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.
The child of two scientists, Greer studied writing with Robert Coover and Edmund White at Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, where his unrehearsed remarks, critiquing Brown's admissions policies, caused a semi-riot. After years in New York working as a chauffeur, theater tech, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Montana, from where he soon moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives. He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center. He is an identical twin.
While in San Francisco, he began to publish in magazines before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me. His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009. His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, was published in 2001.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 21, 2025
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Less is a phenomenal, magical, outstanding, mesmerizing novel…no less, winner of this year’s -2018- Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
The protagonist is Arthur Less, an enchanting hero for all his flaws, so endearing that heterosexuals will like him, even if they would not start playing for the other team- the main character is gay and he will soon- in a matter of weeks- be fifty, with all the chagrin, melancholy that this round figure implies.
He has shared his life with a younger lover over the past years, but now Freddy Pelu is marrying another man and Less has to try to cope with adversity and trauma- ha cannot attend the wedding he is invited to and decides instead to travel around the world, although not in eighty days.
The chapters of this fascinating book- it was called escapist- are a reflection of the Adventures of Arthur Less in the various countries, starting with Mexico, where the hero climbs on top of ancient pyramids, is invited by the organizer of the literary event to try the “similares”, which are generic drugs that work.
Serious, sometimes aching questions and scenes, are intermingled with amusing moments and statements, like the one made by professor Less- who is far from deserving the German title of professor- addressing his class with: “I am sorry, I must kill most of you”…by the way, he entitled his course: “Read like a Vampire, Write like Frankenstein”.
In the Mexican capital – where he does not speak Spanish and is taken on a tour of the market to taste the hottest chili- a serious question is asked “what is it to live with genius…and what about the feeling of mediocrity, to which Less has what seems like the right answer: “there is something between genius and mediocrity”.
Arthur Less had had, before Freddy Pelu or Mister Pelu- as the protagonist jokes with his lover once in a while-, a relationship with a major poet from the Russian River School, the poet Robert Brownburn, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, twenty five years older than the hero and the reason why the man who has known him so well is invited in Mexico.
However, the hero is a writer and he is invited to the next stop in this long itinerary on his own merit so to say, there is an award and his stay in Turin is paid for, a car waits for him at the airport, but the sign says Sr Less and seeing as they travel in unexpected territory, the guest starts thinking that this must be a mistake, he had taken the wrong car, the driver knows no English and the passenger for this must have been some German…
It is not a mistake, albeit the protagonist maintains a feeling of inadequacy, among the other writers invited at this gala, competing for the first prize, which Less thinks is not his due, it must be the translator who is a genius and she must have taken his poor English book and gave it a fantastic, glorious form in brilliant Italian.
The Long Journey into Night is continued in Germany, where the writer’s assistant and then everyone else who comes into contact with him falls sick, perhaps from some mysterious virus he is carrying, including a lover that has a relationship with the “professor”, in spite of their very different interests: the young German is not at all interested in Literature, reading and he is obsessed with sports, cheers the German national team, although he does not consider himself German, but Bavarian.
Next stop: Morocco, but it is not a direct trip to the African continent, for Arthur Less has a chance to stop over in Paris for about fourteen hours, as the airline offers six hundred euros to the volunteers willing to take a later flight, the present one being overbooked and therefore the hero calls a friend who invites him to an elevated party, where the Parisian resident…does not come.
Another romantic opportunity is present there, in the form of a handsome Spanish man, who is very likeable, kind, approachable and decent, only he is married and nothing more than a kiss can happen; there is however a consecrated writer who explains to Less why is it that he did not have success and was not accepted by the community and he gets few reviews and little attention…
The surprising- maybe astonishing is the word? - answer is that Less is a “bad gay” and instead of expressing – from here the undersigned might have misunderstood the point of the gay acclaimed author- openly, with chutzpah his gayness, he takes a detour, makes it feel like he is not comfortable and the protagonist is taken aback by this perspective on his writing and the impact in the gay community of what he writes.
Once in Morocco, the itinerary includes the desert, tents and breathtaking imagery, only the members of this travel party fall sick one by one, until only the hero and a very interesting lesbian woman are left standing, the African country is the place where another friend tells his incredible story of a strange homosexual relationship with a man who had said they would be together for ten years and at the end of this interval declared that they should separate, they gave it another ten years, but at the end of those, they are no longer together…
On the balcony, in a Swiss resort in the Atlas mountains, while celebrating practically alone his fiftieth anniversary, Less tears his beautiful blue suit, a set of clothes without which Less is not Less, tries to have it mended on the next stop, in India, but somehow a stray dog manages to get the best of it and destroy it, while the protagonist has an accident in which the needle that was supposed to fix the magical blue suit – made in Vietnam from – summer wool was it?- is stuck in his foot and he breaks his ankle.
Japan, the last but not least in the series of adventures and mishaps is the place where the writer has to compose a piece for a publisher of Men’s magazines on gastronomy and while trying to do that, Robert Brownburn has a “minor” heart attack in America – which means, when the panicked Less asks that it did not happen on the stairs and fortunately it did not have tragic results.
Less is a fantastic read, exhilarating, luminous, funny and yet sophisticated, endearing and often sad, humorous but without superfluous characters, a phenomenal delight and a stupendous joy ride!
Less is a phenomenal, magical, outstanding, mesmerizing novel…no less, winner of this year’s -2018- Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
The protagonist is Arthur Less, an enchanting hero for all his flaws, so endearing that heterosexuals will like him, even if they would not start playing for the other team- the main character is gay and he will soon- in a matter of weeks- be fifty, with all the chagrin, melancholy that this round figure implies.
He has shared his life with a younger lover over the past years, but now Freddy Pelu is marrying another man and Less has to try to cope with adversity and trauma- ha cannot attend the wedding he is invited to and decides instead to travel around the world, although not in eighty days.
The chapters of this fascinating book- it was called escapist- are a reflection of the Adventures of Arthur Less in the various countries, starting with Mexico, where the hero climbs on top of ancient pyramids, is invited by the organizer of the literary event to try the “similares”, which are generic drugs that work.
Serious, sometimes aching questions and scenes, are intermingled with amusing moments and statements, like the one made by professor Less- who is far from deserving the German title of professor- addressing his class with: “I am sorry, I must kill most of you”…by the way, he entitled his course: “Read like a Vampire, Write like Frankenstein”.
In the Mexican capital – where he does not speak Spanish and is taken on a tour of the market to taste the hottest chili- a serious question is asked “what is it to live with genius…and what about the feeling of mediocrity, to which Less has what seems like the right answer: “there is something between genius and mediocrity”.
Arthur Less had had, before Freddy Pelu or Mister Pelu- as the protagonist jokes with his lover once in a while-, a relationship with a major poet from the Russian River School, the poet Robert Brownburn, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, twenty five years older than the hero and the reason why the man who has known him so well is invited in Mexico.
However, the hero is a writer and he is invited to the next stop in this long itinerary on his own merit so to say, there is an award and his stay in Turin is paid for, a car waits for him at the airport, but the sign says Sr Less and seeing as they travel in unexpected territory, the guest starts thinking that this must be a mistake, he had taken the wrong car, the driver knows no English and the passenger for this must have been some German…
It is not a mistake, albeit the protagonist maintains a feeling of inadequacy, among the other writers invited at this gala, competing for the first prize, which Less thinks is not his due, it must be the translator who is a genius and she must have taken his poor English book and gave it a fantastic, glorious form in brilliant Italian.
The Long Journey into Night is continued in Germany, where the writer’s assistant and then everyone else who comes into contact with him falls sick, perhaps from some mysterious virus he is carrying, including a lover that has a relationship with the “professor”, in spite of their very different interests: the young German is not at all interested in Literature, reading and he is obsessed with sports, cheers the German national team, although he does not consider himself German, but Bavarian.
Next stop: Morocco, but it is not a direct trip to the African continent, for Arthur Less has a chance to stop over in Paris for about fourteen hours, as the airline offers six hundred euros to the volunteers willing to take a later flight, the present one being overbooked and therefore the hero calls a friend who invites him to an elevated party, where the Parisian resident…does not come.
Another romantic opportunity is present there, in the form of a handsome Spanish man, who is very likeable, kind, approachable and decent, only he is married and nothing more than a kiss can happen; there is however a consecrated writer who explains to Less why is it that he did not have success and was not accepted by the community and he gets few reviews and little attention…
The surprising- maybe astonishing is the word? - answer is that Less is a “bad gay” and instead of expressing – from here the undersigned might have misunderstood the point of the gay acclaimed author- openly, with chutzpah his gayness, he takes a detour, makes it feel like he is not comfortable and the protagonist is taken aback by this perspective on his writing and the impact in the gay community of what he writes.
Once in Morocco, the itinerary includes the desert, tents and breathtaking imagery, only the members of this travel party fall sick one by one, until only the hero and a very interesting lesbian woman are left standing, the African country is the place where another friend tells his incredible story of a strange homosexual relationship with a man who had said they would be together for ten years and at the end of this interval declared that they should separate, they gave it another ten years, but at the end of those, they are no longer together…
On the balcony, in a Swiss resort in the Atlas mountains, while celebrating practically alone his fiftieth anniversary, Less tears his beautiful blue suit, a set of clothes without which Less is not Less, tries to have it mended on the next stop, in India, but somehow a stray dog manages to get the best of it and destroy it, while the protagonist has an accident in which the needle that was supposed to fix the magical blue suit – made in Vietnam from – summer wool was it?- is stuck in his foot and he breaks his ankle.
Japan, the last but not least in the series of adventures and mishaps is the place where the writer has to compose a piece for a publisher of Men’s magazines on gastronomy and while trying to do that, Robert Brownburn has a “minor” heart attack in America – which means, when the panicked Less asks that it did not happen on the stairs and fortunately it did not have tragic results.
Less is a fantastic read, exhilarating, luminous, funny and yet sophisticated, endearing and often sad, humorous but without superfluous characters, a phenomenal delight and a stupendous joy ride!
January 13, 2024
Listen. I drudged through this book. It mostly felt like I was reading above my grade level, and reading a lot of the same sad hopeless feelings over and over again. Such is life. But then it ended really sweetly and I’m annoyed that I am compelled to read the sequel. Goddammit.
January 1, 2024
An interesting take on running away from things you never want know of but it's gonna smack you in the face nonetheless! Very enjoyable and clever!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews