Picked up in a Healthy Planet shop.

Set just after the Cuban missile crisis the book is about the final day in the life of George, an English professor of literature working in California. George is living alone after the recent death of his lover Jim in a car crash. He is lonely and his only company is literature (“These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It’s just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, according to his mood”). He feels resentment towards a society that considers him, a gay man, to be a “monster”.

As the day progresses,in an attempt to stave off his loneliness George visits an old English friend, similarly alone, going to the bar where he met Jim for the first time, and spending the night with one of his students.

The novel has the big obsessions of its time in nuclear war and sexual revolution as well as more localised things like campus politics. But there is also a study of the minuscule as the book opens and ends with a pretty vivid description of the body's own functions of just waking up and living.

The prose is tight (my copy only runs to 142 pages) and well written giving a real insight into the meaning of loneliness. I can't say that I liked George all that much but he is a fascinating character.

Going out as part of a Reading it/Want it thread. Enjoy!

The single man arrived today in the south of France. Thank you 4evagreen for sending it to me so generously. I'll be looking forward to reading it during my vacation.

The book explores the personality of George, the single man of the title, a moody, lonely, at times angry and full of himself person, and the political, sexual, academic issues of the time. George is not very likable (he was made more so in the movie version of the novel), but the writing, 3rd person stream of consciousness throughout, is brilliant.
Thank you again 4evagreen for sharing this book!

Pour une amie en Grèce qui a ce livre sur sa liste de souhaits. Bonne lecture!
For a friend in Greece who has this novel on her wishlist. Happy reading!

A wonderful surprise received today, thank you so much dear vaga-bonde !

A great piece of writing, I loved it.

On its way to crimson-tide from the wishlist tag game. Enjoy !

Thanks very much for the tag, Lubiette.

And also for the postcard and the very cute
little bug bookmark.
Love it! :D

Interesting style and undoubtably well written, but I found the overall effect somewhat flat. It wasn't at all what I expected, which is a good thing in itself. I haven't seen the film so that wasn't the reason. George is a character full of contradictions (aren't we all?) and while not particularly "likeable" the depiction felt real enough. I certainly don't need to like the characters to appreciate a book... 😉

Now offered on greenbadger's "One book a month offered 2017"
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/10/537608/8971624


Update: A Single Man will be continuing his travels to visit sedna5213 in Germany.

Posted off to sedna5213 in Germany as my RABCK for August. Enjoy!

The book arrived safely in Berlin. Thanks a lot crimson-tide!

The book is reserved for Feuerzeug11.

Thank you so much, Sedna5213!

Intriguing style! Whenever I'll come across the word 'loneliness' I will remember this book.

Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1933. I'll put the book on his doorstep at Nollendorfstraße 17 in Berlin-Schöneberg.

Freigelassen im Rahmen der Berliner Spurensuche

Dem Buch gute Reise und dem Finder unterhaltsame Lesestunden!