num_pages: 256
description: George Bowling, the hero of this comic novel, is a middle-aged insurance salesman who lives in an average English suburban row house with a wife and two children. One day, after winning some money from a bet, he goes back to the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. The pool, alas, is gone, the village has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of his holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.
language: English
title: 20th Century Coming Up For Air
titlecomplete: 20th Century Coming Up For Air
characters: Hilda Bowling, George Bowling, Hilda Bowling, Joe Bowling, Porteus, Elsie Waters, Joe Bowling, Porteus, George Bowling, Elsie Waters
genres: Fiction, English Literature, British Literature, Literature, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Modern Classics
ratings_count: 17169
places: Charing Cross, London, England, London, England
publisher: Penguin Books