If you've lived for almost a century, you've done and seen things or not. Chances are that the memory is starting to let you down, or you may want to be able to forget some things about your life. Beryl Dusinbery and Shimi Carmelli, two people approaching their 100th birthday, have lived very different lives. They meet (intentionally or unintentionally who knows) and find in each other what they need to bring a little spice to life (not what you think :))
This story is full of memories, be they embarrassing, exciting, tragic or humorous. Age gives them the right to say things honestly and directly, and no one can be offended if they are too honest or politically incorrect. As you read this you may think or not, what I have done with my life, whether I could write memoirs of my life, or rather I would like the floor to disappear from under me and the earth to absorb me.
Special reading.

Thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This review is based on my own personal enjoyment of the novel and not how well written it is.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, I just wasn't feeling it. I loved some of the turns of phrase and the writing was witty, if rather caustically so, but I couldn't connect with this book. I enjoyed the writer's sense of humour but I couldn't engage with either of the main characters or the story.

Just one of those books that wasn't for me I'm afraid.

I DNFed it at 30%. It's either confusing or really complex and I wasn't able to grab the meaning and connect to the characters.
At the end of the day I think it's a matter of taste and expectations, mine were something witty and this book seemed deadly serious to me, and this wasn't my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I enjoyed Live A Little very much in the end. It is witty, insightful and rather touching, but I found the first two-thirds or so a bit of a slog.

This is a story of two people in their eighties and nineties respectively who have very different pasts and views of themselves. Shimi Carmelli is cursed with remembering almost everything – especially his shames and embarrassments which are many. (“A butterfly doesn’t beat its wings in China without Shimi feeling it is his fault or at leasts reflects badly on him.”) Beryl Duisenbery, on the other hand, is losing her memory, while trying to write a memoir of her imperiously lived life (“Who the hell cares, anyway, she thinks. It’s true if I say it is. It’s true if I recall it that way.”)

We spend the first two-thirds of the book getting to know Beryl and Shimi, allowing Jacobson time to develop his characters while throwing witty barbs at politics of both shades, artists, elderly widows and plenty of other targets. It’s well done and fantastically well written, of course, and they are interesting characters but I did find that it meandered a bit. The book really takes off when Beryl and Shimi finally meet and their relationship brings about some surprising and sometimes genuinely touching revelations, confessions and redemptions of a kind. Here, I think Jacobson has important things to say about loneliness, the impact of shame on a life and about relationships in general.

I laughed several times and was moved, too and in spite of my reservations about the length of the first section, I can recommend Live A Little as a rewarding read.

(My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I tried... Oh how hard I tried. That seems to be my experience with so many of Howard Jacobson's book. I loved some of his early books as well as The Mighty Walzer which was poignant and hilarious but I have struggled ever since.

Maybe it is me but I am happy to work at a book and do not expect instant gratification but I just could not immerse myself in "Live a Little".

There were some lovely descriptions of North London Jewish life which were accurate and acute but I found the plot confusing and hard to grasp.

Perhaps it is meant to be like that as most of the main characters are very elderly and no longer as sharp as they once were but the late, great Mordecai Richler portrayed such a situation with humour, sympathy and hilarity in "Barney's Version" a marvellous tragi-comedy.

Maybe I have completely missed the point but whilst there were some beautifully crafted sentences and analogies I did not get the point of this book which I regret because I might be missing something worthwhile.