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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Nice Work
|author=David Lodge
|reviewer=Magda Healey
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Nice Work'' is a surprisingly complex novel that can be perfectly well enjoyed on any level: as a comedy of characters, as a social satire, as an "'issue novel" ' and as a literary game. It does not have a terribly compelling plot, but the characters are brilliant and actually grow on you, the jokes are funny and the argument is pervasive. If you get bored by references to literature as well as social issues then this book is probably not for you.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=384
|publisher=Penguin Books Ltd
|date=June 1989
|isbn=0140119205
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0140119205</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0140119205|aznus=<amazonus>0140119205</amazonus>
}}
''Nice Work'' is set around the unlikely relationship between Victor Wilcox, Managing Director of a struggling engineering plant, and Dr Robyn Penrose, a lecturer of English literature theory at Rummidge University. Robyn and Vic meet through a PR scheme designed to bring the Industry and the University closer at the time when both the Industry and the University are threatened by the emerging monster of financial services industries; at the time when making real things is going out of fashion and ex-English lecturers compete with barrow-boy yuppies at City merchant banks just before the Big Bang.
If you get bored by references to literature as well as social issues, or if you cannot stand David Lodge as such, then this book is probably not for you. Otherwise recommended.
You might appreciate [[The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen]] or [[The Futures by Anna Pitoniak]].
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