Published: April 22, 2010
Words: 56638 (approximate)
Language: English

Ebook short description

Nick Spalding tried to write a book in 24 hours. Turns out that’s impossible... it took 30! Life… With No Breaks is a unique, hilarious and heartfelt look at the modern world we live in today, told by a master story-teller with much to say - and only a weekend to say it in. After you've read Life... With No Breaks, you may never look at the world the same way again!

Extended description

Nick Spalding tried to write a book in 24 hours. Turns out that’s impossible... it took 30!

Life… With No Breaks is a unique, hilarious and heartfelt look at the modern world we live in today, told by a master story-teller with much to say - and only a weekend to say it in.

You’ll laugh out loud reading Nick’s odyssey of non-stop writing in a collection of anecdotes, asides and stories - all dredged up from an over-stimulated brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.... (Read more) Nick Spalding tried to write a book in 24 hours. Turns out that’s impossible... it took 30!

Life… With No Breaks is a unique, hilarious and heartfelt look at the modern world we live in today, told by a master story-teller with much to say - and only a weekend to say it in.

You’ll laugh out loud reading Nick’s odyssey of non-stop writing in a collection of anecdotes, asides and stories - all dredged up from an over-stimulated brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.

The book is a conversation with you, and with Nick you'll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, sex, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (among many other things).

After you've read Life... With No Breaks, you may never look at the world the same way again!



“You have to admire any writer who can produce a book as hilarious as this in just over a day. Bastard!" - Stephen Leather, best selling author

“A collection of anecdotes, adventures and confessions that reads as satisfyingly as a novel. It's paced, it's organised, it's witty, it's wise, it's from the hip. There's never a dull moment." - Neil Marr, editor in chief, BeWrite Books

“I thought it was a scream of a book... and that was before I knew its history – that Nick had written the whole thing in a single sitting.” - Mark Coker, Smashwords founder & CEO

"This is the funniest book I have read in years. There. I said it. Sorry, Mr Pratchett, I love you dearly, but Nick Spalding has raised the bar when it comes to making-me-laugh-out-loud books." – Amazon customer
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Tags

love, life, comedy, marriage, wealth, death, money, children, work, sex, exercise, philosophy, stories, humour, health, autobiography, opinion, phobias, anecdote, mark coker, stephen leather

Available ebook reading formats

Single purchase gains access to all formats. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps.

Format	Full Book	Sample First 20%
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	Buy	View sample
Online Reading (JavaScript, experimental, buggy)	Buy	View sample
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Buy	Download sample
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Buy	Download sample
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Buy	No sample available
RTF (readable on most word processors)	Buy	No sample available
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Buy	Download sample
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)	Buy	Download sample
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)	Buy	No sample available
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	Buy	No sample available

Reviews

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Review by: bikeridr on Aug. 29, 2011 :
Great and fun self biography. Feels like I know Nick Spalding as a buddy.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Geoffrey Parker on July 23, 2010 :
Inspired and well written. A very enjoyable read.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: joanne bava on July 18, 2010 : (no rating)
great book
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: M. David Blake on July 14, 2010 :
** FULL DISCLOSURE ALERT **

I sort of know Nick. Not in an honest-go-goodness, face-to-face sort of way, but in a "he's a writer and I'm a writer and we both hang out at a place called MobileRead.com" sort of way. We've spoken to each other a few times in passing, and Nick has always been a gentleman when we did. Which is to say, he puts up a good front.

At one point Nick asked about possibly changing the cover of his book from what it was (and if you didn't see the old cover, you really aren't missing much) to what it is now. I responded by telling him that the old cover reminded me of a collection of sermon notes from the seventies, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but probably wasn't exactly what he had in mind. That, according to Nick, tipped the scale.

There you go! My little footnote in this story was made by confirming a third party's artistic suggestion to someone else.

Months went by, and I forgot all about this book (aside from remembering the artwork discussion any time I ran into Nick). Then, one day, and completely out of the blue, Nick offered a limited free promotion. Being a writer, "free" seemed an ideal price, so I plunked down my thank-you and downloaded the thing.

I began reading with low expectations. In the first few pages I thought my fears might have been confirmed, when a few stylistic quirks tipped me off that the work really was what it claimed to be: namely, the unexpurgated, caffeine- and nicotine-induced self therapy of a sleep deprived typist.

What kept me reading past the first couple of pages? It was the voiceover. From seemingly out of nowhere, an odd, slightly tense speaker began reading the words... and then leading me along... and then I wasn't reading, but listening to his discourse, alternately manic and introspective. From out of nowhere, the ghost of Lenny Bruce (as perhaps portrayed by Woody Allen) was speaking to me, and I, captivated, could not break away.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Ray Mullen on July 07, 2010 :
A wonderful read. Nick makes you feel like one of his buds. WE are both at the pub knocking back a couple of cold ones. Just talking about life. The funny parts, the stressful parts,and the poignant parts. You will laugh. You feel the sadness. It shows the commonality of being human. Thanks Nick for shareing.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Christopher Hunter on June 25, 2010 :
A beautifully written book. One of the best couple of bucks I ever did spend. You never know what to expect when a person claims a stunt such as writting a book in one sitting, but I figured for two bucks and a rating of 4 stars why not. So I purchased and started reading, and realized two thngs: British comedy truly shines for me in writing, and it is totally safe to take smashword authors seriously. As a reader I was broadsided by the entertainment and storytelling, and laughed out loud on NYC subway trains looking like a nut. Nick speaks with a charming and candid narrative that makes it damn near impossible to not appreciate his company. If you are on the fence about purchasing this, trust me you will be glad to read this.

-Christopher Hunter-
(reviewed within a week of purchase)

Review by: Katti's Cat on May 05, 2010 :
Thank you so much for this book. I giggled, shuckled and laughed out loud. Warning: don't read this book in public or you will be one of those weirdos laughing to themselves standing around somewhere.

Most of us will recognise themselves in one or more situations described by Nick - I found myself nodding more than once (except the party incident - never had that one). And finally someone who is thinking as weirdly as I do.

Go ahead, get this book and read Nick's attempt (successful in my eyes) to write about his life in one sitting.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: BeWrite Books on May 02, 2010 : (no rating)
A LIFE WITH NO BREAKS. NICK SPALDING. 140 pages. $1.49

Author Nick Spalding – with a straight face, mind you – claimed he could write a book in a single sitting. That’s a bit like bragging that you can eat a whole jumbo jet without a toilet break.

Utter codswallop, of course. Most authors I know couldn’t write a shopping list without taking a cup of tea and a long nap every few items for intellectual refreshment and creative inspiration.

This loony, Spalding, was either a shameless ham or a bloody liar. Maybe both. It was worth the price of a beer for his ebook to get to the bottom of this outrageous literary boast and expose the scallywag in a scathing 140-character report to all five people who follow me on Twitter.

That tweet will never be twitted.

A LIFE WITH NO BREAKS represents the best beer money ever squandered on a non-alcoholic alternative. Without reservation, I apologise to its author for having leapt to crass conclusions and damned him out of hand.

Spalding may be a loveable rogue, but he’s no ham – and he’s certainly no liar. His book is one of the most beautifully crafted, honest and humorous memoirs I’ve ever wanted to weep over not having written myself.

“I have no idea how writing a book like this came to me,” Spalding says in his intro. “It just popped into my head this morning ... what if I sat at the computer and started to write without a plot or a story and with no idea where the whole thing was going?”

Well you might ask, you hopeless bloody amateur. The whole thing is going nowhere. I’ve been in this game since Grisham was a messy thing in his pram. I know, you know.

So Spalding starts to write on a drizzly English Saturday at 6.00pm, resolving to finish before he drives off to work on Monday morning. Zero words.

The clock ticks. By 6.09 pm, he is still at zero words.

Ha! Told ya, Spalding, you benighted berk. Books aren’t made this way. An idea is born as is a dream, it’s nurtured, mighty characters start to populate its winding path, plans are laid, plot and curious sub-plots, and outlines are drawn and re-drawn, you sit at the typewriter and open a vein, you lose weight and friends, you ask advice from your old English teacher and your mom, and ... and it takes forever and ever and ever.

Hey. Hang on there. It’s 6.23 pm Spalding Time now. I’m 1,353 words in and didn’t even notice.

This is where I decide to play this Sassenach at his own game. If he can write a book in a single sitting, I’m Scotsman enough to read it without a minute off. And here’s one promise I kept that this braggart couldn’t: You can take a Sony PRS-505 ebook reader to the loo, you see, and read on – not so the Dell Inspiron 1525 desktop dual processor with 2 GB of RAM he was using to write this stuff. But the occasional boys’ room break, I sincerely believe now, was Spalding’s only time away from his writing machine.

Why do I not believe he was cheating? Simply because his book fairly reeks of bare-faced honesty. Anyone would be proud to show off his humour ... but his painful humiliation in equal measure? I think not.

Spalding writes from the heart – warts-n-all. From the embarrassment of a commotion in his boxers during an attempt to mesmerise the girl of his dreams, through the typo that nearly cost him his career in advertising (guess which letter he left out of ‘Public Studies’ in a hugely expensive, 100,000-run, glossy brochure for a snooty private college), to the touching story of the break-up of his marriage and love of his son to ... I know you’re wondering ... The End?

I’m not going to tell you whether this book was top-and-tailed before Spalding keeled over and fell asleep thirty-six hours after starting. Wondering if he’ll make it is half the fun, so I won’t spoil it for you. And I’ll guarantee that you’ll be rooting for the guy before too many pages.

Now, I must tell you here, that I don’t know Nick Spalding in a face-to-face or even Facebook-to-Facebook way. OK, we did spend the night together – him writing, me reading and sometimes feeling just a tad like I was the subject of the cornier lyrics to ‘Killing Me Softly’. That’s as far as it goes. But what reader could ask for more?

This is one of those rare, rare books that make you feel like you’re an equal partner in a tête-à-tête. This bloke’s only writing because YOU are reading. He wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. The reader is profoundly involved every line of the way.

Spalding dedicates his book to his reader. “We’re going to have fun talking the night away,” he promises. And we did.

“I can see you in my mind’s eye,” he tells me on page one. I really do believe he can see the ready-stoked meerschaum pipes sitting patiently on my desk for some Zippo action and the dwindling bottle of The Famous Grouse. I can see Nick (see, we’re on first-name terms by now) with a row of cigarette packets lined up like soldiers, the under-achieving thermos of cooling coffee that must see him through the marathon, the big, loud wall clock threatening to bring an end to all this as it ticks away my new friend’s waking hours and rudely closes the best conversation I’ve had in years.

Six hours later, I closed my Sony reader, lit a cigar in celebration of a read well-chosen (if for all the wrong reasons) … and wondered if – with no breaks – I could write a review that could do justice to this gem of a book. I did write it (you’re reading the proof of that), but it would take a more talented reviewer than I’ll ever be to give A LIFE WITH NO BREAKS anything like the praise it merits.

There’s a brush-stroked passion and a mighty magic in this little 140-pager that every reader will find for himself or herself.

It’s a collection of anecdotes, muses, adventures, misadventures and confessions that reads as satisfyingly as a novel and rolls along as though the whole thing was plotted (which it wasn’t). It’s paced, it’s organised, it’s witty, it’s wise, it’s from the hip. There’s never a dull moment. And it’s put together with admirable word-economy by a master story-teller with much to say and only a weekend to say it in.

I’d strongly advise you to buy A LIFE WITH NO BREAKS now from for the price of a small beer before other folk$ realise just how valuable this wee book is and hike the price.

Then I’d suggest you read it right to the book’s very last line. That’s Nick’s personal email address. It brought a tear to my already reddened old eye (The Famous Grouse bottle had long since been emptied) to find that he really did mean what he said – this book was all about making friends and sharing a cracking good time.

Drop me a line, says Nick. So I did. My message ran to 170 words and took me about half an hour to compose. Nick could well have rattled off the first fifty pages of a block-and-tackle thriller in that time.

WARNING TO DEVELOPING AUTHORS! Writing like this can damage your health, your computer, your ambitions, your marriage … and any reputation you might have. Nick, I found during my read, has not relied on beginner’s luck here. He’s been a pro popular writer for his entire working life and instinctively knows the right buttons to press. Apart from the sadly overlooked ‘L’ in ‘Public Studies’ he doesn’t seem to have a missed a beat in a long writing life. He’s also a devout insomniac.

Neil Marr
Ed. BeWrite Books
(reviewed within a week of purchase)

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