pizza guy. A woman who has everything. A senator who has never once said yes. Two pigeons on William Penn's hat. One ordinary Tuesday.
And absolutely no endings.
Boston Kowalczyk has delivered pizza in Philadelphia for six years, and today every customer wants something from him that isn't pizza. A man pays in loose change and remembers his late wife. A yoga studio asks him to be with the pizza, not to have it. A room full of lawyers argues over what "large" means, and a nine-year-old in a paper crown asks him the one question nobody ever has: Are you happy?
Across town, Delphine Whitlock has nine bathrooms, croissants flown in nightly from Lyon, and a devoted husband ready to build her a pond for a swan. She has no idea what she wants. In the hills of Portugal, an old man has waited at the same bus stop since 1987. On a tiny North Atlantic island, a lighthouse keeper polishes the glass every night for a ship that has never come.
Meanwhile, four cows debate whether Tuesday exists. A goldfish reviews his morning every three seconds. A tiny European country enters its eleventh year of arguing about the colour of its flag. And the author and his publisher, who are the same man, trade increasingly desperate memos about whether a book is allowed to end.
The Worst Book in the World is a novel about everything and nothing. It's absurd, sharp and quietly heartbreaking, and it's built from dozens of interwoven stories that all happen on a single day and never quite finish, because real life rarely does either.
Inside you'll find:
- Pizza, delivered under protest
- Pigeons with opinions
- A senator, briefly sincere
- A support group for unfinished things
- A wedding toast that will not stop
- A lighthouse, a stormy night and a dark boat with no lights
- Endings (not included)
For readers who love the gentle absurdity of Douglas Adams, the warm observation of Fredrik Backman and the everyday comedy of Seinfeld, this is a book to read in short bursts, laugh at out loud and think about long after you've closed it.
It may not be the worst book in the world. But it's definitely the only one brave enough to say so.
Scroll up and grab your copy. The pizza's getting cold.