The Favourite Game

The Favourite Game (1973) by Leonard Cohen – Sold by Crappy Old Books

Before he became the gravel-voiced prophet of longing and lament, Leonard Cohen was already a master of poetic discomfort—and The Favourite Game is his raw, electric debut. First published in 1963 and reissued here in this gloriously yellowing 1973 Panther edition, this semi-autobiographical novel follows Lawrence Breavman, a young man groping (sometimes literally) through love, art, and identity in mid-century Montreal.

Sensual, cerebral, and shot through with melancholic wit, The Favourite Game reads like a fever dream penned on hotel stationery. Cohen’s prose is as lyrical and unpredictable as his later songs—filled with desire, confusion, and the ache of trying to feel something real.

This isn’t your grandma’s coming-of-age novel—unless your grandma had a thing for brooding Canadian poets.

Condition: Covers slightly scuffed, pages beautifully tanned, and smells faintly of 1970s disappointment and spilled coffee. Still, this book knows more about you than your therapist does.

Crappy Old Books – Rescuing overlooked brilliance from the dusty bottom shelves of history.

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