The Clothes They Stood Up In is a very short novel by Alan Bennett, who also wrote the screenplay for The Madness of King George.
This novel, which appears to be in the long tradition of literary works that make fun of the English petit-bourgeoisie, which is a tradition that I am ill-equipped to deal with since I don't actually know enough of such people to be able to laugh knowingly at stereotypes of them. The plot of the book revolves around how the protagonists, a middle aged couple, come home to find their apartment burgled totally. This causes them to reconsider the insular nature of their self-satisfied bourgeois lives, until near the end of the book, further revelations of why they were burgled in the first place are revealed.
The reason I read this book in the first place was that I saw it at the library and it was small enough to fit in my pocket. It comes in a special extra small format that I could read on the road. But as for the deeper issues of the book, I don't quite understand why these people have a book written about them. Are there that many totally clueless stuffy people in England? Maybe I would have to be English to understand this book. | 
