Archives by Tag 'Memoir'
Review: ‘Wild Swans’ by Jung Chang
When I was at secondary school we had a lovely chemistry teacher who would cunningly arrange school trips to places that she really wanted to visit herself. She organised skiing trips to Canada and America which I happily ignored, but then when I was fourteen a letter went home about a proposed trip to China. My [...]
Review: ‘Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons’ by Gerald Durrell
Evidently I was feeling in an avian mood when I read this book, as I followed Patrick Suskind’s with another book featuring pigeons: this time it was by Gerald Durrell. Not deliberate, I swear. Gerald Durrell is one of my favourite authors to turn to when I want to read something entertaining and well-written but [...]
Review: ‘Dawn Chorus’ by Joan Wyndham
Reading Perfume from Provence reminded me that reading non-fiction is nowhere near as hard or as serious as I think it’s going to be when it comes in the form of an engaging memoir. I decided to carry on the theme by reading another thoroughly English memoir which I picked up, this time one of [...]
Review: ‘Perfume from Provence’ by Lady Winifred Fortescue
You might remember my mentioning by Lady Winifred Fortescue back in my March Review when I confessed to having broken my Lent book buying ban due to an unexpected train delay. Whilst I felt a little bit guilty at the time (not least because I also picked up the two companion books by the same [...]
‘Through England on a Side-Saddle’ by Celia Fiennes
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m attempting to read more non-fiction this year, and so far I seem to be accomplishing most of that in the form of travelogues. There’s something endlessly fascinating about seeing a place through the eyes of someone else, whether it’s somewhere I’ve been before, somewhere I know like the back of [...]
Review: ‘Tales from the Country Matchmaker’ by Patricia Warren
Title: Author: Patricia Warren Published: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006, pp. 248. Originally published 2003. Genre: Memoir Blurb: Since she founded the Farmers’ and Country Bureau from her farmhouse in the Peak District more than twenty years ago, Patricia has been helping love to blossom the length and breadth of rural England. She has hundreds of [...]
Review: ‘Offbeat Bride’ by Ariel Meadow Stallings
Title: Offbeat Bride – Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides Author: Ariel Meadow Stallings Published: Seal Press, 2006, pp. 219 Genre: Wedding planning Blurb: Unenthused by a white wedding gown and bored by the hoopla of the Hollywood-style reception, Ariel Meadow Stallings found herself absolutely exhausted with the nuances of traditional nuptials. So, she chose to [...]
Review: ‘Birds, Beasts and Relatives’ by Gerald Durrell
Title: Birds, Beasts and Relatives Author: Gerald Durrell Published: Fontana, 1971, pp. 220 Genre: Autobiographical wildlife fiction Blurb: All Gerald Durrell’s books are extremely enjoyable. My Family and Other Animals is the best, spun from his family’s five-year sojourn, before thewar, when he was in his early teens on Corfu. In Birds, Beasts and Relatives, [...]
Review: ‘A Zoo in My Luggage’ by Gerald Durrell
A Zoo in My Luggage begins with an account of Durrell’s third trip to the British Cameroons in West Africa, during which he and his wife capture animals to start their own zoo. Returning to England with a few additions to their family—Cholmondeley the chimpanzee, Bug-eye the bush baby, and others—they have nowhere to put [...]
Review: ‘La Prisonniere’ by Malika Oufkir
Malika Oufkir was born into a proud Berber family in 1953, the eldest daughter of the King of Morocco’s closest aide. She was adopted by the king to be a companion to his little daughter, and at the royal court of Rabat, Malika grew up locked away in a golden cage, among the royal wives [...]