Tag: Autobiography

The Illustrated Pepys, Edited by Robert Latham: #BookReview.

On By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Literature, opinion, Reading, Review3 Comments

Subtitled, Extracts from the Diary, this is a selection of Pepys’s diary entries over the years from 1660 to 1669, when his eyesight deteriorated to such an extent that he could no longer spend the time needed to write in secret by candlelight. There is a useful introduction by the editor, explaining the way he …

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Parky, by Michael Parkinson: #BookReview.

On By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, opinion, Reading, Review2 Comments

400 pagesTelevision/Performer Biographies Subtitled ‘My Autobiography’, this illustrated account of the life of the TV journalist, Radio and TV presenter, and occasional Quizmaster, reads as though the man is speaking to you. A Yorkshireman (my own home county) through and through, Parky relates his life through events, family, the multitude of personalities he’s met and …

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Self, by Yann Martel: #BookReview.

On By stuartakenIn Author, Book, Creative Writer, Fiction, Literature, opinion, Reading, Review7 Comments

252 pagesContemporary/Literary Fiction The blurb asks, ‘Fiction or autobiography?’ and sort of replies, ‘both, neither?’. The whole point of this extraordinary created work is to ask, and attempt to answer, some basic questions relating to literature, storytelling, identity, and life itself. It’s an ambitious aim and one I suspect many readers will find difficult, demanding, …

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