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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A five-star autobiography but just one reservation!,
By
This review is from: Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (Print on Demand (Hardcover))
Ferdinand Mount has written a five-star autobiography, but I have just one reservation about it despite having enjoyed it immensely.
Mr Mount 'jumps about' rather too much. The ultra-long chapters don't deal consecutively with aspects of his fascinating life. For example, the sad account of his mother's too-early demise is followed much later with episodes where the lady is alive again, and the book requires a degree of concentration that I don't always possess late at night when I do most of my reading. Mr Mount has already in his fascinating life (and I hope he has many more years to come: we are round about the same age and I can recall some of the people and most of the events described) done more things and worked with more interesting people, not least some of the eccentric circle of his own family, his friends and his acquaintances, than many of us could ever wish for and, whilst I have known just one or two of those mentioned myself, it is such fun to get to 'know' more, even with what can only be 'second-hand' knowledge. One of the newspaper reviewers has alluded to Mr Mount's 'name-dropping.' I recognise what the reviewer is getting at, for the sub-headings of the five main chapters include the following: 'Skiing with Donald MacLean,' John le Carré at Eton,' 'Miriam Margolyes on the hearthrug,' 'Prince Michael in the dorm,' 'My stepmother and Gore Vidal,' 'Lord Longford on the platform,' 'Harold Wilson and my tape recorder,' My odyssey with Selwyn Lloyd,' 'Keith Joseph's cold,' 'Ian Gow and Dr. Bodkin Adams,' 'The intolerable Alfred Sherman,' 'Jeffrey Archer's joke,' 'The Parkinson affair,' etc., etc. It falls to a fortunate few to be able drop so many well-known names and the author has every right so to do, for the names are of his relatives, his friends, his close acquaintances and his work colleagues. Re-reading what I have written thus far informs me that I may have been too harsh in my judgement, for this superb book, so elegantly written (Mr Mount didn't go to Eton for the Wall Game, for which he was ill-suited, but to obtain a classical education, and it shows!), and so eminently readable, not only for its description of the various moving moments of his own life but also for the unique insights into the workings of 10, Downing Street under Margaret Thatcher, is a 'must-read' for anyone with the vaguest interest in English journalism, politics and social life in the 20th century. By the way, the book's quaint title is explained at the end, and the explanation is a delightful vignette in itself.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Parochial but fascinating,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (Print on Demand (Hardcover))
The memoirs of a man who knew, or was related to, an extraordinary number of people in England: they include Margaret Thatcher, many politicians, many titled aristocrats, and many literary figures. It's so well written that it deserves five stars, but the drawback for American readers may be that it is too parochial and insular. Gore Vidal is about the only American mentioned. He doesn't even cross the English Channel, although he majored in French and German at Oxford. Apart from Margaret Thatcher, Donald Maclean (the spy) and Anthony Powell and John LeCarre (the novelists) most of the enormous number of names dropped will be unfamiliar, except to the most ardent anglophiles. Mount assumes a knowledge of British politics over the last quarter of the twentieth century without giving any background information. For example there's a lot about his time working for a politician called Selwyn Lloyd, without any explanation of why he was so important.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Warm Memoir,
By
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This review is from: Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (Print on Demand (Hardcover))
An excellently written memoir of growing up and becoming educated while within the accepted fringes of the eccentric elite in post-war class-conscious England. The author goes on to tell of his work after university as a London newspaperman, followed by a description of his presence near Margaret Thatcher's inner sanctum during the Iron Lady's groundshaking early days at Number 10 Downing Street.
While this book may be best appreciated by readers in Britain, especially given some of its more local political references, nonetheless it is a book that will be greatly enjoyed by all those with an appreciation for style and quiet humor.
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