Customer Reviews

No Room for Secrets

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Joanna Lumley chooses not to go down the usual biographical route. Instead of charting the progress of her career she instead stages a kind of free-falling description of her life as she tours the rooms of her London house and allows particular objects or photographs to stir memories.

She has a particular gift for storytelling and in describing her childhood. There is a kind of gentle humor throughout which is achieved more by choosing exactly the right word to describe something rather than by jokes. For instance, she imagines a stable of horses as looking "like an equine rugby team".

Less successful are her attempts at travelog, which seem to take the form of pages culled from her diary. However, overall her technique of darting from subject to subject is enticing as we gain bizarre glimpses into her everyday life (watching tv quizzes in the kitchen) and her philosophy.

This is the most unshowbizzy of memoirs and will find favor with people who enjoy reading biographies generally rather than fans of Absolutely Fabulous, which receives scant mention.

This was a lovely read from a lovely woman who has led an absolutely fabulous life! It is rich in tales from India, where she was born, to Switzerland where she was a Bond Girl on `Her Majesty's Secret Service,' to Scotland, the Middle East, the Far East and points beyond. Miss Lumley lets no one define her but herself. She takes you on a tour of her house and each room reminds her of a journey in her life - whether that journey involved modeling, acting, traveling, humanitarian efforts, or just living. She acts as an interviewer of herself and thus can be self-depricating and revealing at the same time. She makes wry observations with a lovely turn of phrase: "If you really want to do something, you'll do it because you can't live with yourself not doing it." (p. 205) Or this one on age: "I don't know whether it's because I'm growing older and can see the sunset from the top of my hill, but I find things more and more fascinating nowadays." (p.257) Absolutely Fabulous, the show, is discussed on eight pages (pp. 158-166) with shorter references throughout but this is a comprehensive tale of a very full life, of which that very funny show was a part but does not comprise the whole. How fascinating that Miss Lumley's grandfather received a Tibetan Buddhist scripture from the 13th Dalai Lama which she plans to return to the 14th Dalai Lama on a trip she is packing for at the end of the book (p. 255). Thank you for sharing your Absolutely Fabulous life with us, Miss Lumley. May your adventures continue on and carry you forth. Looking forward to the next installment!

She was candid and reflective in her bio, sharing just enough of her life story to make it interesting without it coming across as a confessional or expose. She has a great grasp of details and some history in the book that really made me admire her even more as a person.

Altho written in a Q&A form it was a nice window into Lumleys life. I wished for more detail about her experiences in movies, TV and off but this was a nice light read.

I read part of this around the time I was into Joanna and didn't know much about her. Upon reading it I was frustrated by the Q&A style so much, I didn't read it like a book, but instead just flicking through pages and whatever caught my eye. The interviewer was really annoying and intruding, I did not like that. Especially when the interviwer asked some questions that were personal, like how many men she has had.

I did enjoy what I read, especially the ghost story. Having it set in her house was really interesting and intimate. I just wish it wasn't set up like it was and I might've really enjoyed it.

I would never try to read this again like a book, it's just too annoying, but rather like the way I had done by flicking through. Joanna's audio book of this is so much better from the few minutes I've heard of it. She doesn't include the questions from the interviewer, but just says her story.