Having consistently refused to authorize biographies, James feels
it is time to offer testimony about what has been important in her
life. In the form of a 12-month diary, her accounts of duties,
travels and conversations encompass reflections on the past -
growing up in the 1920s and 30s, marriage to a man who became
mentally ill, motherhood, the beginnings of authorship and her
subsequent success. What makes this book so interesting is James'
forthright expressions of opinion. It is worth buying to read her
scathing comments on the Millennium Dome alone, which she compares,
hardly to its advantage, with the National Portrait Gallery, the
V&A Museum and English country churches. Less liberal than Ruth
Rendell, James offers insider information on the way arts
institutions are run, along with trenchant criticisms of current
political dogma. Even if you don't agree with her point of view,
this makes excellent reading. (Kirkus UK)
P. D. James's extraordinary memoir of her early life and time
starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old
age. In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part
memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between
her 77th and 78th birthdays, and looks back on her earlier life.
With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was
like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, and
then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the
Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her
work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health
Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal
justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an
influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the
Society of Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords.
Along the way, this diary and personal memoir deals with her
burgeoning reputation as a novelist, starting with Cover Her Face
in 1962, and with the craft of the classical detective story. She
also details the writing of one of her most intriguing and
carefully researched books, A Certain Justice. This wonderful
memoir will enthral aficionados of detective fiction, and will also
appeal to anyone who lived through those turbulent years of the
twentieth century. 'She has served up a feast of a book.' Penelope
Lively 'A wonderful read and as such will give pleasure to all P.
D. James fans.' Antonia Fraser, Mail on Sunday 'Like all the best
diaries hers allows the reader to share in the small pleasures and
domestic dramas of her days.' Sunday Telegraph 'A wonderfully vivid
evocation of a lower-middle-class childhood of oil lamps and gas
mantles, water heated up on a coke boiler for the weekly bath,
liberty bodices, prickly combinations, a father severely remote
from his three children and a long-suffering mother.' Francis King,
The Oldie P.D. James is the bestselling author of Death Comes to
Pemberley and Children of Men, both of which have been adapted for
film, with actors such as Michael Caine, Clive Owen and Jenna
Coleman playing leading roles.
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