Telling Tales

by Alan Bennett (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2000

  $4.62

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.49

  Ten childhood snapshots from the master of the monologue. Alan Bennett recalls his childhood in a sequence of talks that are funny, touching and told in his unique style. Hampered, as he sees it, by a family that never manages to be quite like other families he recounts his early years in Leeds - 'a place where one learned early on, the quite useful lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere': there is hiking every Sunday, trips into town and teas in cafes. It's an ordinary childhood, Bennett's father a butcher, his mother a reader of women's magazines who dreams of coffee mornings and cocktail parties and life 'down south'. He re-lives family crises, early pieties and the last tradition of musical evenings round the piano, all these tales told with that wry observation and ironic understatement that has earned Alan Bennett a place in the forefront of contemporary writing.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.65

  To be brought up in Leeds in the forties was to learn early on the quite useful lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere. In this delightful collection of reminiscences, Alan Bennett recalls his early years in a sequence of tales that are funny, touching and written in his unique style. Born in Leeds in 1934, he realises from a young age that his family is not like other families. When war breaks out in 1939, the Bennett family is on a tram heading down Tong Road as Neville Chamberlain addresses the nation. 'So, not quite partaking in the national mood and, as ever, unbrushed by the wings of history.' The precocious Alan yearns to see the places and lead the life he reads about in books, but not even the war provides the excitement he longs for. This is an ordinary childhood - hiking in the Dales on Sundays, trips into town with Mam - recalled with wry observation and ironic understatement, which is by turns moving and hilarious. These beautifully rendered snapshots, which include poignant portraits of his parents, confirm Bennett at the forefront of contemporary writing. Presented here as a new edition, Telling Tales will delight Bennett fans and enchant a new generation of readers.