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A Life of My Own
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Penelope Wilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
Esteemed biographer and legendary literary editor Claire Tomalin's stunning memoir of a life in literature.
In A Life of My Own, the renowned biographer of Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, and former literary editor for the Sunday Times reflects on a remarkable life surrounded by writers and books. From discovering books as a form of escapism during her parents' difficult divorce, to pursuing poetry at Cambridge, where she meets and marries Nicholas Tomalin, the ambitious and striving journalist, Tomalin always steered herself towards a passionate involvement with art. She relives the glittering London literary scene of the 1960s, during which Tomalin endured her husband's constant philandering and numerous affairs, and revisits the satisfaction of being commissioned to write her first book, a biography of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. In biography, she found her vocation. However, when Nick is killed in 1973 while reporting in Israel, the mother of four put aside her writing to assume the position of literary editor of the New Statesman. Her career soared when she later moved to the Sunday Times, and she tells with dazzling candor of this time in her life spent working alongside the literary lights of 1970s London. But, the pain of her young daughter's suicide and the challenges of caring for her disabled son as a single mother test Claire's strength and persistence. It is not until later in life that she is able to return to what gave her such purpose decades ago, writing biographies, and finds enduring love with her now-husband, playwright Michael Frayn.
Marked by honesty, humility, and grace, rendered in the most elegant of prose, A Life of My Own is a portrait of a life, replete with joy and heartbreak. With quiet insight and unsparing clarity, Tomalin writes autobiography at its most luminous, delivering an astonishing and emotionally taut masterpiece.
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
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In the Great Green Room
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The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.
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Excruciatingly boring
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Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
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From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.
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A must-read for any creative artist!!
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By: Alice Walker, and others
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America's Queen
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Using remarkable new sources, Sarah Bradford has written a timely celebration of a life that was more private than commonly supposed. Revealing new testimony from many of the couple's friends shows the complexities of this apparently very public relationship and of her controversial marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Here is the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.
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American Royalty
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By: Sarah Bradford
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Wait for Me!
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Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
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The last of the Mitford Sisters
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Those Wild Wyndhams
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They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
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SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
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Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
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Fascinating Story--Victoriana
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Ted Hughes
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Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
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Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
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Franklin and Eleanor
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Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt’s marriage is one of the most celebrated and scrutinized partnerships in presidential history. It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes and has only become more controversial since their deaths. From FDR’s lifelong romance with Lucy Mercer to Eleanor’s purported lesbianism - and many scandals in between - the American public has never tired of speculating about the ties that bound these two headstrong individuals.
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Inspired by the facts, not the book
- By Molly-o on 08-10-14
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Diana
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The sensational biography of Princess Diana, now revised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death. When Diana: Her True Story - in Her Own Words was first published in 1992, it forever changed the way the public viewed the British monarchy.
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Wonderful overall with one issue...
- By globewest on 07-02-17
By: Andrew Morton
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Stalin's Daughter
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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Franklin and Lucy
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was arguably the greatest figure of the 20th century. While FDR's official circle was predominantly male, it was his relationships with women - particularly with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd - that most vividly bring to light the human being beneath this towering statesman.
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Franklin and Lucy
- By Connie's on 03-06-09
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What listeners say about A Life of My Own
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- Mini Driver
- 01-09-20
Loved this book
I chose this book because Tomalin is my favorite biographer, but I was unprepared for how much I would enjoy her memoir. She completely brought me into her worlds, both the world of London writers and intellectuals in which she worked and the world of her family in which she lived. She has to face more than her fair share of tragedy over the course of her life, but she emerges from the book neither as victim nor as hero. She is admittedly privileged in many ways, but she makes good use of her privileges and talents to create a loving family and to find work that fulfills her. Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey) does a fine job narrating.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lynn Labe
- 01-01-20
A bit too private for this genre
Claire Tomalin is a beautiful writer , but for a memoir I felt she was too reserved and private- about her kids, her second marriage, her managing career with children, etc. There were nice tidbits here and she has no doubt had an interesting life but I wished for more detail. Great narration from Penelope Wilton, whose dry delivery always seems to be holding back a smile.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Carlos Gomez-Lopez
- 10-23-21
A biographer’s take on her life
That Claire Tomalin writes very well surely is not news to anybody familiar with her biographies - I was not, and now I want to read them.. That she can illuminate, humanize and make us feel at home when the subject is herself is quite extraordinary. She is a great story teller, unflinching with herself and others when needed (her cold father, her sometimes violent husband) but always compassionate, understanding, giving us the reasons why people are the way they are. You can see that she has tried very hard to include everyone relevant in her life in this book - and it is a lot of people, in a full life, and they all feel complete.
I am so happy that Ms. Tomalin took the time to share her life with us. I learned a lot from it, and I have gained perspective on my own life and that of the people around me thanks to her.
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- Elaine
- 04-10-19
Absolutely Marvelous
It's a great autobiography and Wilton's reading of it is perfect. I wasn't particularly familiar with Claire Tomalin and now want to read everything she's written. I found her life fascinating and rich in culture in a way that so many lives are not. She describes her family life (complicated, relatable) in as much detail as she describes the music, theater, art, travel and books that have given her so much joy and which most of us don't experience (at least not as regularly). It's a great dive into a well-educated, well-connected, elite world and simultaneously a lovely meditation on the more familiar topics of motherhood, marriage and loss. I recommend this book to anyone but particularly to people who love autobiographies and who enjoy listening to people discuss art and artists of all types.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Vly Summit
- 02-16-19
A really interesting life
Claire Tomalin's work as a biographer is widely known and respected. Now that I've heard about her life, I am amazed that she's gotten so much done aside from living that life. Really interesting to hear.
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1 person found this helpful
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 11-17-22
A GOOD LIFE
“A Life of My Own” introduces Claire Tomalin to those who do not know her. Born in London, and educated in English grammar schools, Tomalin graduates from the University of Cambridge to become a writer. She continues to write into her late 80s. Along the way, she meets some of the greatest writers and authors of modern times. As with anyone who lives into their 90s, it seems Claire Tomlin has had an eventful and good life, but it required grit and determination. Something one cannot help but admire is that Tomalin is a woman of substance.
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- Mary
- 01-01-19
Flat, name dropping with no insight
When reading a memoir, I enjoy the perspective and insight of the author. It is what differentiates it from biography or historical fact sheet. This book relates facts, drops dozens of names, highlights fashion trends and brags/complains of affairs but doesn't share one true feeling. Listing famous "friends" while not exploring them, is frustrating to a reader. Totally unrelateable in the writing, Ms. Wilton does all she can to inject warmth into this one dimensional character. Very disappointing overall.
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5 people found this helpful