Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography
Written by P. D. James
Narrated by Patience Tomlinson
5/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this audiobook
P. D. James' 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 enthrall aficionados of detective fiction, and will also appeal to anyone who lived through those turbulent years of the twentieth century.
P. D. James
P. D. James (1920–2014) was born in Oxford in 1920. She worked in the National Health Service and the Home Office From 1949 to 1968, in both the Police Department and Criminal Policy Department. All that experience was used in her novels. She won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy, and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the National Arts Club Medal of Honour for Literature. She received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991.
Related to Time to Be in Earnest
Personal Memoirs For You
While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angela's Ashes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inside Out: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dad at Peace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Summer of Fall: Gravity is a bitch, but I'm still standing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Choice: Escaping the Past and Embracing the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Time to Be in Earnest
1 rating0 reviews