Clever Girl - Softcover

Brian Thompson

2.81

32 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843545454 ISBN 13: 9781843545453

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2007

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This book is suitable fans of Melvyn Bragg and Frank McCourt and buyers of "Keeping Mum". Brian Thompson never had to look very hard for trouble. His unorthodox childhood and his eccentric parents guaranteed that. But when, aged eighteen, Brian left home he was determined to enjoy a life of unstinting ordinariness, taking advantage of a Britain that would 'never have it so good'. But Brian was thwarted by the possibilities available to him. National Service led to foreign travel to Kenya, skirmishes with the Mau Mau and a request to fix the results of his platoon sergeant's English exam, one Idi Amin. Even when Brian was safe on English soil he was still confounded in his ambition to lead a quiet life. His limp attempt at University entrance - a single letter on some stolen NAAFI headed paper - led to admittance to Trinity College Cambridge and the niceties of middle class student life. And then there was rock and roll. And girls. Suitably confused, Brian did what was considered to be the right thing. He married the Clever Girl.

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About the Author:

Brian Thompson was born in Lambeth, London in 1935. After vigorous rescue remedies applied by two grammar schools, he read English at Cambridge. Since 1973 he has written for a living as a radio and television playwright and documentary film maker. His first volume of memoir, Keeping Mum, was published by Atlantic in 2006. He is also the author of several acclaimed biographies including A Monkey Among Crocodiles and The Nightmare of a Victorian Bestseller. He lives in Oxford.

Review:

'Beautifully written, very funny.' -- Steven Poole * Guardian * Brian Thompson can write... he is in a different league. -- Tom Payne * Daily Telegraph * An enchantingly eccentric and entertaining book. -- Tom Rosenthal * Daily Mail * Clever Girl is the panacea to all those misery memoirs choking the nation's bookstores. -- Ludovic Hunter-Tilney * Financial Times * Deft and humorous... [Brian Thompson has] an Alan Bennett-like ear for the incongruous. -- Joan Bakewell * Guardian * A wonderful book, by turns heartbreaking and deliriously funny. -- Diana Melly * Sunday Times * A touching, comic masterpiece of a memoir. -- Melanie McGrath * Sunday Telegraph *

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