“[Barber’s] a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ’n’ roll band.” Nick Hornby, author of the screenplay adaptation of An Education
When Lynn Barber was sixteen, a stranger in a maroon sports car pulled up beside her as she was on her way home from school and offered her a ride. It was the beginning of a long journey from innocence to a precocious experience—an affair with an older man that would change her life. Barber's seducer left her with a taste for luxury hotels, posh restaurants and trips abroad—expensive habits that she managed to support in later life as a successful London journalist whose barbed interviews both terrorized and fascinated her smart-set subjects.
A poignant, shockingly candid account of the stages in a literary life—from promiscuity at Oxford to a stint at Penthouse to a complex marriage that endured—An Education is a classic of English memoir.
“[Barber’s] a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ’n’ roll band.” Nick Hornby, author of the screenplay adaptation of An Education
“Candid, unsentimental and extremely funny. I read it in one glorious go, laughing and crying throughout.” Zoë Heller, novelist and journalist
“Barber’s voice is of course hugely confident—sometimes grumpy, often a bit snooty, very often funny and always extremely frank. Take this to the beach and be grateful for feminism.” Scotsman (Edinburgh)
“An absolutely marvelous read. The only thing wrong with it is that it is too short.” Spectator
“This book shares all of Barber’s best journalistic traits: it’s thrillingly readable, very light on its feet and you’ll want to finish it in one sitting.” Tatler
Language | English |
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Release Day | Feb 15, 2010 |
Release Date | February 16, 2010 |
Release Date Machine | 1266278400 |
Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
Categories | Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics, Women, Art & Literature, Nonfiction - Adult, Nonfiction - All |
Overview
When Lynn Barber was sixteen, a stranger in a maroon sports car pulled up beside her as she was on her way home from school and offered her a ride. It was the beginning of a long journey from innocence to a precocious experience—an affair with an older man that would change her life. Barber's seducer left her with a taste for luxury hotels, posh restaurants and trips abroad—expensive habits that she managed to support in later life as a successful London journalist whose barbed interviews both terrorized and fascinated her smart-set subjects.
A poignant, shockingly candid account of the stages in a literary life—from promiscuity at Oxford to a stint at Penthouse to a complex marriage that endured—An Education is a classic of English memoir.