Saturday, October 09, 2010

Top ten British memoirs

At the Guardian, Robert McCrum named his top ten British memoirs.

Part of his essay:
Every reader will have their wartime favourites. Modern memory still owes a huge debt to the first world war. The most memorable sequence of Blackadder was possibly the closing episode, which sees the annihilation of the cast on the Somme.

Stephen Fry, a graduate of that series, remains indestructible. Fry has written so often about himself that his Fry Chronicles feel slightly redundant, though highly entertaining. He represents another staple of the genre: the name-dropping romp. The classic texts are David Niven's Bring On The Empty Horses and Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs, whose chief intention is to amuse. In their day, both Niven and James were bestsellers.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue