Time to Be in Earnest

(, Main)

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Description

'Fascinating reminiscences of her past.A wonderfully vivid evocation of a lower-middle-class childhood of oil lamps and gas mantles, water heated up in a coke boiler for the weekly bath, liberty bodices, prickly combinations, a father severely remote from his three children, and a long-suffering mother.The book contains a number of fascinating passages about the crime novel [and] some trenchant comments on life in England today.' Francis King, The Oldie'A wonderful read and as such will give pleasure to all P.D. James fans. The descriptions of landscape alone merit enthusiasm.Phyllis James is a national treasure.' Antonia Fraser, Mail on Sunday

Reviews

"Deeply moving . . . . Page after page recalls a vanished world."-- "The New York Times Book Review"

"A cornucopia of discernment, judgment, and wisdom." --"San Francisco Chronicle"

"James neither overintellectualizes nor sentimentalizes. . . . Writing about commonplace events, [she] gives them weight and substance and so confirms their reality, investing them with a radiance that illuminates this fragment of autobiography." --"The Washington Post"
" Deeply moving . . . Page after page recalls a vanished world."
--The New York Times Book Review
" A CORNUCOPIA OF DISCERNMENT, JUDGMENT, AND WISDOM."
--San Francisco Chronicle
" James neither overintellectualizes nor sentimentalizes. . . . Writing about commonplace events, [she] gives them weight and substance and so confirms their reality, investing them with a radiance that illuminates this fragment of autobiography."
--The Washington Post
"Deeply moving . . . Page after page recalls a vanished world."
--The New York Times Book Review
"A CORNUCOPIA OF DISCERNMENT, JUDGMENT, AND WISDOM."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"James neither overintellectualizes nor sentimentalizes. . . . Writing about commonplace events, [she] gives them weight and substance and so confirms their reality, investing them with a radiance that illuminates this fragment of autobiography."
--The Washington Post

Author Bio

P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of the Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of its Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award. She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.She lives in London and Oxford and has two daug