This is a book that should come with a couple of warnings.
Firstly, be aware that the story that inspired the recent film
An Education [DVD] [2009] only takes up one short chapter. Nick Hornby, Oscar-nominated for the screenplay, padded this one episode out hugely and made a lot of it up. So if you enjoyed the film, you won't necessarily enjoy this memoir of Lynn Barber's life as a journalist.
And secondly, if you're a struggling writer trying to find work in today's cutthtroat media world, don't read this hoping to be inspired, or to pick up a few helpful tips. Because all the stories of how she blithely sailed into a series of highly enviable jobs during yet another liquid lunch at the Groucho Club, or via an old Etonian chum of her husband, or after a chance phone call from a friend of a friend of someone she was at Oxford with, won't do anything other than make you feel angry, or hopelessly defeatist, and possibly both.
She's been very lucky and had a great career writing for and about other people, but this hasn't necessarily made her own story particularly interesting. There are some mildly amusing anecdotes about her time at Penthouse magazine and on Fleet Street, and there's some minor name dropping, but it's hardly fascinating, and it's all stuff that dates very fast.
All credit to her for being brutally honest about her selfishness and impatience - she despised her parents, she begrudged the time she spent bringing up her daughters, and she is mercilessly detached about her husband's death - but it makes her very hard to like, or even understand. If you're writing about people and events that aren't of much interest outside your own circle, I think you have to inject a bit more heart and humour into your story than this. Otherwise, why should I care?
Luckily, it only takes a couple of hours to read this book - that's about as long as I wanted to stay with Lynn Barber.
