| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Being A Scot for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A detailed, fascinating, and beautifully designed study of Scottish culture and identity . . . there can be no doubt that this is essentially Connery's work." --"Sunday Times"
Product Description
Although he is an indubitably international superstar, Sir Sean Connery still knows the city of Edinburgh practically street by street from delivering the morning milk as a schoolboy. His round included Fettes College, where Ian Fleming had sent his fictional James Bond after he was expelled from Eton. BEING A SCOT is a vivid and highly personal portrait of Scotland and its achievements, which is self-revelatory whilst full of Sir Sean's desire to shine light upon Scottish success and heroic failure. His personal quest with his friend and co-writer Murray Grigor has been to seek answers to some perplexing questions: How did Scots come to devise so many new sports and games, or raise others to new heights? What gave fire to the Gothic tendency in Scottish literature? Why have so many creatively inventive and influential architects been Scots? Where did Scotland's unreal blend of psychotic humour originate? And what about the national tradition of self-deprecation sometimes called the Scottish cringe? Sean Connery offers a correction to misconceptions that many believe are part of the historical record whilst revealing as never before his own vibrant personal history.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you are looking for an autobiography, or revelations about Ursula Andress or Honor Blackman, then this will be a great disappointment. It is, in large part an opinionated review of Sctoland, something like the rock stars views on global warming,Tibet or PETA, and does ccasionally raise the question of 'so what?' However if you read it as a general overview of Scotland, its culture, development and background, then this is a very well written, thoughtful,thought-provoking and well produced book. Of course his perspective is different from that of most of us, his fame and wealth make that almost unavoidable. Some of it, his recommendations on the Iraqi War based 'Black Watch' play, for example, border on the patronizing - and may even be counter productive in getting his views across. On the whole it is a very worthwhile read.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a beautifully presented volume, nicely laid out and with many high quality photographs. The ideas are great too - but the execution falls far short of what it could have been (this is not Connery's fault of course as there is a co-author listed, and books are supposed to have editors too).
Much of the writing is cliche-ridden and leaden. It goes on at length about some game called 'soccer' - a word no true Scot would use without puking. Many of the supposed quotes are obviously doctored, as when he has some 17th century public benefactor supposedly talking about 'gender equality'. The extensive picture captions are mostly repeats, word for ill-written word, of what is in the text. When different words are used, this is generally no improvement, as in the sentence "to placate the Highlands the Government built the largest defended garrison in Europe". Placate is the wrong word - they mean pacify.
But some of the writing must be Connery's own, as his famously chippy personality shines through. In his long exile from his homeland he has not lost his ability to perceive a slight to his self-importance. But then, as he opines, the Scots don't like success and do their best to cut the mighty down to size.
The book does look affie guid on a coffee table though.
- Roderick Clyne, Singapore
Being A Scot
Much of the writing is cliche-ridden and leaden. It goes on at length about some game called 'soccer' - a word no true Scot would use without puking. Many of the supposed quotes are obviously doctored, as when he has some 17th century public benefactor supposedly talking about 'gender equality'. The extensive picture captions are mostly repeats, word for ill-written word, of what is in the text. When different words are used, this is generally no improvement, as in the sentence "to placate the Highlands the Government built the largest defended garrison in Europe". Placate is the wrong word - they mean pacify.
But some of the writing must be Connery's own, as his famously chippy personality shines through. In his long exile from his homeland he has not lost his ability to perceive a slight to his self-importance. But then, as he opines, the Scots don't like success and do their best to cut the mighty down to size.
The book does look affie guid on a coffee table though.
- Roderick Clyne, Singapore
Being A Scot
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is about exactly what it says on the cover... Being a Scot.
Although the main content revolves around Sean Connery his, and Murray Grigor's, viewpoint is that of growing up as a Scot and how it is an integral part of who we, The Scots, are. Interestingly, it makes absolutely no difference that Sean has spent most of his life living outside Scotland, it's still who he is.
Murray Grigor's role in this appears more to be a compiler and co-writer rather than a traditional Ghostwriter. Credit to Sean for this too. How many Celeb books out there pretend that they did it all themselves?
Although the main content revolves around Sean Connery his, and Murray Grigor's, viewpoint is that of growing up as a Scot and how it is an integral part of who we, The Scots, are. Interestingly, it makes absolutely no difference that Sean has spent most of his life living outside Scotland, it's still who he is.
Murray Grigor's role in this appears more to be a compiler and co-writer rather than a traditional Ghostwriter. Credit to Sean for this too. How many Celeb books out there pretend that they did it all themselves?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
