- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd; 1st.ed. edition (3 April 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0434008974
- ISBN-13: 978-0434008971
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 16.2 x 3.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,167,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I Didn't Get Where I Am Today
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Nobbs's impish sense of humour pervades his self-mocking autobiography, recounting his wartime childhood and a search for identity that would have befitted his best-known creation: The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Bullying and male rape while at public school were hardly a preparation to become a TV comic writer but glimpses of the satirist start to emerge at Cambridge and during a turgid spell in journalism. The material available for preview stretches only as far as the early 1960s when sketches for David Frost in That Was The Week That Was proved to be his breakthrough, with the envelopes of material collected by black cab from Hampstead Magistrates' Court where he was a reporter. A treat for aficionados of the golden age of satire.
The Telegraph
'The marvellously matter-of-fact memoir of a genius of suburban angst'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
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)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was amazed by this book but for all the wrong reasons.
David Nobbs is, in my opinion, one of the finest comic novelist this country has ever produced. Actually strike that - he's one of the finest novelists, full-stop. I urge everyone to read him.
But in writing about himself he seems to have come up short.
Unlike his fictional creations which seem to pull themselves up from the page the real people of his autobiography remain stubbornly 2-dimensional. Only in his honest appraisal of the end of his first marriage and the 'courtship' of his second wife did I really feel that I was seeing the real man. The discussion of the breakdown of his friendship with Peter Tinniswood was particularly thin. There must have been so much behind this story but Mr Nobbs was not prepared to tell us about it. Which is fair enough but not if you're going to write a book about it and charge people for the privelege of reading it.
David Nobbs is, in my opinion, one of the finest comic novelist this country has ever produced. Actually strike that - he's one of the finest novelists, full-stop. I urge everyone to read him.
But in writing about himself he seems to have come up short.
Unlike his fictional creations which seem to pull themselves up from the page the real people of his autobiography remain stubbornly 2-dimensional. Only in his honest appraisal of the end of his first marriage and the 'courtship' of his second wife did I really feel that I was seeing the real man. The discussion of the breakdown of his friendship with Peter Tinniswood was particularly thin. There must have been so much behind this story but Mr Nobbs was not prepared to tell us about it. Which is fair enough but not if you're going to write a book about it and charge people for the privelege of reading it.
Please, please read David Nobbs but don't start with this - it's just not as good as the books.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book, then left it on the side for three months, while I read other things. A great pity, having lot long returned from holiday I realise that this book would have been a far better, easier read than the books I actually took.
Still, I've read the book now, having not really read any of the author's other works except for RIP. (This is something I now intend to do something about, by the way.)
Even for what I guess would be termed a "non-comedy" book, David Nobbs - obviously with years of experience - manages to reminiscence with a very humorous style.
I liked it - I'll read some more of this guy's novels, and look out for his TV work.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
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.
