- Paperback: 95 pages
- Publisher: BBC Books; New Ed edition (6 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0563534362
- ISBN-13: 978-0563534365
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 0.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 434,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Yorkshire Evening Post, 11 August, 2007
'This delightful collection is full of the humour, warmth and poignancy that characterises his work... As with all of Bennett's work, Telling Tales is one of life's pleasures.'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
“To be brought up in Leeds in the forties was to learn early on the quite useful lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere.”
In this delightful collection of reminiscences Alan Bennett recalls his early years in a sequence of tales that are funny, touching and written in his unique style.
Born in Leeds in 1934, he realises from a young age that his family is not like other families. When war breaks out in 1939, the Bennett family is on a tram heading down Tong Road as Neville Chamberlain addresses the nation. ‘So, not quite partaking in the national mood and, as ever, unbrushed by the wings of history.’
The precocious Alan yearns to see the places and lead the life he reads about in books, but not even the war provides the excitement he longs for. This is an ordinary childhood – hiking in the Dales on Sundays, trips into town with Mam – recalled with wry observation and ironic understatement, which is by turns moving and hilarious.
These beautifully rendered snapshots, which include poignant portraits of his parents, confirm Bennett at the forefront of contemporary writing. Presented here as a new edition, Telling Tales will delight Bennett fans and enchant a new generation of readers.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A saving grace,
By
This review is from: Telling Tales (Radio Collection) (Audio Cassette)
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Total Delight,
This review is from: Telling Tales (Radio Collection) (Audio Cassette)
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.
51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago,
By tonylindley@netscapeonline.co.uk (Yorkshire) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Telling Tales (Hardcover)
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.
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