Basil Street Blues: A Memoir

Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Basil Street Blues: A Memoir by Michael Holroyd, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Michael Holroyd ISBN: 9780393343137
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: October 10, 2011
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Michael Holroyd
ISBN: 9780393343137
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: October 10, 2011
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

"A wonderful offbeat memoir.... Holroyd has written perhaps his best book yet."—Ben Macintyre, New York Times Book Review

Renowned biographer Michael Holroyd had always assumed that his own family was perfectly English, or at least perfectly ordinary. But an investigation into the Holroyd past—guided by old photograph albums, crumbling documents, and his parents' wildly divergent accounts of their lives—gradually yields clues to a constellation of startling events and eccentric characters: a slow decline from English nobility on one side, a dramatic Scandinavian ancestry on the other. Fires, suicides, bankruptcies, divorces, unconsummated longings, and the rumor of an Indian tea fortune permeate this wry, candid memoir, "part multiple biography, part autobiography, but principally an oblique investigation of the biographer's art" (New York Times Book Review). "[A] perfect example of a memoir that entrances me."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Sunday Globe "[O]ne of the few [biographers] who can convey what makes ordinary as well as extraordinary mortals live in our minds."—Los Angeles Times

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

"A wonderful offbeat memoir.... Holroyd has written perhaps his best book yet."—Ben Macintyre, New York Times Book Review

Renowned biographer Michael Holroyd had always assumed that his own family was perfectly English, or at least perfectly ordinary. But an investigation into the Holroyd past—guided by old photograph albums, crumbling documents, and his parents' wildly divergent accounts of their lives—gradually yields clues to a constellation of startling events and eccentric characters: a slow decline from English nobility on one side, a dramatic Scandinavian ancestry on the other. Fires, suicides, bankruptcies, divorces, unconsummated longings, and the rumor of an Indian tea fortune permeate this wry, candid memoir, "part multiple biography, part autobiography, but principally an oblique investigation of the biographer's art" (New York Times Book Review). "[A] perfect example of a memoir that entrances me."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Sunday Globe "[O]ne of the few [biographers] who can convey what makes ordinary as well as extraordinary mortals live in our minds."—Los Angeles Times

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Family Life: A Novel by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book A Guide for the Perplexed: A Novel by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist (Will Eisner Instructional Books) by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Yellow: Stories by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book South Carolina: A Bicentennial History by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Authority by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Attachment-Focused EMDR: Healing Relational Trauma by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work With Ambiguous Loss by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book Touch: A Novel by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Forest by Michael Holroyd
Cover of the book A History of Future Cities by Michael Holroyd
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy