PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Melvyn Bragg is a writer and broadcaster whose first novel, For Want of a Nail, was published in 1965. His novels since include The Maid of Buttermere, The Soldier's Return, A Son of War, Credo and Now is the Time, which won the Parliamentary Book Award for fiction in 2016. His books have also been awarded the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award, and have been longlisted three times for the Booker Prize (including the Lost Man Booker Prize). He has also written several works of non-fiction, including The Adventure of English and The Book of Books about the King James Bible. He lives in London and Cumbria.
A masterly evocation of his early life in Cumbria . . . Bragg's book, the best thing he's ever written, imbues the overused literary adjective piercing with real meaning . . . I can't hope to capture, in the space I have here, this book's extraordinary geography, let alone its strange, inchoate beauty: the way that Bragg, in his struggle fully to explain his meaning, so often hits on something wise and even numinous (when he does, it's as if a bell sounds). All I can say is that I loved it. Somehow - those tears again! - it brought things back to me, and by doing so, it made me remember what's really important in life; how glad I am myself to be tethered to certain people, certain places. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer * A memoir bursting with affection and gruff love . . . a charming account of a lost era, full of details and often lyrical descriptions of people and places . . . If it sounds idealised, it isn't. Bragg is clear-eyed about the 'harshness under the surface' . . . a fascinating and often moving portrait of a time, a place and a working-class boy who fell in love with words and made a distinguished career out of using them extremely well. -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times * A moving portrait of a lost England . . . As a feat of dramatised recollection Back in the Day is remarkable. The Boys' Own scrapes and japes - an apple orchard raid, a gang hideout dug into a river bank - come alive like set pieces from his beloved Jennings. -- Jasper Rees * Daily Telegraph * Beautifully written, lyrical and romantic, touching and tender . . . I enjoyed and admired it all. -- Hunter Davies * The Oldie * Disarmingly poignant . . . In other hands this tale would easily be the stuff of cliche, except that Bragg fills every memory and anecdote with both meaning and feeling . . . He has written some 40 books and this lovely memoir is surely the most affecting of them all. -- Michael Prodger * New Statesman * A wonderfully full and detailed picture of one particular place at a particular time and an evocation of Melvyn Bragg's intense and enduring involvement in it * Michael Frayn * A wonderful memoir . . . a truly great book about what it means to come from somewhere, to be of a culture, to be cultured not in the rarest but the most communal sense. * Howard Jacobson * He has an amazing memory for detail, but what shines through it all is his love for the place and its people. That makes the book very special. * Ken Follett * An extraordinary work - eloquent, charming, insightful, vivid, touching, and a true work of literature * Tony Palmer *
