Quite A Good Time to be Born: A Memoir: 1935-1975

Description

A memoir from one of Britain's finest novelists and critics. 'I drew my first breath on the 28th of January 1935, which was quite a good time for a future writer to be born in England...' The only child in a lower-middle-class London family, David Lodge inherited his artistic genes from his musician father and his Catholic faith from his Irish-Belgian mother. Four years old when World War II began, David grew to maturity through decades of great social and cultural change - giving him plenty to write about. Candid, witty and insightful, Quite a Good Time to be Born illuminates a period of transition in British society, and charts the evolution of a writer whose works have become classics in his own lifetime.

David Lodge (CBE)'s novels include Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work (shortlisted for the Booker) and, most recently, A Man of Parts. He has also written plays and screenplays, and several books of literary criticism. His works have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Birmingham, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

What one takes away from this half-memoir is the self-portrait of an extraordinarily good, wrongly modest man; a distinguished scholar, and one of the finest of current novelists -- John Sutherland * Spectator * As a piece of reportage from the third quarter of the English 20th century this is a sociologist's paradise * Guardian * An outstanding memoir... Lucid and witty * Irish Times * A fascinating and moving read * Financial Times * Quite a Good Time to be Born is a record of success, free of boasting or malice. Anyone with some knowledge of academia or the literary world will find it full of interest -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *