Fascinating

An absolutely fascinating book. Eleanor Bron is a fine actress, but I found her narration difficult. It was as if the microphone was too close to her mouth, I could hear ever little sound from swallowing to lip licking etc. Found it really off-putting.

3 people found this helpful

Thoroughly gripping

I've read all EJH's books and have always found her intriguing. This biography is superb and so delightfully read by Eleanor Bron. I highly recommend it!

2 people found this helpful

An admirable biography.

This is a thoughtful, insightful book about an extraordinary woman. Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote with such apparent ease and with great observational excellence, yet it was eye-opening to read what a tortured soul she was. She was evidently an indulged woman, very needy in every regard, but seemed to carry a burden of never feeling she was good enough, having failed to find the 'great love of her life'. Her charisma and beauty did not seem to give her the confidence one would expect but she used these to attract to her an enormous group of admirers, most of whom she regarded as friends and on whom she was constantly reliant. She was evidently a kind and generous woman but these traits were seemingly often repaid by an expected loyalty.
It is now apparent that she had an enormous work ethic....only partly for her writing, but in the efforts she made in entertaining lavishly, in fundraising, and in her many talents in gardening, sewing and all forms of creativity. One feels she would be rather exhausting company, albeit entertaining. However, whilst never making judgemental comment upon her subject Artemis Cooper leaves one aware that despite writing books which have enjoyed a constant large following, she had some real character flaws. As a mother, a mistress and as a wife she remained essentially a self-absorbed woman.who was never quite truly happy. Nonetheless, by the end of this biography one can only be in awe of such a force of nature as Elizabeth Jane Howard.
The clarity, simplicity and honesty of this biography are to be applauded. Great research has obviously been done to ensure its accuracy. Highly recommended.

1 person found this helpful

Very Revelatory

Yes what a lot to get one's head around. Lie is stranger than fiction. Very moving in parts and so entertaining. Thank you.

1 person found this helpful

A life story well told and well narrated

I have read most of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novels and found all of them well written, intricately put together, incredibly funny and enjoy the way in which Howard has the skill to describe the complexity of relationships. Artemis Cooper’s biography has led me to believe that Howard wrote Novels that were based almost identically on Howard's life experience. An incredibly sensitive, thoughtful and well researched biography that I would recommend to anyone to read. The book left me slightly disappointed in Howard herself as a person. I so wanted her to be a woman full of confidence in herself as a woman and a writer and she was not.

1 person found this helpful

Looking For Love

If you listened to The Cazalets, as I did ((several times, as it happens), then this biography of the author Elizabeth Jane Howard, is indispensable. Told with both sympathy and candour, we are taken through the life and times of this remarkable, supremely gifted woman. Today I think she would be classed as a screaming nymphomaniac, but this book succeeds in convincing us that, following a loveless childhood, she was both 'used and abused' by husbands and lovers, often neglecting a brilliant career because of their demands. This pathetic search for love led her into making many sacrifices, particularly during her marriage to Kingsley Amis.

I enjoyed this well-written, well-read account of an amazing life, and especially as it gives us the real-life backdrop to the many books she wrote.

1 person found this helpful

Elizabeth Jane Howard

A superb biography and beautifully read by Eleanor Bron. I really didn't want it to end. What better accolade for a book.

1 person found this helpful

In depth, enormously enjoyable biography.

Artemis Cooper gives a delightful and generous insight into all aspects of Elizabeth Jane Howard's interesting life.

1 person found this helpful

The Thinking Man's Courtesan?

I have never read any of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novels but she has cropped up in a number of books that I have read including those concerning Tom Rolt, Robert Aickman and the early days of the Inland Waterways Association as well as Martin Amis’s memoir "Experience".

What seems to have struck everybody about EJH was her physical beauty. I have never been able to see this but obviously photographs do not do her justice as so many people were struck by it. Great beauty can be a curse as well as a blessing and, coupled with moral ambivalence can, as in her case, be very damaging, not least to its possessor.

It is perhaps unfair to call her sexually voracious but she does not seem to have done much to resist the advances of a good many men within the literary and intellectual circles in which she moved – even if they happened to be married to one of her friends!

The book gives Eleanor Bron little scope for anything but a fairly routine reading and this made me wonder whether audiobooks are really the best vehicle for biography? Great for novels but in this case I greatly missed being able to refer to photographs and, particularly, an index.

1 person found this helpful

Quality

I found the recording crackled quite a lot in places but I pushed by the distraction