Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

By: Jeanette Winterson

Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson

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About this listen

Shortlisted for: UK Author of the year – Specsavers National Book Awards 2012

When Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, left home at 16 because she was in love with a woman, Mrs. Winterson asked her: "Why be happy when you could be normal?" This book is the story of a life's work to find happiness. It is the story of how the painful past returned to haunt Jeanette's later life, and send her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft which supports us when we are sinking.

Art & Literature

Authors

LGBTQ+ Studies

Lesbian Studies

Funny

Happiness

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Witty

Thought-Provoking

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This is an honest and forthright account of Jeanette's life, her childhood and her eventual search for her birth mother. Some of the incidents, such as being put out on the doorstep were not unusual when I was growing up, so I related to the matter of fact way she related these childhood experiences. I tend to listen to books while in my car, this one, I listened to at every opportunity. I'd not seen or read 'Oranges', although I had heard of it. It's now on my list of things to read/watch at the next opportunity. Jeanette is a brave woman who has done much to promote the emancipation of women, and this book illustrates the pathway that led her there.