An Encyclopaedia of Myself

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LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2014‘A symphonic poem about postwar England and Englishness … A masterpiece’ Financial TimesThe 1950s were not grey. In Jonathan Meades’s de tailed, petit-point memoir they are luridly polychromatic. They were peopled by embittered grotesques, bogus majors, vicious spinsters, reckless bohos, pompous boors, drunks, suicides. Death went dogging everywhere. Salisbury had two industries: God and the Cold War. For the child, delight is to be found everywhere – in the intense observation of adult frailties, in landscapes and prepubescent sex, in calligraphy and in rivers.This memoir is an engrossing portrait of a disappeared provincial England, a time and place unpeeled with gruesome relish.In this autobiography, Meades offers a personal and detailed account of his life in the 1950s. It's one of the top memoirs of the era, showcasing the best and worst of postwar England.For fans of Rory Stewart (Politics On the Edge), Nick Duerden (Exit Stage Left), and A. N. Wilson (Confessions). Show more