No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader

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Mad Men star Alison Brie has her Baywatch moment in a red bikini on Australia's Gold Coast while in town filming Apples Never Fall Preston Polytechnic was no better than Hodkinson’s school. His journalism course was on a par with diplomas in hairdressing and dry-stone walling. He proceeded to work on —and is funny about — provincial newspapers, where sour old editors relished crushing ‘enthusiasm and initiative’. My dad considered reading and writing to be predominantly a feminine pastime, much the same as, say, sewing or netball...Dad didn’t know any writers or anything about them. The men he knew worked with their hands, fixing cars, building houses or toiling at lathes. They married young. They played sports together, drank together. They didn’t retreat to their bedrooms, choosing solitariness ahead of the street, park or pub. Cent takes a swipe at Diddy after he's sued by a third woman claiming he choked and raped her... shortly after settling lawsuit with ex Cassie With a fast rhythm which feels orally based, the writing style suits the structure. In discussing what for him is an epiphanic text, a cliché of writers’ autobiographies, Hodkinson comments on his literary idol J D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, “the talk-writing, how simple it appeared” (84). This inspires him to believe “I could become an author” (84). This style of “talk-writing” may be particularly a feature of working-class autobiographies. The style of Michael Collins’s The Likes of Us, about working-class South London, is similar, as is David John Douglass’s Geordies—Wa Mental. Reasons for this orally influenced style could be that autobiography is essentially told in the first person, and also, perhaps, the limits of the writer’s formal education. Hodkinson is clearly enthusiastic and knowledgeable about literature and certain areas of music but his pronouncements have the originality and eccentricity of the autodidact.

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Demi Moore leaves yoga class after ex Bruce Willis spotted driving around town amid his battle with dementia Many readers will doubtless relate to Mark Hodkinson's memoir of growing up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

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My parents drank tea,’ says Hodkinson, because coffee was ‘considered hoity-toity’, wine was unheard of and his mother couldn’t believe cheesecake was a dessert, so served it with chips. Dinner was at noon, tea was the evening meal, and no one dreamt of eating out in a restaurant, as that was a pretentious waste of money and not for the likes of us. So this is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about schools (bad), music (good) and the people (some mad, a few sane), and pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors (some bad, mostly good) that led the way, shaped a life. If only coincidentally, it relates how writing and reading has changed, as the Manor House novel gave way to the kitchen sink drama and working-class writers found the spotlight (if only briefly). In No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy I saw reflected my own experience of growing up in an almost bookless household. Hodkinson's imagery and sparks of comedy make it an enjoyable read, and his Northern, gravelly narration adds to its realism. For example, this description a school rubgy lesson in chapter four:Hodkinson was told never to set his sights higher than becoming a trainee manager at Marks & Spencer. Pictured: Mark Hodkinson as a child No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is a great book that any lifelong reader will probably relate to. There are loads of similarities with my own story, and inevitably loads of differences too. Mark is roughly the same age as me and, like anyone of our age, our lives are composed of a giant dichotomy separated by the appearance of mass-participation Internet in the middle of it. I can so relate to the isolation of the early years. Mark was perhaps more isolated than me, because of his school and family home, but it's poignant recalling just how hard it was to find out anything and things like discovering great books like Catcher In The Rye more or less by accident just happened from time to time. Younger people just will not get that bit. I was impressed with the author’s recall of books he read at a young age. As he saw it, music and books were a means to build your personality. At the same time as he was absorbing fiction he was also learning to be a journalist, playing in a band and writing music columns. Despite all these many calls on his time he read furiously, always aware of that goal of wanting to be a writer. Despite writing regular newspaper columns, and then commissioned biographies, it was only the creation of a novel that would allow him to properly call himself a writer. Would YOU be able to tell these doughnuts are healthier? From Double Chocolate to Peanut Caramel Protein and Strawberry Cheesecake - these treats all have less, fat, sugar AND calories