2.5
Life in a Cold Climate
ByPublisher Description
Nancy Mitford was, in the words of her sister Lady Diana Mosley, “very complex.” Her highly autobiographical early work, the biographies and novels of her more mature French period, her journalism, and the vast body of letters to her family, to friends such as Evelyn Waugh, and to the great love of her life, Gaston Palewski, all tell an intriguing story. Drawing from these, as well as conversations with Mitford’s two surviving sisters, acquaintances, and colleagues, prizewinning author Laura Thompson has fashioned a portrait of a contradictory and courageous woman. Approaching her subject with wit, perspicacity, and huge affection, Thompson makes her serious points lightly, eschewing clichés about the eccentricities of the Mitford clan. Life in a Cold Climate is full of the sound of Mitfordian laughter; but also tells the often paradoxical and complex story beneath the smiling and ever-elegant façade.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesLife in a Cold Climate Reviews
2.5
“The author switches back and forth between the reality of the Mitford family based on the various sisters' perceptions and the fictionalized Mitford in Nancy's writing so often that I'm not sure if this was a biography or literary review.”
“It was interesting but the biographer was so far up Nancy's arse sometimes they couldn't see straight, just seemed really sycophantic at times. Plus the author would constantly slide to stuff that happened in the future of that point, which is confusing if you don't know about the Mitford lives beforehand.”
“The author really liked Nancy and it showed. She did not whitewash the woman but also didn't focus on the negatives. Very enjoyable.”
About Laura Thompson
A writer and freelance journalist, Laura Thompson won the Somerset Maugham award for her first book, The Dogs, and is also the author of The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters, and Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, also available from Pegasus Books.
Other books by Laura Thompson
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