Did You Really Shoot the Television?: A Family Fable
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(as of Nov 10, 2024 05:59:57 UTC – Details)
The author is the son of broadcaster and adventurer Macdonald Hastings, and journalist and gardening writer Anne Scott-James. Max’s father roamed the world for newspapers and as a presenter for BBC TV’s legendary ‘Tonight’ programme, while his mother edited ‘Harper’s Bazaar’, became a famous columnist and wrote bestselling gardening books. One of Max’s grandfathers was a literary editor, while the other wrote plays and essays. His great-uncle was an African hunter who wrote poetry and became one of Max’s heroes. In this audiobook, the author brings together this remarkable cast of forebears – with guest appearances by a host of celebrities such as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad and John Betjeman. By turns moving, dramatic and comic, the book portrays Max’s own childhood fraught with rows and explosions, in which the sudden death of a television set was only one highlight, and helps to explain why Max Hastings, whose family has produced more than 80 books over three generations, felt bound to follow their path of high adventure and popular journalism.
David D. Lawson –
A Good Solid Effort of a Family of Real Characters
Sir Max is quickly becoming one of my favorite storytellers. This Biography of his family of characters is both fascinating and funny. To say that they must be a handful for their neighbors would be an understatement.
Manly Reading –
Strangely engrossing
I have read and enjoyed Sir Max Hastings work for a while now; his writing is compelling and informative both. So when I saw this book for less than half price, I bought it. Then when I actually went to read it, I thought “hold on, this is just some self-indulgent twaddle about a clan of misunderstood artists and writers, of the sort usually left unpublished in attics”. Then I thought, “well yes, but Outdoor Days was a collection of used magazine articles about fishing, and I did enjoy that”. So I kept going. All in all, I’m glad I did.This is not an autobiography, despite the title, but more a “family history” of a particularly strange family not quite worthy of the treatment. Even aggregated together – as you must – I’m not sure there is enough here “of note” to sustain a true history. But throw in some personal memoir and, improbably, you have something both readable and accessable, in part because it’s a pretty unvarnished view, and in part because there is simply enough detail to shed light on the world of the past: England and South Africa of the late nineteenth century and onwards.It is once the book moves on to Max’s (I can’t just say Hastings, or you will never know which one!) parents, Mac and Anne, that the book really shines. It’s a paean to his father Mac, while acknowledging – even highlighting – the flaws and self-deceipts of the man, and a critical but ultimately admiring portrait of his mother, Anne. Max says that he wrote the book some time ago, but left it unpublished until her death, which in itself is a noteworthy comment, for all it’s a throwaway line.In the end, this book is a pleasant enough way to spend a few hours, alternatively amusing and troubling, and if nothing else an honest self-analysis of a family that at one glance appears dysfunctional, but as Max says, left him educated and employable (almost despite himself), and, it is clear, made him the man he is today. If that is not tribute enough to all involved…well I don’t know what is.
N. G. Booker –
Very good and entertaining memoir
Captain RH –
Hastings is a very entertaining author, and this is a good diversion from his usual blood and guts military history.
Peter T. –
Interesting read.
David Hughes –
good value
tipperary –
Yes I’d recommend it. It’s not going to be a classic but it’s easy and entertaining and you can safely give it to your maiden auntie. It’s now hardly this year’s present so go for the paperback, if there is such.