Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

our resident geinus, 17 Nov 2006
Although the material and take on life are completely different Alan Bennett shares with William S Burroughs a voice that just sucks you into the narrative and makes impossible thereafter to read without hearing the voice in your head. I seldom buy spoken word recordings but sometimes it is a must. Having read (or not ) the books I can close my eyes and be transported in the same way that music works, which is saying something from my perspective.

I haven't actaually heard this yet but I do have 3 others by him and I know in advance that it cannot be recommend too highly.

The mundaity of it all speaks to and for all of us and above everything else it is the honesty and truth that humbles us. Alan knows that the smallest things have the biggest impact.

A definite hit with me.

Entertaining, 02 Feb 2006
I bought this book with a gift certificate. I am not from England so much of the geography and names go right over me. However, there is a style of writing here that attracts me to every page. It is almost as if I have known A Bennett or he has known me all my/his life. I am sharing his thoughts and deeds throught these years. Mr Bennett is very understated.

Listen with Alan, 15 Dec 2005
Listening to Alan Bennett reading his work adds an extra dimension - it's rather like an old friend confiding his private and personal memories. I'm not a fan of audiobooks but this one's an exception and worth replaying.

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

our resident geinus, 17 Nov 2006
Although the material and take on life are completely different Alan Bennett shares with William S Burroughs a voice that just sucks you into the narrative and makes impossible thereafter to read without hearing the voice in your head. I seldom buy spoken word recordings but sometimes it is a must. Having read (or not ) the books I can close my eyes and be transported in the same way that music works, which is saying something from my perspective.

I haven't actaually heard this yet but I do have 3 others by him and I know in advance that it cannot be recommend too highly.

The mundaity of it all speaks to and for all of us and above everything else it is the honesty and truth that humbles us. Alan knows that the smallest things have the biggest impact.

A definite hit with me.

Entertaining, 02 Feb 2006
I bought this book with a gift certificate. I am not from England so much of the geography and names go right over me. However, there is a style of writing here that attracts me to every page. It is almost as if I have known A Bennett or he has known me all my/his life. I am sharing his thoughts and deeds throught these years. Mr Bennett is very understated.

Listen with Alan, 15 Dec 2005
Listening to Alan Bennett reading his work adds an extra dimension - it's rather like an old friend confiding his private and personal memories. I'm not a fan of audiobooks but this one's an exception and worth replaying.

Good book about a fascinating figure, 17 Nov 2008
I grew up on a (literary) diet of Enid Blyton's books: first the Faraway Tree and later the Famous Five. I loved them all and it wasn't until i reached my teens that i became aware she was a controversial figure, accused of being a reactionary who dumbed down children's vocabularies.

This biography shows what a remarkable individual Enid Blyton actually was: a self-made woman in an age when women were still expected to just marry and procreate, a vivid and compulsive - yet also repetitive - writer, a keen educator of children who was however distant to her own, a universal mother figure who in many ways remained a perpetual child. Finally we reach the final pages of the book and her harrowing descent into dementia ending in her death.

Curiously, my overall feeling after finishing the biography was vindication: because as flawed and limited as Enid Blyton may have been, she was also a true original in her own way.

Somehow I wanted more, 25 Jan 2008
I have always found Enid Blyton a facinating character, but somehow this book failed to give me the insight that I expected. The book is a good read but, like Enid you never get under the skin. Perhaps I am being unfair as I wanted to understand her inspiration, this is touched on but never fully explored, also documentary evidence, ex-pupils, ex-employees, publishers and family do not seem to have been interviewed. I know Enid Blyton was a very private person and this book just confirmed that to me.

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human character and life in 1940s Leeds is pure plessure. Mam, Dad,Grandma and Aunt Eveline will live with you forever. No matter if you grew up in the war years or like me were not born till much latter you can't help wanting a part of Bennetts Leeds. The feelings of a young boy and the accute observations of the writer looking back shine through. The observations of family and hometown are so accurate you think outloud yes that happen to me. Long live Alan Bennett.

Nostalgia for the Yorkshire of 60 years ago, 31 Dec 2000
Yorkshire people live their lives in ever-decreasing circles, according to a recent report in the Yorkshire Evening Post. A majority of them, we are told, live within 12 miles of their mothers. For a Yorkshireman about to leave this womb-like comfort zone and move to the dreaming spires of Oxford, it seemed a good idea to feed my nostalgia in advance by reading Bennett's Tales. Bennett, the "lad from Armley", has been the archetypal professional Yorkshireman on TV, radio and in print for many years now, but this latest collection is a supreme distillation of his memories of a particular time and place. My own memories are about ten years behind Bennett's, but he has the gift of making that world so real, so vivid - even in its very ordinariness and, often, its drabness. His eye for whimsical detail is second to none. Of the many of his idle ramblings which stick in the mind, my favourite is his musing on the typical first names of nursing home residents. Currently, the trend is for Harolds, Walters, and Dorises - to be replaced over the coming decades by Waynes, Darrens and Kevins. ("You're our first Kevin", he reports one matron excitedly telling a new inmate). My only reservation is that the fare is spread a little thinly - only 95 pages...which raises a very serious issue for Yorkshiremen about whether we are getting value for money. This is why I have withheld the final star from an otherwise impeccable book.

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

Life as it is lived - with humour and insight, 05 Jul 2008
The Last Cigarette is the third volume of playwright Simon Gray's diaries which he began with The Smoking Diaries.back in 2004. Its not easy to categorise these books - I've chosen "diaries", for most of the time they record daily events over the course of a year or so, but also slip back to descriptions of events in the past. The free-form, conversational style gives the reader the impression that he's almost feel that you're listening to Simon Gray while chatting in a bar - which is not surprising because apparently he writes his diaries on an A4 pad, whenever he finds himself alone in a café, bar or hotel room.

The diaries contain a wide range of topics - descriptions of holidays in Greece and Barbados, the period when his play Butley was being produced on Broadway, stories about student days at Cambridge and early girlfriends, and underlying it all, Gray's love/hate relationship with cigarettes and his attempts to stop smoking. Needless to say, we never actually reach the "last cigarette" by the end of the book, despite countless struggles during earlier chapters.

What is so appealing about the books are their extreme, almost painful truthfulness. Gray makes no attempt to make himself seem a more attractive character. He describes his weaknesses and his failings with complete candour, and many readers will recognise their own behaviour in Gray's diaries.

This is not to say Gray's diaries are all introspective - far from it. There are many humerous sections, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the lost airline baggage, the Greek taxi-driver, the pest controller, and many other amusing episodes.

We also read of many of Gray's literary and theatrical friends, and it is moving to read of dinners with Harold Pinter and his wife Antonia Fraser during Pinter's illnesses. Gray gives many insights into Pinter's character, particulary his rages, which contrast so greatly with his general gentleness and tenderness. I think many of Gray's personal reminiscences of Pinter would provide important material for future biographers.

A final section of the book is set in Broadway, where Gray's play "Butley" was being revived, forty years after he wrote it. We read of a telephone call Gray receives from the producer while on holiday in Greece, asking if Gray could re-write the final scene in order to accommodate the deficiencies of one of the actors, who is having difficulty in mastering the correct English tone to his part. Gray knows in his gut that the real solution is to sack the deficient actor, but everyone on the cast speaks so warmly of him that he goes along with the re-write. This proves to be far more difficult than expected: by changing one line, you affect others, and by changing one act, you have to make sure that earlier acts are consistent with it, and so on. The re-write is typed on a tiny hand-held Blackberry in an hotel bed-room, and Gray rapidly sees that his initial compliance with the director's wishes in not insisting that the actor be fired is escalating out of control.

I find these "Smoking Diaries" beguiling, mostly because of their candour. The books almost give the reader permission to be "real". I seriously doubt that Gray had any outcome like this in mind when he wrote them, but by the end of each volume you might feel that you have felt that one other person at least messes up in the same way as you.

As good as Jeff Barnard, 08 Jun 2008
There is something similar about the Simon Gray diaries and Jeff Bernard's old Low Life column but this is if anything even more readable and it would be hard not to empathise with Gray. I love his observations and frank turn of phrase. His best installment yet. Hard not to love

our resident geinus, 17 Nov 2006
Although the material and take on life are completely different Alan Bennett shares with William S Burroughs a voice that just sucks you into the narrative and makes impossible thereafter to read without hearing the voice in your head. I seldom buy spoken word recordings but sometimes it is a must. Having read (or not ) the books I can close my eyes and be transported in the same way that music works, which is saying something from my perspective.

I haven't actaually heard this yet but I do have 3 others by him and I know in advance that it cannot be recommend too highly.

The mundaity of it all speaks to and for all of us and above everything else it is the honesty and truth that humbles us. Alan knows that the smallest things have the biggest impact.

A definite hit with me.

Entertaining, 02 Feb 2006
I bought this book with a gift certificate. I am not from England so much of the geography and names go right over me. However, there is a style of writing here that attracts me to every page. It is almost as if I have known A Bennett or he has known me all my/his life. I am sharing his thoughts and deeds throught these years. Mr Bennett is very understated.

Listen with Alan, 15 Dec 2005
Listening to Alan Bennett reading his work adds an extra dimension - it's rather like an old friend confiding his private and personal memories. I'm not a fan of audiobooks but this one's an exception and worth replaying.

Good book about a fascinating figure, 17 Nov 2008
I grew up on a (literary) diet of Enid Blyton's books: first the Faraway Tree and later the Famous Five. I loved them all and it wasn't until i reached my teens that i became aware she was a controversial figure, accused of being a reactionary who dumbed down children's vocabularies.

This biography shows what a remarkable individual Enid Blyton actually was: a self-made woman in an age when women were still expected to just marry and procreate, a vivid and compulsive - yet also repetitive - writer, a keen educator of children who was however distant to her own, a universal mother figure who in many ways remained a perpetual child. Finally we reach the final pages of the book and her harrowing descent into dementia ending in her death.

Curiously, my overall feeling after finishing the biography was vindication: because as flawed and limited as Enid Blyton may have been, she was also a true original in her own way.

Somehow I wanted more, 25 Jan 2008
I have always found Enid Blyton a facinating character, but somehow this book failed to give me the insight that I expected. The book is a good read but, like Enid you never get under the skin. Perhaps I am being unfair as I wanted to understand her inspiration, this is touched on but never fully explored, also documentary evidence, ex-pupils, ex-employees, publishers and family do not seem to have been interviewed. I know Enid Blyton was a very private person and this book just confirmed that to me.


A lot of waffle by hangers on, 30 Oct 2008
Seems to be written by hangers-on. You get very little sense of Hunter S Thompson as a user of language in this book, and the references to any kind of music are few and far between. It's like if I went to a load of Norman Mailer's cocktail parties and then tried to pass myself off as his best mate by describing how many times he stumbled when drunk.

Witty and Funny... but lacks order and structure..., 29 Oct 2008
I'm a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson and try to read and see everything about the outlaw journalist, however Kitchen Readings, which is filled with some interesting and fun stories and strange facts about Gonzo, it isn't the best written book and often lose interest in the story teller.

It does however make you laugh and provide some clear insight into the man .. Hunter S. Thompson was reckless and fun individual and had a way with words.

If your a fan.. you'll love the stories told in the book, not how its written.

Heart-rending and bittersweet, 05 Nov 2008
I enjoyed this book, even though the subject matter is dark and the overall tone of the book is rather melancholy. He writes extremely well; the only mild irritant is his tendency to waffle on and on, making a sentence extremely long and sometimes a little boring and you begin to wonder when he will finally place a full stop.A little like that!
On the whole though, highly recommended and can be read as a ' stand alone ' book, although it is beneficial to have read The Smoking Diaries.

What a life and what a terrific contribution to the theatre!, 26 Aug 2008
I am so happy that Simon Gray saw a significant re-birth of his career (and in the general interest in him as a writer) in the final years of his life. I simply loved the Richard E. Grant helmed production of "Otherwise Engaged" and Gray's "Little Nell" is a fine, thoughtful play that will find its place someday.

The Smoking Diaries are a fitting (and accomplished) final contribution from this very interesting and complicated man. That Simon Gray was able to record them on CD is all the more exciting because you may now hear Simon Gray eternally. (A good thing I assure you!) Would that so many others had the opportunity to do the same!

A saving grace, 18 Jun 2003
I bought Alan Bennett's books on tape for my mother. She used to listen to them in bed at night, lying in the dark as Bennett's gentle, querulous voice described the minutiae of his family life in all its banal detail, illuminated by his wonderful observation and humour. Any one of his sentences will raise a smile. A whole book's-worth leaves you glowing with a feeling that all of our lives are equally full of this richness. How could they not be, when Bennett has found so much in what appears to be such a constrained and circumscribed world? He is indeed a national institution and we are fortunate that his voice on tape is perfectly equal to the poignancy and intimacy of his writing.

Alan Bennett - Telling Tales, 14 Feb 2002
In this most superbly written autobiography, Alan Bennett turns his well observed prose onto his own past and vividly recreates and relives his childhood and youth for us over 10 seperate chapters.
These 10 chapters are like snapshots - all are immensely readable and are full of Bennett's wry observations of working class life, the pecularities and foibles of his own family and his ever present awareness of the effect change has on a family holding itself together day-by-day with the spectre of World War II ever present in the book.

Bennett succeeds in bringing his wartime world to life as we enter a world of family picnics out on the moors and singing on a Sunday around the piano (with his enduring Aunt Eveline) Food - and in particular 'fancy' food gets the Bennett treatment, as his mother, Lilian, remarks on the growing popularity of new ingredients in salad "all the boundaries are coming down". A must for all Bennett fans and a good entry point for those who are new to his writing also.

A Total Delight, 02 Oct 2001
The mixture as before, warmth, charm, humour and a wonderful eye (and ear) for detail. Most people of the World War II generation will have similar memories, and for the younger listener these short tales bring to life, as does little else, what life was like more than half a century ago. The subject matter may be 'ordinary', but there is nothing ordinary in the way Bennett recounts it. He is one of the great joys of English literature and his inimical reading of his own texts is a source of constant delight.

From cover to cover - pure plessure, 19 Mar 2001
This was a present and one which I shall treassue. The tales of family habbits, obersavitons of the human charact