Книги, похожие на «Marie NDiaye, Self-Portrait in Green»

A lyrical, evocative and wonderfully original wartime memoir about life on a farm in the Cotswolds, seen through the eyes of a child.‘Bertie, May and Mrs Fish’ is Xandra Bingley’s account of her childhood on a Cotswold farm, set against the backdrop of World War II and its aftermath. Bingley’s mother is left to farm the land, isolated in the landscape, whilst her husband is away at war. With its eccentric cast of characters, this book captures both the essence of a country childhood and the remarkable courage and resilience displayed by ordinary people during the war. The beauty and sensitivity of Bingley’s observation is artfully balanced by the harshness and grit of her reality.‘In the cowshed my mother ties her hair in a topknot scarf that lies on the feedbin lid. At five-thirty each morning and four o’clock in the afternoons she chases rats off the mangers. She measures cowcake and rolled oats and opens the bottom cowshed door. Thirty-one brown and white Ayrshires and one brindle Jersey tramp into their stalls…’‘Two thousand acres. A mile of valley. Horses cattle sheep pigs poultry. Snow above the lintels of the downstairs windows. Her fingers swelling. Chilblains. Her long white kid gloves wrapped around a leaky pipe in her bedroom. Knotted at the fingers. She has a lot to learn and no one to teach her. Accidents happen.'Bingley tells her tale in a startling voice which captures the universe of a child, the unforgiving landscape and the complicated adult world surrounding her. Her acute observation, and her gift for place, people, sound and touch make this a brilliantly authentic and evocative portrait.

David Lovelace, along with his brother and both his parents, is bipolar. This is his extraordinary and vivid memoir of life within his memorable, maddening, loving and unique family.Full Blown is Lovelace's poignant, humorous, and vivid account of growing up and coming to terms with the highs and lows of manic depression.David's father was a Princeton-trained theology professor deemed too eccentric for the ministry and his mother battled depression all her life. Manic episodes were part of family life – they called them the 'whim-whams'. David was a teenager when his first serious depression hit, and at college when he first became manic. He ran to escape it – to Mexico, South America and then New York, to drugs and alcohol – before he realised the futility of running.A father himself, a son and a brother, David's matter-of-fact approach to growing up surrounded by the unique creativity often sparked by manic depression is compelling. In the vein of Stuart, A Life Backwards and Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors , David’s poetic ability to detail the unique highs and harrowing lows makes a remarkable and gripping read.