Quote: Ben @ September 12 2010, 11:12 AM BSTConfessions of a Chatroom Freak by Mr Biffo. It's making me laugh so much that I'm crying and my ribs hurt.
I'm reading this now on Ben's recommendation. It's funnier than a Guinea Pig's lips!
What are you reading right now? Page 111
Stephen Fry's new autobiography.
I cannot wait to get that. His first one was brilliant.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ September 22 2010, 11:59 AM BSTStephen Fry's new autobiography.
You have the actual physical book or ebook?
Quote: Kenneth @ September 22 2010, 12:10 PM BSTYou have the actual physical book or ebook?
The physical book.
Quote: zooo @ September 22 2010, 12:01 PM BSTI cannot wait to get that. His first one was brilliant.
I quite like Stephen Fry but I don't think you should ever be able to apply the phrase 'the first one' to anyone's autobiography. People should write them when they are retired!
Ha!
Usually yes, but Stephen's done so much stuff! And he's so good at writing about it. His first one only took us up to before uni, and the uni bit is what I've been looking forward to. Hugh Laurie, all the other luvvies, starting in comedy. Woo!
So there will be more after this?!
Quote: PhQnix @ September 22 2010, 12:13 PM BST... I don't think you should ever be able to apply the phrase 'the first one' to anyone's autobiography. People should write them when they are retired!
If clever writers retired before embarking on an autobiography, we'd have no autobiographies from them. Spike Milligan, Winston Churchill, Peter O'Toole and Barry Humphries all wrote two or more volumes of autobiography covering different periods in their lives. Dennis Waterman, alas, has given us only one volume of memoirs in the form of ReMinder. Much more exciting is the fact that the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography is to be published in November - as he instructed, 100 years after his death.
I think he is planning another at some point, yes. But there were years and years between writing these two, so it shouldn't be for a while!
(He did say that when he originally started writing the first, he was planning to cover his whole life in just that one book, but it didn't work out.)
Quote: PhQnix @ September 22 2010, 12:23 PM BSTSo there will be more after this?!
Most likely.
It just seems that splicing up the chapters of a persons life in this manner is rooted more in money making than any other reason. I'm just being cynical, I guess.
Ah, well I don't think Fry is too desperate for money. In most cases you'd be right though.
Peter Kay, for example.
Quote: zooo @ September 22 2010, 1:04 PM BSTAh, well I don't think Fry is too desperate for money. In most cases you'd be right though.
Peter Kay, for example.
Not in the case of writers such as Spike Milligan, Roald Dahl, Churchill, Barry Humphries, Peter O'Toole and Graham Greene. It's often a matter of finding the time to do the writing and realizing it can't all be put in one book, so it gets done in installments, giving the writer more time. And in some cases, a publisher's deadline has to be met, so the book finishes before all is told. Had but Barry Letts managed to write his second volume of autobiography before he died. I doubt he was writing in installments because of greed.
What are you reading right now?
Sadly I am reading posts on this goddamn website again. It's like a scab you just can't leave alone.. and then the pus.. mmm.. and regret..