Long Life

Rating:
Summary: Engaging and first-rate
Review: Much of Long Life will be familiar to regular readers of The Spectator, but Nicolson's book is delightful nonetheless. From his father he inherited the ability to write well, and utterly without pretension; from his mother he learned how to make words and phrases sing. Nicolson does not shed his English reserve, but we learn just enough of him and his life to want to know much more. Somehow it is reassuring to think of him sitting in the gazebo at Sissinghurst, gazing out over the flower-ringed moat in the summertime. To Nigel: an even longer life!

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious
Review: Very pretentious. Nicolson comes from the upper middle class in England and writes as if the reader should be familiar with the mores and values of his class. His continuous name-dropping (2/3 of whom I have never heard of), the occasional French phrase and references to places, ideas and times in an idiom that puzzles the reader who does not mix in the same circles shows that Nicolson has written his book for the insider. NOT RECOMMENDED.