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Party Animals
David Aaronovitch
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Description for Party Animals
Hardcover. The Russian cosmonaut was everything the Aaronovitch family wished for a popular and handsome embodiment of modern communism. But who were they, these ever hopeful, defiant and historically doomed people? Like a non-magical version of the wizards of J K Rowling's world, they lived secretly with and parallel to the non-communist majority. Num Pages: 320 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBK; 3JJP; BM; JPFC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 165 x 242 x 32. Weight in Grams: 560. Good copy with some minor shelf wear. Dustwrapper with minor edge wear but remains good
'An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.' Helen Davies, a Sunday Times Book of the Year In July 1961, just before David Aaronovitch's seventh birthday, Yuri Gagarin came to London. The Russian cosmonaut was everything the Aaronovitch family wished for - a popular and handsome embodiment of modern communism. But who were they, these ever hopeful, defiant and (had they but known it) historically doomed people? Like a non-magical version of the wizards of J. K. Rowling's world, they lived secretly with ... Read moreand parallel to the non-communist majority, sometimes persecuted, sometimes ignored, but carrying on their own ways and traditions. Where others went to church they went to Socialist Sunday School, society’s up was their down and its heroes were their villains. Who wanted American TV when you could have Russian movies? A memoir of early life among communists, Party Animals first took David Aaronovitch back through his own memories of belief and action. But there was much more to it. He found himself studying the old secret service files, uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background to his own existence as a party animal. Only then did he begin to understand what had come before – both the obstinate heroism and the monstrous cowardice. And the elements that shape our fondest beliefs. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Jonathan Cape London
Condition
Used, Very Good
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About David Aaronovitch
David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his wife, three daughters and Kerry Blue the terrier. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a ... Read moreSunday Times top ten bestseller. Show Less
Reviews for Party Animals
"An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging."
Helen Davies
Sunday Times, Book of the Year
"Compassionate and wise… An effervescent and essential writer."
Nick Cohen
Observer
"David Aaronovitch is to be congratulated on his Le Carre like sleuthing into ... Read morethe deceits and self-delusions of his parents and their communist friends. He has produced a wise, funny and sometimes heart-breaking account of how otherwise good and nice people are capable of believing a load of total and utter b
ll
cks about the world, the class system and themselves. It is an invocation of a vanished tribe that is still relevant, alas, to the Britain of Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone and Owen Jones, I loved it."
Boris Johnson "Party Animals is an utterly engaging and truly humane story about fitting in, opting out, and finding meaning. Unflinchingly honest, it is by turns harrowing and hilarious. Not since Clive James's Falling Towards England has there been a memoir so clearly destined to become a classic in its own time."
Amanda Foreman "David Aaronovitch has written a compelling account of the Communist mindset in post-war Britain: a superb mix of social history, Marxist philosophy and often painful family biography. It is a hugely revelatory insight into a lost world and its modern legacies."
Tristram Hunt "A raw…extraordinary new memoir-cum-social history… Vivid and moving."
Rachel Cooke
Observer
"The extraordinarily gripping final section… elevates his book above similar memoirs by other children of party members… Tremendously frank, often moving."
Dominic Sandbrook
Sunday Times
"A colourful, sentimental, damning and funny part-history, part-autobiography. That is, until an extraordinarily brutal final chapter… [that] reveals Party Animals to be more than just a revealing memoir, but, hopefully, Mr Aaronovitch’s catharsis."
Mark Leftly
Independent on Sunday
"Deeply personal… A clever and moving portrait of a strange, unexplored subculture, of dedicated self-education by desperately poor young men, of undoubtedly good causes adopted for the advancement of a wicked and dangerous purpose."
Peter Hitchens
Mail on Sunday
"A rich and forensic examination, all the more uncomfortable for its honesty and the authoritative knowledge of Left-wing politics that Aaronovitch brings to it … Like Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, this is a riveting autobiography that forces you to think about your own family history."
Evening Standard
"An uncommonly gripping book, not just as political or social history…but as an account of the lies that families tell themselves to survive."
Robert Hanks
Daily Telegraph
"An honest portrait of communist obsession… A stirring personal yet expansive history of the ideals his committed communist parents strived towards… Aaronovitch fuses his adolescent memories with historical landmarks in the communist way of life… A memoir’s reach is too narrow, a historical biography’s too vast. Party Animals is a smart and well-balanced mix."
Guy Pewsey
Independent
"In his closely observed memoir…Aaronovitch has concentrated both the tragedy and comedy of western communism into a family, his own… The description Aaronovitch gives of his family and of the Party community is rich, subtle and poignant… The best thing he has done."
John Lloyd
Financial Times
"A painfully honest memoir."
John Sutherland
The Times
"Aaronovitch’s song of love and pain for the lost family of British communism."
Martin Kettle
Guardian
"By turns affectionate, brutal and hilarious."
Lucy Kellaway
Financial Times
"A sensitive analysis of his own family."
The Economist
"A raw and perspicacious book [written] with the honesty and elan that readers of his Times column admire."
Terry Philpot
The Tablet
"The book shows how deep the religious impulse is in human beings… His memoir is a salutary lesson in the human craving for a cause to believe in – and the wrong paths such a craving can take."
Francis Phillips
Catholic Herald
"Brilliantly written."
Mark Perryman
UK Press Syndication
"Party Animals is… a moving account of a tormented family, a tale of rigid disbelief and dishonesty that was sometimes domestic and sometimes spanned the globe."
Alexei Sayle
Guardian
"In this fascinating memoir, Aaronovitch describes what it was like growing up in a family of Communists… It’s a witty, sad and extremely moving story."
Simon Shaw
Mail on Sunday
"David Aaronovitch tells the story of his upbringing in a fervently Communist household in a very engaging and witty style… An unusual blend of history and biography and it shows what can happen when personal and political life becomes entwined."
Maxine Forshaw
Nudge
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