132,656
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchTo School Through The Fields by Alice Taylor (view source)
Revision as of 16:21, 24 September 2020
, 16:21, 24 September 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=To School Through The Fields
|author=Alice Taylor
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=160
|publisher=Brandon
|date=March 2010
|isbn=978-0863224218
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0863224210|aznus=<amazonus>0863224210</amazonus>
}}
First published in 1988, ''To School Through the Fields'', now available in a new reprint, apparently became Ireland’s Ireland's biggest selling memoir of all time. I did enjoy reading this but found it a little disappointing.
To School Through the Fields is the memoir of a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in the 1940s (though the book never mentions the date of when it is set). Taylor makes it clear at the beginning that she is writing a nostalgic look back at the era of her childhood, before the ''changing winds of time'' and then presents a series of anecdotes about her parents, her family and some of the other characters who lived in her village.
''So please come back with me, to where we had time to be children and life moved at a different pace.''
This kind of statement is repeated several times and I found these efforts to evoke nostalgia for the past a bit clichéd and irritating. Perhaps this book is not aimed at cynics like me. That said, I did enjoy reading it and would probably pick up another volume of Alice Taylor’s memoirs or one of her three novels if I saw them in the library. Thank you to the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag. We also have a review of [[The Village by Alice Taylor|The Village]] and [[The Parish by Alice Taylor|The Parish]], both by Alice Taylor.
Another gentle look at rural life (in England) is [[Christmas at Thrush Green by Miss Read]]. [[Struggle or Starve by Carole White and Sian Williams|Struggle or Starve]] is an anthology of autobiographical writing about life in the South Wales mining community between the wars. [[I'll Tell Me Ma: A Childhood Memoir by Brian Keenan|I’ll Tell Me Ma]] by Brian Keenan is about a more urban childhood in 1950s Belfast. Another enjoyable though very different memoir is Lynn Barber’s [[An Education by Lynn Barber|An Education]]. It's literary fiction, but we think that you might also enjoy [[Ghost Moth by Michele Forbes]].
{{amazontext|amazon=0863224210}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=71453440863224210}}
{{commenthead}}
