- Published: 2 January 2012
- ISBN: 9780099548942
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $22.99
A Book of Secrets
Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
- Published: 2 January 2012
- ISBN: 9780099548942
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $22.99
A subtle paean to the art of biography. It is a biographical experiment, but a deeply humane and sensitive one. It glows with the energy of lives investigated, restored, reanimated and celebrated.
Sarah Bakewell, Sunday Times
Here, he has given us the distilled essence of biography and a fitting end to what he evokes as "the comedy of life".
Lisa Appignanesi, Observer
As is always the case with Holroyd, the reader comes away equally inspired, equally curious, and lavishly entertained by a story-teller of the first rank
Scotsman
A small gem of humanity, curiosity and observation with a wonderful, rolling undercurrent of comedy
Sunday Telegraph
Scintillating... Holroyd's book is a sly, inconclusive and utterly bewitching dance through the elusive narrative echoes that make up the biographer's art
Metro
A prince among biographers
Boyd Tonkin, Independent, Christmas round up
Beautifully and immaculately written
Country Life
[The book] displays all the wisdom of a long life in a story linking the author with the lives of three extraordinary women connected over the centuries by an opulent Amalfi Coast villa
Psychologies Magazine - Mariella Frostrup
A touching story of human frailty
Leslie McDowell, Independent on Sunday
Humane and sensitive, his book glows with the energy of lives restored, reanimated and celebrated
Sarah Bakewell, Sunday Times
A masterly blend of biography and memoir
Ian Pindar, Guardian
A sly meditation on the biographer's art from a master of the genre
Metro
An accomplished biographer's tale, with a roaming narrative and many incidental pleasures on the way
Derwent May, The Times