Wednesday 7th January 2009
Essential Stats
- Pages: 448
- Published: Thursday 11th September 2008
- Edition: New title
- Dimensions: 24cm tall, 16cm wide, 4cm thick
- Weight: 699 grams
- ISBN: 009179708X
- RRP:
£20.00 - Availability at Amazon UK:
Entirely Up to You, Darling Cover
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Reviews
This is a showbiz book and all the better for that. As such it does not pretend to present warts and all. It is however a fascinating picture of life at the top to be taken with the customary very small gain of salt. The insights are truly amazing and believable Michael Stevens
This is a very interesting book, but rather flawed.
From the book front cover you may believe it is Richard Attenborough's life story, but look closely at the bottom of the front cover, and in small writing it says "and Diana Hawkins"
From that I assumed she had ghost written the book, as often happens with these life stories of the famous. But in fact it is both their life stories running side by side.
Diana Hawkins worked with Richard as publicity manager on many of his films such as Ghandi, Chorus Line and so on, so they shared many areas of their life.
I believe the book is flawed for two reasons:
Firstly, the text alternates between Richard and Diana. Text for Richard begins "RA" and he writes for a page or two, then we get "DH" and Diana writes for a page or two.
This itself is a bit disconcerting, just as you are getting used to what Richard is saying we switch to Diana, then back again.
This is not too bad when they are discussing the same topic, such as the making of Ghandi, or the publicity tour for Chorus Line, but can become annoying when they are discussing different phases of their lives.
The second "flaw" is that the book follow no logical sequence.
It starts with a detailed look at how Ghandi was made, but then Richard starts talking about his early life, and Diana starts talking about her early life (at which point one asks "do I care").
We then go back to Ghandi, then we get Richard talking about his life in the war and his early career, and Diana talking about her marital problems, then we go on to Chorus line, and so it goes on.
So it is bad enough we are jumping back and forth between Richard talking, then Diana talking, but we are also jumping back and forth between the background to making a particular film, and then some aspect of their personal lives.
At times I almost feel as though Richard wrote his sections in two page chunks, and Diana wrote her sections in two page chunks, then they threw all the pages up in the air and put them together in random order.
There is a good book in here waiting to get out (maybe two), and the behind the scenes stories about the making of his most famous films is fascinating, but I am afraid trying to tell two life stories side by side in same book just does not work for me.
A book by Richard and Diana JUST about making the films would have been good, or a book JUST about Richard's life would have been good, but a book combining everything is too much.
Having said all that, Richard comes across as an wonderful person (as do his parents and family) and it certainly made me feel very guilty when I saw how much work Richard and his family have done to ease the suffering in the world.
Sum up: Amazing man, flawed book.
Entirely Up to You, Darling
Another amazing book for the great man .... a must for Christmas. Actually, buy one for yourself and one for somoene else!
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