On Wheels

Regular price €16.99
A01=Michael Holroyd
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
augustus john
Author_Michael Holroyd
autobiographies
autobiography
autocar magazine
automatic-update
biographies
biographies and autobiographies
biography
boring car trivia
car magazines
cars
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGA
Category=DNBA
Category=DSBH
Category=WGCB
classic cars
comedians autobiographies
COP=United Kingdom
cycling
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
george bernard shaw
gifts for car lovers
golf
jeremy clarkson
Language_English
literary
lytton strachey
memoir
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
rolls royce
softlaunch
top gear
what car magazine

Product details

  • ISBN 9780701187439
  • Weight: 177g
  • Dimensions: 119 x 184mm
  • Publication Date: 01 Nov 2012
  • Publisher: Vintage Publishing
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

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Michael Holroyd confronts an army of automobiles in this charming book. Weaving together memoir and historical anecdote, he traces his relationship with cars through a lifetime of biography.

Learning to drive was no easy matter for Michael: the lessons required military precision when practising how to get in and out of his car correctly. His biographical subjects also had their difficulties: Bernard Shaw drove with reckless gusto when overtaking his eightieth year; Vita Sackville-West’s car became a chamber for sudden romantic assignations and getaways; while Augustus John and his family careered through vulnerable villages as the poor vehicle, piled high with bohemian friends, stuttered and jerked along in first gear.

Wry, thoughtful and very funny, On Wheels is an elegy to the glamour of the car. Subtle and perceptive, Michael Holroyd finds surprising ways to understand the past and challenge our view of the future.

Besides the Lives of Augustus John, Bernard Shaw and Lytton Strachey (which was filmed as Carrington), Michael Holroyd has written two volumes of memoirs, Basil Street Blues and Mosaic. A Strange Eventful History won the James Tait Black Prize, and was a biography of two great theatrical dynasties which included Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and her son Edward Gordon Craig. His most recent book, A Book of Secrets, combined memoir with biographies of a number of notable women. He has been president of the Royal Society of Literature and is the first non-fiction writer to have been awarded the British Literature Prize. He lives in London and Somerset with his wife, the novelist Margaret Drabble.