Product Description
My Animals and Other Family
Author: Julia Blackburn
Format: Hardback
In these five stories Julia Blackburn recalls the significant animals in her life and in so doing gives us a sidelong glance at the human members of her family, her painter mother and poet father.
First comes Congo the bush baby, from the jungles of Madagascar via Harrods pet department. He slept in an old cap on the back of the door, and could leap about the room via the picture rails. Then there are tropical fish, tortoises, chickens, guinea pigs, foxes (the last three a combustible combination), pigs, and two very distinctive dogs, Julia's own dog, Jason, a cocker spaniel whose habits of servility and loyalty Julia's father, Thomas, was determined to undo ('He's worse than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, fawning at my heels!') and Henry, a Parson Jack Russell terrier that Thomas got after his divorce, a dog of great independence, dignity and forbearance, whom his master used to take mountaineering.
This is a delightful book, wry, funny and wise, and unmistakably the work of Julia Blackburn.
About the Author
Julia Blackburn has written a number of books of non-fiction, fiction and poetry. Time Song was shortlisted for the Wainwright Book Prize, Threads won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award and the New Angle Prize, Thin Paths was shortlisted for the Costa Prize for Biography, and The Three of Us won the J.R. Ackerley Award. Her two novels, The Book of Colour and The Leper’s Companions, were both shortlisted for the Women's Prize. She lives in Suffolk and Italy.
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