Cover

Brief Lives

W. F. Deedes

Unabridged
6 hours 51 minutes
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Unabridged
6 hours 51 minutes
Note: Costs may be incurred for playing the audio books or audio plays on the respective platforms, e.g. Spotify. Lismio has no influence on which audiobooks and audio plays are available on the service.
Some articles contain affiliate links (marked with an asterisk *). If you click on these links and purchase products, we will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your support helps to keep this site running and to continue creating useful content. Thank you for your support!

From the publisher

In this eclectic selection of biographical sketches Bill Deedes remembers some of the key figures of the twentieth century. Political heavyweights such as Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden are reassessed and reevalued, while record breakers such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Roger Bannister are shown to be far more than just their achievements.

Further afield, W. F. Deedes ruminates on the chaotic and shady world of Imelda Marcos, the dignity and determination of anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman and the controversial leadership of Ian Smith in Rhodesia. But there are lighter portraits too. Noel Coward, with his useful advice on trains, Mary Whitehouse's inadvertent demonstration of pornography and Malcolm Muggeridge's half-hearted suicide attempt all feature in this delightful compendium.

Finally there is an engaging and funny look at Deedes' great friend Denis Thatcher. In an elegiac essay, we see the man rather than the husband of a famous woman. Stories abound, particularly when on holiday in Spain. . .

Like his previous books, Dear Bill and At War With Waugh, Brief Lives is an affectionate, perceptive and anecdotal book, bursting with life, humour and wit.
From the publisher
In this eclectic selection of biographical sketches Bill Deedes remembers some of the key figures of the twentieth century. Political heavyweights such as Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden are reassessed and reevalued, while record breakers such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Roger Bannister are shown to be far more than just their achievements.

Further afield, W. F. Deedes ruminates on the chaotic and shady world of Imelda Marcos, the dignity and determination of anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman and the controversial leadership of Ian Smith in Rhodesia. But there are lighter portraits too. Noel Coward, with his useful advice on trains, Mary Whitehouse's inadvertent demonstration of pornography and Malcolm Muggeridge's half-hearted suicide attempt all feature in this delightful compendium.

Finally there is an engaging and funny look at Deedes' great friend Denis Thatcher. In an elegiac essay, we see the man rather than the husband of a famous woman. Stories abound, particularly when on holiday in Spain. . .

Like his previous books, Dear Bill and At War With Waugh, Brief Lives is an affectionate, perceptive and anecdotal book, bursting with life, humour and wit.
Release date
10/20/2020

Macmillan Digital Audio