For the Time Being (34 page)

In Gillian Tindall's
Célestine: Voices from a French Village
(Sinclair-Stevenson) a bundle of old letters found in a cupboard of a holiday home in France reveals an entire way of life, a whole village lost in time. Yesterday is made as clear and vibrant as today. Heartliftingly simple, quite beautifully told. Martin Gilbert's brilliantly researched, plainly stated
First World War
(Weidenfeld) is a throat-catching book, which you will find hard to set aside.

Daily Telegraph,
25 November 1995

You could call Beryl Bainbridge a miniaturist. In
Every Man for Himself
(Duckworth) her prose and her exactness of detail make a slender novel shine like the Koh-i-Noor. She has done the unbelievable by making the weary tale of the
Titanic
brand new, terrifying and extremely distressing. This is a beauty of a book. The same may be said of Alec Guinness's
My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor
(Viking). His simplicity and directness at once disguise and embellish everything around him and, as in his theatrical work, he manages to conceal a great art with extreme economy. His way with words is a lesson to many an erudite writer — note especially the very last lines. The book is an enchantment and one hopes he survives long enough to write more with which to delight us.

Daily Telegraph,
30 November 1996

Claire Tomalin's
Jane Austen: A Life
(Viking) is a perfect biography: detailed, witty, warm and a great comfort to read. Mrs Tomalin involves us so deeply that Austen's final illness and death come almost as a personal tragedy to the reader.
Cold Mountain
(Sceptre) is a quite brilliant novel — Charles Frazier's first — set during the American Civil War. A familiar plot is remarkably handled and wincingly painful.

Daily Telegraph
, 22 November 1997

¹
Sir V. S. Pritchett died on 20 March 1997

2
Graham Greene died on 3 April 1991

Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as
Death In Venice
. As well as completing six novels, Bogarde wrote several volumes of autobiography.
Between 1947 and 1991, Bogarde made more than sixty films. For over two decades he lived in Italy and France, where he began to write seriously.
In 1985 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of St Andrews and in 1990 was promoted to Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
Sir Dirk Bogarde has a legion of fans to this day - an extraordinary commitment to an extraordinary man - do check out his
fansite
and
Facebook page
.

Discover books by Dirk Bogarde published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/DirkBogarde

A Gentle Occupation
A Particular Friendship
A Period of Adjustment
A Short Walk to Harrods
An Orderly Man
Backcloth
Cleared for Take-Off
Closing Ranks
For the Time Being
Great Meadow
Jericho
Voices in the Garden
West of Sunset

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1998 by Viking
Copyright © 1998 Motley Films Ltd
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
ISBN: 9781448208289
eISBN: 9781448208296
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