Well-Remembered Friends: Eulogies on Celebrated Lives - Softcover

Huth, Angela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719566304 ISBN 13: 9780719566301

Publisher: John Murray, 2006

Synopsis

A fascinating collection of memorial addresses on celebrated lives including WH Auden by Stephen Spender, Peter Cook by Alan Bennett, Kingsley Amis by Martin Amis, Stanley Matthews by Jimmy Armfield, John Thaw by Tom Courtenay and many more.

The eulogy is a literary form like no other: to compress a lifetime into minutes, to summon the person, what they meant to their friends, colleagues, and sometimes a wider context, to be moved to grief, laughter, sadness and fond memories, to mix praise for virtue with the acknowledgement of foibles, to choose a few anecdotes from the hundreds available, is a very different art to that of the dry obituarist.

Angela Huth has collected some of the sparkling examples of the form - by or about writers, politicians, actors, sportsmen, academics, and, in some cases, unknown but well-remembered friends.

About this title

Review:

This is not a book to be read from beginning to end. It is ideal perhaps for the guest-room, with a scribbled note inside recommending page 442. There you will find Selina Hastings on Hardy Amies - affectionate, amusing, evocative, and above all true. (Brian Masters, The Spectator)

Touching, funny and intimate (Sheila Hancock, Book of the Year, Observer)

Lovely stuff, from flashes of comedy to deep grief (Country Life)

The eulogy can be a literary form in which the texture and nuance of a lifetime is compressed into a few supple minutes. (Sunday Telegraph)

Affectionate, amusing, evocative (Brian Masters, Spectator)

A testimonial to the nature of friendship and affection ... robust and humourous, a pleasure to read (Times Literary Supplement)

It will give pleasure for many years to come. (Alexander Chancellor, Daily Telegraph)

A wonderful, if rather tear-inducing, volume to dip into (Julian Fellowes, Tatler)

' This book is worth reading for gaining an insight into preparing a eulogy, but it is also a veritable compendium of the lives of the great and the good, as well as those whose lives had more local impact' (Church of England Newspaper)

'Well Remembered Friends is a record of some of the finest eulogies to have appeared over the past few years... Instead of providing a morbid meditation on death, it is a stirring tribute to what can be achieved in life' (Birmingham Sunday Mercury)

Book Description:

This treasury of remembrance, fine writing and good lives is the perfect Christmas book.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0719566304
• ISBN 13: 9780719566301
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480