The complete
book of aunts
by
Rupert Christiansen with beth brophy
Of all our blood
relations, an aunt offers the most
potential for uncomplicated
friendship. The Complete Book of
Aunts is an entertaining and
touching exploration of aunts in all
their guises and varieties, culled
from real-life, literary and
historical sources. Bewitching
illustrations and anecdotes
illuminate various aunt types:
Bargain Aunts, Mothering Aunts,
Damned Bad Aunts, and X-Rated
Aunts.With stories and poems about
famous or historical aunts,
Christiansen and Brophy attempt to
uncover what "aunt-ness" is.
Reviews:
From Publishers
Weekly
British journalist
Christiansen (Paris
Babylon) offers a
curiously dry,
encyclopedic look at the
evolution of aunts (as
in mother's and father's
siblings) in this
slender gift volume
illustrated by Stephanie
von Reiswitz. Starting
with a short history of
the aunt from her barest
mention in classical
literature to her finest
hour in the Victorian
era, the author moves
into specific examples,
from famous people
raised or heavily
influenced by their
aunts (Tolstoy, Coco
Chanel, Truman Capote,
John Lennon) to famous
aunts in literature
(Aunt Leonie in Proust,
the four Dodson sisters
in The Mill on the
Floss and Jane
Eyre's malevolent Mrs.
Reed). Alternating with
brief bios of iconic and
brand-name aunts are
italicized testimonies
by nieces and nephews of
real-life aunts who've
made a lasting
impression on young
lives, from places as
far apart as Canada and
Pakistan. Most
interesting are the
occasional in-depth
accounts of heroic or
eccentric aunts such as
learned astronomer
Caroline Herschel, whose
relationship with her
nephew defined her later
years; and Aunt Jessie
in Cecil Beaton's My
Bolivian Aunt. Aunt
Ginny, aka Virginia
Woolf, earns a
well-fleshed study, as
does Aunt Jane Austen.
(Nov.)
Copyright © Reed
Business Information, a
division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.
About the Author:
rupert
christiansen
was born in London and educated at
King's College, Cambridge. After further
study as a Fulbright scholar at Columbia
University, he has written several
books, including Romantic Affinities,
Paris Babylon, and The Visitors, as well
as articles for The New Yorker and
Vanity Fair. In 1997, he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature.
beth brophy
is
the author of the novel MY EX-BEST
FRIEND (Simon & Schuster, July 2003).
She has been an adjunct professor of
journalism at the American University
and Georgetown.
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