An Education

By: Lynn Barber

Narrated by: Carolyn Seymour

When Lynn Barber was 16, a stranger in a maroon sports car pulled up beside her as she was on her way home from school and offered her a ride. It was the beginning of a long journey from innocence to precocious experience—an affair with an older man that would change her life. Barber’s seducer left her with a taste for luxury hotels and posh restaurants and trips abroad, expensive habits that she managed to support in later life as a successful London journalist whose barbed interviews both terrorized and fascinated her smart-set subjects.

A poignant, shockingly candid account of the stages in a literary life—from promiscuity at Oxford to a stint at Penthouse to a complex marriage that endured—An Education is a classic of English memoir.

©2009 Lynn Barber (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The most riveting memoir you will read this year, comic and tragic by turns. A small masterpiece.” ( Literary Review)

“Candid, unsentimental and extremely funny. I read it in one glorious go, laughing and crying throughout.” (Zoë Heller, novelist and journalist)

Unremarkable

Since the film version dealt with the most salacious years of Ms. Barber's life, the rest of the autobiography was a bit of a disappointment, especially the ending which was cathartic for the author, but depressing for the listener. Of some interest were her years as a journalist with Penthouse Mag.

Good memoir, even if her memory is unreliable.

Good read start to finish. It is not so much about Lynn Barber's accomplishments, as it is about the human element. I cannot stand to consume a book through audio if the narration is poor. The voice of the Carolyn Seymour figured strongly into my choice for this read. I would recommend this audio book.