Alan Brown

Advantages: Well written with lots of practical help
Disadvantages: Print is very small

...by Alan Yates Alan Yates was born in Dover, Kent, in 1945 and has fished since he was five years old. An experienced sea-angling competitor, Alan has twice been World Champion, four times English National Champion and four times European Champion. He has enjoyed twenty years as an England International, including time as captain. He has won over 1,000 open sea-angling contests. Alan is a full-time freelance journalist for Angling Times and Sea Angler magazines. He is a founder memember of the Sea Anglers Match Federation and has been its Secretary for ten years. An active sea, coarse and game angler, his best fish is a shorecaught shark weighing in excess of 300lb (136kg). Fly Fishing by Chris Dawn Chris Dawn is editor of Trout Fisherman magazine, the UK's biggest-selling trout... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great introduction to Bennett.
Disadvantages: Quite pricey for a short book.

...‘Telling Tales’ by Alan Bennett does exactly what it says on the cover… Alan Bennett, one of the country’s best loved wordsmiths, tells ten tales about his childhood in Leeds, a provincial city in the West Riding where life generally tended to avoid. In several of the tales Bennett details the causes of his frustration as a youth – he knew that his family was very ordinary (not working class, but certainly not middle class), yet at the same time being much different to all others. His mother, too, assumed that life for everyone else was much different to hers and that the cocktail party lifestyle she read about in Woman’s Own was the norm and attainable by a move to the hallowed ‘down South’. We learn much about Bennett’s ‘Mam and Dad’ (so good to see the word Mam, I feel I’m one of the few who still uses it). Their real names were Lil... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: the depth of the character, believable and each unique
Disadvantages: None i can think of

...Although the characters are finctional,grounded no doubt on Alan's past experience and chance meetings,They are colourful, bright and full of life. Each of the monologues are unique to the next, Bennett creates a world of his own allowing the reader to see through the eyes of his characters and gain an insight into their, more often than not, tragic lives. The alcoholic Vicar's wife, the lady with the dead husband, financially ruined yet continues, All the characters have tragedies, whether this is intentional on Alan Bennett's part or sheer coincedence, when you read this book, the colouful language, the minute discription, attention to detail.allows this book to touch your heart, allows you to identify with the characters and to become inveloped in the world that Alan Bennett created. A marvellous piece of literature... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful