Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee

Advantages: Familiar though stunning walk through nostalgia
Disadvantages: None.

...picture with words, and In Cider with Rosie, he excells in the art. It is hard to believe that time has passed so quickly. Laurie Lee was born in 1914 and died in 1997. Cider with Rosie is autobiographical and tells of the authors years growing up and was published in 1959, when I was seven years old, and when I look through the way that he describes life in Rural Gloucester, I sometimes feel I am glimpsing little snatches from my own life and many ...
...words bring that life alive and his descriptive ability nurtures the reader through parts of his life that others may have described as harsh reality. However, Laurie does not do this. His mother brought up the family on her own, and against a backdrop of poverty, a richness of depth and explanation comes into Laurie Lee's work. It is like brushstrokes on a canvas, as adjective after adjective paint pictures of people, of how they lived, thought, ... Read review

Advantages: Real life story
Disadvantages: none

I purchased Cider with Rosie as part of an eight book set from my daughter’s school book club, and although It was not the first of the books that I chose to read, it was a light and interesting insight into the life of families at the end of World War I. ~The Story~ Cider with Rosie is an autobiography published in 1959 by Laurie Lee who was born in 1914 in Gloucestershire. His mother brought the large family up on her own after his father failed ...
...to make a career for himself). His father had been married before and had 5 living children from 8 of which 4 lived at home, these added to the 3 living children of 4 that his father had with his second wife Laurie’s mother led to tight cramped living arrangements and little finances. Setting up home near Stroud, his mother did her best to keep everyone together and although obviously poor, Laurie Lee does not reflect to much on this hardship. He ... Read review

Advantages: vivid and real
Disadvantages: none

"Cider with Rosie" has to be one of my most memorable, poignant and haunting reads. I discovered it when I was 16 in an English class whilst learning about descriptive writing and use of imagery. I didn't have to read it, I was just shown an example of his work, but it lured me in hook line and sinker and I couldn't put the book down. The book is an evocative memoir of his childhood growing up in a Cotswold village. He captures the time and the ...
...in such a manner that conveys reality - he paints a picture with his words and he excels in this art. I think the opening paragraph is simply magical, "I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began. The June grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before. It towered above me and all around me, each ... Read review

Advantages: Gloriously rich and lyrical.
Disadvantages: none at all.

...the twentieth century, Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie filled me with nostalgia. I grew up in the Cotswolds, and Lee descriptions of the beautiful Slad valley area captured my heart and my imagination. Lee's mother had been abandonned with a horde of children - some her own and some from her husbad's first marriage. Setting up home in a cottage near Stroud, she does her best to keep everyone together. Mrs Lee is an eccentric woman, and Laurie's childhood ...
...poor, Lee does not reflect on the hardhip too much. Lee tells the tale of his boyhood through a series of specific and general accounts - we see the two elderly ladies who live nearby, one subsisting on tea, the other making wine. We see school outings, working life, illness and summer games. We meet Rosie and travel with Lee into early sexual exploits and the first stirrings of adulthood. This is a beautiful text, not fast or pacy but enchanting ... Read review

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This is a book which I feel everybody should read. Simply put it's a classic. It follows the early life of Laurie Lee. The book is set in England's Cotswolds in the late 1910's to the early thirties. It gives us an idea of what life was like back then. It wasn't always good but it wasn't always bad either. Even thought it is a biography, it isn't just about the author. It's about the people and times that were going on around him. In a way you could ...
...Ashes. Where the author uses the same style to tell his story. But I love this book much more. The language throughout this book is wonderful. It has an almost dream like quality to it. If you want a good read, buy this book. Trust me, you might like it. ... Read review