Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Spilling the Beans
Book Review: Honesty & Guts!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent read. She tells us about her very private moments of sadness, happiness & everything in between. When she was down and out she did not give-up. She came back. It seems that she is finally happy with herself and that is really tough to do.Book Review: It's like sitting down with Clarissa herself
Summary: 5 Stars
and talking about her life. One reviewer said that the language was hard to read, but that's exactly why I found it so endearing. It's as if Clarissa was sitting across the table from you talking about her varied experiences throughout her colorful life. The choice of words and their gait in this book is just part of the experience. (Although I really didn't have a hard time reading it to begin with, but YMMV, I suppose.)
I've been a fan since the Food Network days and I must admit reading this book was like revisiting an old friend. Thank you for this, Clarissa!
Book Review: Not what I was hoping for
Summary: 3 Stars
I felt Clarissa Dickson's Wright's book spent too little time on her participation in the wonderful cooking show TWO FAT LADIES, and too much time on the rest of her life. To some extent this is understandable, since the TV show occupied a very short period of her life; but the show is nonetheless the period of her life that specifically made me interested enough to pick up her autobiography (I would never even have heard of her, otherwise), and I'd have liked to read much more about the making of that show and anecdotes related to it, and much less about her family, her childhood, her youth, her career as a barrister, and her years of alcoholism--none of which interest me that much, and all of which occupy most of the book. Indeed, this book is essentially the chronicle of an alcoholic child of an alcoholic father who heads for rock bottom, reaches it, and then eventually gets sober. That's fine, and I assume it's inspirational for many people. But I didn't pick up the book with an interest in the author's abused childhood and longterm struggle with alcoholism. I picked it up with an interest in the author's central role in a unique cooking show that is my favorite--and, in that respect, I was a little disappointed. Lots and lots of material here, and well-written, but much too little about the show, considering the show is the reason she became famous enough to get a contract to write her autobiography.Book Review: The autobiography of the decade!
Summary: 5 Stars
I first became acquainted with Clarissa Dickson Wright through her marvelous television program, Two Fat Ladies. After the death of Jennifer Paterson, I heard so much about her and her interesting life that I came to the conclusion that she was the more interesting of the Two Fat Ladies. Well, I could not have been more wrong!
Clarissa was born into a family with an heiress mother and a rich and brilliant surgeon father - the father also being an abusive alcoholic who regularly beat his wife and children. Defying her father's wishes that she go into medicine, she instead studied law, and became the youngest woman ever to be call to the Bar! After her parents' deaths, she inherited a fortune, which she promptly began to blow through alcoholism and dissipated living. Eventually, she found herself disbarred, broke and homeless. In this fascinating book, Clarissa tells her story...and what a story it is!
I must say that I enjoyed this book much more than I ever thought possible. I have read many autobiographies over my lifetime, but I do not think that I have ever read a more interesting and just plain shocking autobiography before - bar none! If you are familiar with the Two Fat Ladies, then you will really enjoy this autobiography, and the insight it gives you into Clarissa Dickson Wright. Heck, even if you have never seen the Two Fat Ladies, you will enjoy this book for its interesting writing and the absolutely fascinating life that it unfolds.
Three cheers for the autobiography of the decade, and three cheers to Clarissa Dickson Wright for writing it! Buy this book, you won't be disappointed!
Book Review: This is a delightful book
Summary: 4 Stars
I really liked this book, despite the fact that Clarissa rambles a bit. I was sort of like sitting down with a friend and catching up, with the sort of discursiveness that sometimes happens in that sort of conversation. This is a book with a lot of sad times interspersed with hilarious anecdotes. Clarissa is a woman of strong opinions. I don't always agree with her, but I think she'd be a lot of fun to have as a friend (seeing how I like friends with strongly held opinions). If you think the "nanny state" is a bad thing, thing that self-sufficiency and local production is a good thing, if you like good food, and a good tale you'll probably enjoy this book. Clarissa has managed to pick up the pieces of a life gone very wrong and come out on top. She hasn't come out on top in the sense that she's gotten rich or even enormously famous (far fewer people even know who she is than know who Brad Pitt is for instance). She's come out on top because she's found a way to live that is satisfying and which has made a difference to a lot of people.
The stories of The Two Fat ladies videos make them even more fun to watch. I really wish there were a video series to go with her book on the green life. I'd really love to see Clarissa mucking about with the ducks and the chickens and making things in the old fashioned way.
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