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Ferdinand Mount

Autor(a) de Jem (and Sam)

29+ Works 774 Membros 7 Críticas

About the Author

Ferdinand Mount is the author of such novels as Jem (and Sam), a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, and Fairness, a nominee for the Booker Prize. Both The Man Who Rode Ampersand and Fairness are novels in the acclaimed series A Chronicle of Modern Twilight. Mount edited the Times mostrar mais Literary Supplement for many years and is now a columnist for the Sunday Times in London mostrar menos

Includes the name: Mount Ferdinand

Séries

Obras por Ferdinand Mount

Jem (and Sam) (1998) 98 exemplares
The New Few (2012) 33 exemplares
Fairness (2001) 26 exemplares
Making Nice (2021) 20 exemplares
Prime Movers (2018) 16 exemplares
Of Love and Asthma (1991) 15 exemplares
The Man Who Rode Ampersand (1975) 15 exemplares

Associated Works

The Future of the European Past (1997) — Contribuidor — 26 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Críticas

A few things drew me to this book. First of all it was the intrigue behind the author's Aunt Munca, not just the fact that she used the name of a Beatrix Potter mouse but also the fact she was quite a mysterious figure for him. He grew up spending quite a lot of time around her but never really felt that he knew her fully.

The second thing was the mention of Sheffield and there is a fabulous lengthy chapter in the book about my home city in the late 19th and early 20th century. I'm sure any reader would agree that there is something extra special about reading about a place you know well.

And then there's that gorgeous cover with the image of a glamorous looking man and woman lightly holding hands. I was desperate to know their story.

Kiss Myself Goodbye is Ferdinand Mount's account of his aunt's life. A shadowy character, edging around questions she doesn't want to provide true answers to, he manages to discover endless amazing things about her life both up until the point she is a part of his life and beyond. And it truly is fascinating. The whole thing had my jaw dropping on many occasions, and sometimes nodding along sagely as previously unknown or seemingly unconnected pieces of information all slotted into place.

I particularly enjoyed Mount's journey of discovery through genealogy research, the way he found out so much from birth, marriage and death certificates. He has a difficult job as Munca didn't seem to tell the truth about herself so every single detail is hard won.

Kiss Myself Goodbye is the name of a song the author remembers from a trip to a nightclub with his Aunt Munca but it's also remarkably fitting as Munca spent her lifetime kissing her real self goodbye and reinventing herself. They often say the truth is stranger than fiction and that's definitely true of Munca's life.

I found this to be an engrossing story of a woman with more layers than an onion and a social history read packed with informational gems. Whilst there was the odd section that didn't completely absorb me, the vast majority of it was utterly captivating. It's a fabulous book.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
nicx27 | Oct 29, 2020 |
Mount has written a considered account of the rise of the British oligarchy. He looks at the way that the power and money has become concentrated in the hands of a few business leaders, non doms and and Whitehall mandarins. These groups have vested interests at heart, as can be seen in the way that the revolving doors between government and business work; the way that directors and non executive directors sit on each other’s boards, and the fact that the nominated shareholders (pension funds) also now sit on the boards of these companies.

And yet he sees that there is change just starting, if not to reign in the excesses, but to temper them at least. Politicians are starting to make noises about the ratio between the top earners and the bottom earners in companies. JP Morgan said it should never exceed 20 to 1, but it can now be 400 to one in the worst cases. Politicians are starting to wrest power back from the government and mandarins through the select committees. The living wage organisation, supported even by Boris Johnson, is making an attempt to get large companies implementing it; this will life numerous people out of poverty and into jobs. He makes some good suggestions about the lack of training opportunities and that people who are not suitable for university cannot go to technical schools, as they do in Germany.

Well worth a read for those interested in the way that the political system works in this country.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
PDCRead | 1 outra crítica | Apr 6, 2020 |
A book that purports to be a piece of sociology. In fact it's a piece of polemic with its heart in the right place but starting from false premises. The author, I feel, is somewhat disingenuous; the plain, if not 'ordinary', name masks the fact that he is Sir Ferdinand Mount, third baronet and a one-time political commentator on The Times. He argues from a patrician point of view as a journalist and takes an idealised view of the working class, carefully cherry-picking his sources to confirm his prejudices and taking a sour view of those primary sources and more recent academic writers like EP Thompson who don't confirm his view. There is no bibliography to show he has done his homework.

His tone is rather condescending too. I don't feel he would have let his idealised working-class folk into his own exalted circles but would be happy to let them have their own chapels – he's big on religion even though Dickens and others record the workers staying away from God in droves – and mutually-funded schools. His solutions, predictably, are those of the old "one-nation" patrician Tory; more grammar schools to allow hand-picked individuals who can be trusted to behave to "rise above" their roots (as with most grammar school proponents there's no critique of the secondary modern schools in which 80% of children were taught to know their place.

The author means well but he misses the point. He shows little awareness of the struggles of the working-classes to find a place in a post-industrial economy. It's readable enough thouigh.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
enitharmon | 1 outra crítica | Jan 14, 2019 |
A book that purports to be a piece of sociology. In fact it's a piece of polemic with its heart in the right place but starting from false premises. The author, I feel, is somewhat disingenuous; the plain, if not 'ordinary', name masks the fact that he is Sir Ferdinand Mount, third baronet and a one-time political commentator on The Times. He argues from a patrician point of view as a journalist and takes an idealised view of the working class, carefully cherry-picking his sources to confirm his prejudices and taking a sour view of those primary sources and more recent academic writers like EP Thompson who don't confirm his view. There is no bibliography to show he has done his homework.

His tone is rather condescending too. I don't feel he would have let his idealised working-class folk into his own exalted circles but would be happy to let them have their own chapels – he's big on religion even though Dickens and others record the workers staying away from God in droves – and mutually-funded schools. His solutions, predictably, are those of the old "one-nation" patrician Tory; more grammar schools to allow hand-picked individuals who can be trusted to behave to "rise above" their roots (as with most grammar school proponents there's no critique of the secondary modern schools in which 80% of children were taught to know their place.

The author means well but he misses the point. He shows little awareness of the struggles of the working-classes to find a place in a post-industrial economy. It's readable enough thouigh.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
enitharmon | 1 outra crítica | Jan 14, 2019 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
29
Also by
1
Membros
774
Popularidade
#32,871
Avaliação
½ 3.3
Críticas
7
ISBN
81
Línguas
4

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