On Wheels

Description

In "On Wheels" Michael Holroyd takes on the humble automobile. Weaving together memoir and anecdote with historical example he traces his relationship with cars and driving through a lifetime of biography. For Michael, learning to drive is no easy matter: his driving lessons acquire a military precision in learning how to get in and out of the car in the correct fashion. His biographical subject George Bernard Shaw was no less enthusiastic - he continued to drive with reckless gusto into his eightieth year; for Vita Sackville-West her car was a boudoir, a venue for romantic assignations and getaways; and for Augustus John and his family, an opportunity to whizz at great speed through picturesque villages, car piled high with bohemian friends, whilst the poor car stuttered along in first gear. Wry, thoughtful and very funny, "On Wheels" is an elegy to the glamour of the car. Sly and perceptive to a fault, in these five delightful essays Michael Holroyd finds new and surprising ways to understand the past and challenge our view of the future.

Promotion info

Wry, perceptive and very funny, an elegy to the glamour of the car from the celebrated biographer

Author description

Besides the Lives of Augustus John, Bernard Shaw and Lytton Strachey (which was filmed as Carrington), Michael Holroyd has written three volumes of memoirs, Basil Street Blues and Mosaic. A Strange Eventful History won the James Tait Black Prize, and was a biography of two great theatrical dynasties which included Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and her son Edward Gordon Craig. His most recent book, A Book of Secrets, combined memoir with biographies of a number of notable women. He has been president of the Royal Society of Literature and is the first non-fiction writer to have been awarded the British Literature Prize. He lives in London and Somerset with his wife, the novelist Margaret Drabble.