Ebook: Facts and fiction: a book of storytelling

Machine generated contents note: PART ONE -- Fact and Fiction -- Play It Again, Sam -- A Legendary Guide -- Charleston Nights -- All at Sea -- My Identity Crisis -- Barbara Smoker's Ninetieth Birthday -- A Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance -- Disappearing -- A Forgotten Gwen John Scholar -- Bottom Gear -- A Cat and Mouse Story -- PART TWO -- Kipling and Mrs Ewing -- Children's Books for Adults -- Our Friends the Dead -- What's in a Name? -- A Hook in the Heart -- A High Wind in Jamaica -- Dark Comedy and Entertaining Tragedy -- Alexander Masters -- Pas de Deux -- John Stewart Collis -- The Many Lives of Frank Harris -- Chinese Puzzles -- Nietzsche Contra Shaw -- The Politics of Polonius -- Controversial Confessions -- PART THREE.;A captivating collection of pieces about the art of narration by Britain's finest biographer, Michael Holroyd In this collection of pieces, Michael Holroyd reflects on the eccentricities of the art of writing about others. With characteristic playfulness and guilefulness, he considers the ways in which lives can be written about (and painted), with all the subtle differences of design and intention that this entails. From Kipling to forgetfulness, Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell to fellow biographers like Richard Holmes and the fathers of British biography, Boswell and Johnson, Holroyd tackles a rich and vibrant array of topics. He discusses his life at the mercy of subjects who have led him all over the world - and often into other people's families uninvited. With wit, warmth and humour, he reflects on the unlikely ways he arrives at his subjects, and how the process of building their narratives is often a disturbing experience: so consuming that, when completed, he feels as if he has had a holiday from himself. Featuring writing originally published in the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Telegraph and elsewhere, Facts and Fiction provides unique insight into the mind of a master.