Trying to Please: A Memoir
Review "The author of this thoroughly delightful memoir is scarcely so well known in this country as in England, where he was born more than eight decades ago. John Julius Norwich began his working life in 1952 (he was then named John Julius Cooper) as an officer for the British Foreign Service, but he did not set off on his path to renown until the fall of 1963, when he decided to leave the service and try his hand at freelance writing. He has done so ever since, having written more...
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John Julius Norwich's life has reflected an appetite for living, enlivened by a sense of personal theater. Trying to Please is an engaging and amusing memoir that describes a glamorous but vanishing world. From the monasteries on Mt. Athos to a camel trek across the Sahara, the book shows how Norwich's passions for history, travel, and music have combined with simpler pleasures like friendship and a close family. A remarkable life and a thoroughly enjoyable read. The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley …[a] thoroughly delightful memoir…Trying to Please is an absolutely delicious book, in part because Norwich writes so fluidly and engagingly, in part because he has been to so many places and done so many interesting things, and in no small part because he happens to be the only child of one of the most famous and mythologized couples of the first half of the 20th century.
1 Beginnings 12 Childhood 233 America and Eton 534 The Embassy 835 Strasbourg and the Navy 1116 Oxford, Marriage and the Foreign Office 1377 Belgrade 1718 Beirut 1979 Watershed 23110 The Mountain and the Desert 25311 The Stone Stops Rolling 26912 The Moss Begins to Gather 29513 The Pattern Fixed 31314 Varied Pursuits 34115 Work and Play 363Index 399
\ Booklist (ALA)To the superficial reader, Norwich's recounting of his life offers a surfeit of name-dropping, but ultimately his intelligence and sound taste shine through. Additionally, more than a few of his well-crafted anecdotes about personalities and institutions he encountered may provoke outright laughter. These memoirs illuminate the history of the postwar era with insight into both politics and the arts.\ \ \ \ \ Boston Sunday Globe[Norwich] writes ... with typical cheerfulness.... This is a genial, old-fashioned book. Its value lies…in its anecdotes and details about great persons and places from a vanished era.\ \ \ The Wall Street JournalJohn Julius Norwich has lived a charmed life and would be the first to acknowledge it…. In Trying to Please [he] … records his life…. There are grim events—infidelity, divorce, deaths—but there is much more travel, discovery and insouciance.\ \ \ \ \ The Washington Times“…Mr. Norwich is clearly very much his own man, not just interesting for being Duff Cooper’s son-- Trying to Please is a success, for it is indeed attractive and winning--all in all a very pleasant read and, with its unusually modest price, a bargain to boot.”--(Martin Rubin )\ \ \ \ \ Jonathan Yardley…[a] thoroughly delightful memoir…Trying to Please is an absolutely delicious book, in part because Norwich writes so fluidly and engagingly, in part because he has been to so many places and done so many interesting things, and in no small part because he happens to be the only child of one of the most famous and mythologized couples of the first half of the 20th century.\ —The Washington Post\ \
