{"product_id":"9780007568918_an-encyclopaedia-of-myself","title":"An Encyclopaedia of Myself","description":"\u003cp\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2014\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A symphonic poem about postwar England and Englishness … A masterpiece’ Financial Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 1950s were not grey. In Jonathan Meades’s detailed, petit-point memoir they are luridly polychromatic. They were peopled by embittered grotesques, bogus majors, vicious spinsters, reckless bohos, pompous boors, drunks, suicides. Death went dogging everywhere. Salisbury had two industries: God and the Cold War. For the child, delight is to be found everywhere – in the intense observation of adult frailties, in landscapes and prepubescent sex, in calligraphy and in rivers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis memoir is an engrossing portrait of a disappeared provincial England, a time and place unpeeled with gruesome relish.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jonathan Meades","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47285405974677,"sku":"9780007568918","price":19.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780007568918.jpg?v=1776992131","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780007568918_an-encyclopaedia-of-myself","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}