In the third installment of his memoirs, the former barrister, playwright, novelist, and creator of the Rumpole stories discusses what it is like to reach the age of seventy-seven, capturing his energetic, passionate, and whimsical approach to life that allows him to embrace an array of new projects, championing favorite causes, traveling, and more. 15,000 first printing. Mortimer has done it again. In this latest memoir, following Clinging to the Wreckage (1987) and Murderers and Other Friends (1996), he gives another engaging account of his prodigious life. A former barrister, he is creator of the ever-popular "Rumpole" fiction series as well as several highly successful stage, radio, and television plays, including the adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. Here he writes tenderly about his childhood years in England during World War I. He vividly describes Tuscany, where he collaborated with Franco Zeffirelli on the screenplay of Tea with Mussolini, and summer afternoons spent sitting on the terrace drinking Chianti and discussing opera, while "the air is loud with grasshoppers, lizards dart across the hot paving stones, the landscape is blurred with heat." Whether he's traveling in Morocco or acting as chairman of the Royal Court Theatre in London, Mortimer spares no expense when it comes to telling a good tale. Highly recommended for all public libraries. - Stephanie Maher, Warwick, RI Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Mortimer, a former barrister, a distinguished playwright, and the author of the hugely popular Rumpole series of tales, provides the third installment of his delightful autobiography. Trapped in an increasingly uncooperative body, the 75-year-old author still approaches life and work with an amazingly energetic zeal. Despite an annoying series of physical failings, the spiritually and emotionally youthful Mortimer remains an inveterate traveler and tackles an exhausting array of political and artistic projects, including prison reform, the restoration of the Royal Court Theatre, and a film collaboration with Franco Zeffirelli. Laced with humor and pathos, this breezy, whirlwind account of one jam-packed year serves as one of the final chapters of a full and rich life. Margaret Flanagan Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ...a rare and possibly exceptional work...pure pleasure. -- Kirkus Reviews John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist, and former practicing barrister who has written many film scripts as well as stage, radio, and television plays, the Rumpole plays, for which he received the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited . He is the author of twelve collections of Rumpole stories and three acclaimed volumes of autobiography. Used Book in Good Condition