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My Family
- The Memoir
- Narrated by: David Baddiel
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
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My Family
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Summary
'Genuinely one of the funniest books I have ever read. I wept with laughter' HADLEY FREEMAN
‘Baddiel has made true art out of experience … A masterpiece’ SATHNAM SANGHERA
'Laugh out loud funny … The read of the summer' NICOLA JEAL, THE SUNDAY TIMES
A searingly honest, funny and moving family memoir in which David Baddiel exposes his mother’s idiosyncratic sex life, and his father’s dementia, to the same affectionate scrutiny
On the surface, David Baddiel’s childhood was fairly standard: a lower-middle-class Jewish family living in an ordinary house in Dollis Hill, north-west London. But David came to realise that his mother was in fact not ordinary at all. Having escaped extermination by fleeing Nazi Germany as a child, she was desperate to make her life count, which took the form of a passionate, decades-long affair with a golfing memorabilia salesman. David’s detailing of the affair – including a hilarious focus on how his mother turned their household over to golf memorabilia, and an eye-popping cache of her erotic writings – leads to the inescapable conclusion that Sarah Baddiel was a cross between Jack Niklaus and Erica Jong.
Meanwhile, as Baddiel investigates his family’s past, his father’s memories are fading; dementia is making him moodier and more disinhibited, with an even greater penchant for obscenity. As with his mother’s affair, there is both comedy and poignancy to be found: laughter is a constant presence, capable of transforming the darkest of experiences into something redemptive.
My Family: The Memoir is David Baddiel’s candid examination of his childhood, family and memory offering a twisted love letter to his parents.
'Such a blisteringly honest book it would set fire to the word "candid" for being too pathetic' CAITLIN MORAN
What listeners say about My Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ashley Holcombe
- 05-07-24
Incredible
I was devastated to miss the live show My Family: Not The Sitcom, so was really looking forward to this release. I was not disappointed, In short it’s a sensational, honest and hilarious piece of work!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Rachel
- 07-07-24
A funny and honest account of family life
David Baddiel writes at times with painful honesty about his parents and what life was like growing up with them. Towards the end of the book, as he reflects on what he discovered after they both died, you can start to fully appreciate the impact they have had on him. Although he often refers to how unconventional his parents were, I think most of us can relate to how difficult it can be at times to have relationships with those closest to us. This is a brilliantly funny and honest account of family life and I highly recommend it. These are the best stories, and what life is all about…the memories we have of our families.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- J. Cooper
- 09-07-24
Where is the PDF Audible?
Having seen the stage show this was a great listen with interesting extra detail. I remember the photos from the show but anyone who hasn't will be annoyed at no PDF included.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Maureen
- 08-07-24
Amazingly, Frank
Funny, heartwarming, sad every emotion, but never demeaning. I loved it. Will definitely read it again.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Fawn
- 08-07-24
Powerful, devastating, hilarious.
Crushingly sad and breathtakingly funny in equal measure. David Baddiel’s prose is both intellectually insightful and viscerally human. A treasure of a book. Maybe I “should” put some of “this review” in inverted commas. IFKYK.
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- KH
- 09-07-24
Wonderful
I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh and laugh - one can see why David likes to take on the twitter trolls, his parents essentially trolled him from birth. The list of suggested names they came up with for his newborn daughter is genius. It says so much about them and yet raises so many questions about how deliberate or unconscious their actions were, as does everything else he describes. The book also made me cry. It has just the right amount of self-awareness and detailed context about life and death and I found his honesty very refreshing.
Overall, it is a wonderful tribute to his parents which completes and rounds off the show and documentary, both of which I had already seen and which enhanced rather than detracted from the enjoyment of the book. It was particularly good to hear the book read in David’s voice and I enjoyed his approach to it, laughing himself in places, describing the pictures in the book and making little asides. I hope it feels good to have set down his view of his parents as well as addressing other issues, with the press for instance, which have clearly irritated him. I envy his opportunity to do this and skill in achieving it. I am the only child of similarly troublesome parents whose story is not yet over and it feels extremely lonely. I suspect the fact that David has survived so well is tribute in no small part to his brother Ivor to whom he is evidently very close.
My only issue is the lack of a pdf of the pictures in the book - please can you sort this out audible, it is crucial to many books - I will probably end up buying the book just so I can see them, well never mind!
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