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114th out of 807 books
—
778 voters
Cider With Rosie
by
Laurie Lee
Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, Laurie Lee depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.
Paperback, 231 pages
Published
May 28th 2002
by VINTAGE
(first published 1959)
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I asked my boyfriend if he had ever been physically aroused by a work of fiction while reading on a bus or train.
"Oh, many a time," he said.
"Really? Did you get an erection?"
"Yes, of course. Isn't that what you meant? It doesn't happen so much now," he said.
"Because you are cynical and you've seen it all before?"
"Partly that," he concurred. "But also because my blood is more sluggish and I have lost the vigour of youth."
"When was the last time you got an erection while reading in a public place?...more
"Oh, many a time," he said.
"Really? Did you get an erection?"
"Yes, of course. Isn't that what you meant? It doesn't happen so much now," he said.
"Because you are cynical and you've seen it all before?"
"Partly that," he concurred. "But also because my blood is more sluggish and I have lost the vigour of youth."
"When was the last time you got an erection while reading in a public place?...more
Before I started reading this book, I was warned that it is extremely boring, or as my colleague put it '200 pages of absolutely nothing going on, that it's a complete waste of paper and time as well.
But after I'd read a few pages, I quickly realized that I was enjoying the book immensely. I love the way he describes simple, everyday things, feelings, smells in a way that instantly makes you feel nostalgic about your childhood, that makes you wish to go out of town and settle in the countryside....more
But after I'd read a few pages, I quickly realized that I was enjoying the book immensely. I love the way he describes simple, everyday things, feelings, smells in a way that instantly makes you feel nostalgic about your childhood, that makes you wish to go out of town and settle in the countryside....more
6 likes · like · see review
Jul 20, 2012
Hayes
marked it as to-be-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
new-new,
biog-memoir
My copy's ISBN connects to the edition shown, but the actual cover is so awful-ly funny that I have to share:
Apr 22, 2013
Nancy
added it
This book is considered a classic, though i daresay most americans are unfamiliar with Laurie Lee. This is his loving memoir of the little English village he grew up in during the 19-teens. I will quote one wonderful long passage:
"The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village. I belonged to that generation which saw, by chance, the end of a thousand years' life. The change came late to our Cotswold valley, didn't really show itself till the late 1920s; I was twelve by then...more
"The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village. I belonged to that generation which saw, by chance, the end of a thousand years' life. The change came late to our Cotswold valley, didn't really show itself till the late 1920s; I was twelve by then...more
This was probably the first paperback I properly read. Back in the early 1960s, at school, I found a copy. I had never been a reader of books, despite being at Grammar School and good at English, I was not a reader, unless it was comics or books of facts. But I was good at art, and I LOVED the cover. The scratchy pen and ink illustration on the cover of the original publication was brilliant, and encouraged me to open the pages and read. I was transfixed. The artist bit of me was lulled by the p...more
Cider With Rosie, first published in 1959, is Laurie Lee’s account of a childhood spent in Gloucestershire, England. It is quite common for elderly folk to write memoirs of the past, because times change so rapidly, and there is so much that people want to record for posterity. What is amazing about this book is that it has sold millions of copies. What is it about a retelling of an ordinary rural childhood that interests so many?
Cider With Rosie is exquisitely written. The book is rich and des...more
Cider With Rosie is exquisitely written. The book is rich and des...more
I think Laurie Lee was in his forties when he wrote this memoir but it reminded of a favoured grandfather reminiscing about his childhood, in a rocking chair by a roaring fire, children at his feet as great slabs of rain hit the window. Perhaps the best thing to say about this book is that you can feel right back in his childhood with him.
I can't say I enjoyed this book as much as 'As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning' but that's probably not surprising. This book is a lot more sedate, not insp...more
I can't say I enjoyed this book as much as 'As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning' but that's probably not surprising. This book is a lot more sedate, not insp...more
It is funny how things tend to group in life. Quite accidentally I read this book right after finishing Tove Janssons “The Summer Book" and these are both about childhood memories.
But this one is more openly autobiographical and it does not have the philosophical aspect of the “grandmother”. It also does not have the sense of wonder of childhood and extraordinary events or wild imagination.
But still a good book, the overall atmosphere seems realistic and positive (as childhood should be), with m...more
But this one is more openly autobiographical and it does not have the philosophical aspect of the “grandmother”. It also does not have the sense of wonder of childhood and extraordinary events or wild imagination.
But still a good book, the overall atmosphere seems realistic and positive (as childhood should be), with m...more
I'm not going to beat about the bush - I loved this book.
There have been many and varied criticisms of it over the years but what I think the critics are not giving enough credence to is that the book is not trying to be anything other than what it is. I believe that it is a personal account of how it felt to be the author, growing up at that time, in that place - nothing more and nothing less. It is unflinchingly honest in that regard and necessarily, non-judgmental. He does not condone or cond...more
There have been many and varied criticisms of it over the years but what I think the critics are not giving enough credence to is that the book is not trying to be anything other than what it is. I believe that it is a personal account of how it felt to be the author, growing up at that time, in that place - nothing more and nothing less. It is unflinchingly honest in that regard and necessarily, non-judgmental. He does not condone or cond...more
If anything, I would buy this book for the sole purpose of flipping it randomly to any page to be confronted by Laurie Lee's unforgettable mastery of descriptive detail. He belongs to a talented class of writers, which includes John Muir, who have the ability to capture nature in writing and speak to the reader in an inclusive and intimate manner. Everything in this autobiography is written with such a full, fresh, and loving fondness making it impossible not to like the obscure village of Slad,...more
A brilliant, poetic writer who couldn't turn a bad phrase, Laurie Lee describes the first part of his life in Cider with Rosie -- an almost unbearably rural existence in the first part of the last century in a part of England that has disappeared forever. As Lee says, when he was a boy, the old folks' lore went back to very primitive times indeed, and included a nodding acquaintance with magic and various supernatural beings. All of that was swept away with the wars and modernization, and the re...more
The book that launched a thousand English comprehension tests....though in my school never the bit with Rosie herself, it was years before I understood its euphemistic title.
As most people of my generation know, Cider with Rosie is about a poor but largely idyllic childhood in a golden rustic England. It's a slow ramble through sun-bathed meadows, with the occasional shadows, feasting on lush and sensuous imagery. It has to be said it also feels like an idealised, almost mythic world, less than...more
As most people of my generation know, Cider with Rosie is about a poor but largely idyllic childhood in a golden rustic England. It's a slow ramble through sun-bathed meadows, with the occasional shadows, feasting on lush and sensuous imagery. It has to be said it also feels like an idealised, almost mythic world, less than...more
I picked up this book in my local Yacht Club bar as I was helping out and doing a bar shift on the quietest night of the week, and needed something to read! Of all the books there were in the mini library, this was the only one of two to catch my eye (lots of John Grisham…)
I have heard lots of good things abut this book, so I thought I would give it a go. A series of memoirs based on the life of Laurie Lee in the 1920′s in the Cotswolds, this book starts with his earliest memory and ends when he...more
I have heard lots of good things abut this book, so I thought I would give it a go. A series of memoirs based on the life of Laurie Lee in the 1920′s in the Cotswolds, this book starts with his earliest memory and ends when he...more
What a joy to read. I was brought up in the era of Enid Blyton et al, and descriptions of English countryside became almost as familiar as our known landscape. Yet reading Laurie Lees book brought it all back again and the association with my own childhood made it even more memorable. You could almost smell the earthiness of the surroundings and imagine the birds singing in the trees and the dripping undergrowth.
The characters were a delight. The quaint eccentricity of the mother and her family,...more
The characters were a delight. The quaint eccentricity of the mother and her family,...more
Laurie Lee grew up in a rural part of England during the
time just after the Great War. His father abandoned his mother with
eight children to raise. Lee was almost always hungry and cold. But
life never seemed hard; somehow it seemed joyous and delightful.
I was especially taken with the chapter about the devilments children
and young people got into during Lee's time. Back in Lee's day, as
today, terrible things happened. But somehow the village and its
people just seemed to deal with them, not makin...more
time just after the Great War. His father abandoned his mother with
eight children to raise. Lee was almost always hungry and cold. But
life never seemed hard; somehow it seemed joyous and delightful.
I was especially taken with the chapter about the devilments children
and young people got into during Lee's time. Back in Lee's day, as
today, terrible things happened. But somehow the village and its
people just seemed to deal with them, not makin...more
I've bought several copies of this book, and keep losing them, but always seem to be lucky enough to find replacements. The ones I have are fusty and old and illustrated with pen and ink John Ward drawings. What draws me to this book is quite simply that Lee painted with words, and he was an exceptional artist. I could go on but better to place a quote here, from the lovely chapter on the two grandmothers: "One of the first things I noticed about old Granny Trill was that she always seemed to be...more
Lush, poetic, funny memoir of the author's impoverished childhood in the English Cotswalds post-World War I. Lee describes in vivid detail traditional village life, including murders and madness, which disappeared with the advent of the automobile, etc. Here's a sample of his prose in a description of his mother, former house maid and bar maid, who raises seven children on her own:
"Her flowers and songs, her unshaken fidelities, her attempts at order, her relapses into squalor, her near madness,...more
"Her flowers and songs, her unshaken fidelities, her attempts at order, her relapses into squalor, her near madness,...more
This books sits alongside H.E. Bates when it comes to capturing the lives and rituals of pre-war rural England. Absolutely fascinating view of a disappearing world which has left some of its echoes behind.
Unfortunately I found some of the chapters pandered a little too much to nostalgia and sentimentality and lacked substance making the whole feel repetitive and burdensome. Though some of the later chapters provide antidote to the rose tinted glasses of the Daily Mail reader by evidence of a 'br...more
Unfortunately I found some of the chapters pandered a little too much to nostalgia and sentimentality and lacked substance making the whole feel repetitive and burdensome. Though some of the later chapters provide antidote to the rose tinted glasses of the Daily Mail reader by evidence of a 'br...more
Laurie Lee, poet and author, on his early childhood and coming-of-age in the small hillside community of Slad, in the English Cotswolds. Fierce winters, glowing summers, poverty, hilarity, friendship, love and murder – it’s all there. Unlike many similar biographical accounts, Lee (who, after losing a lung, styled himself as Wun Lung Lee, the famous Chinese poet) never really left Slad (he died there in 1997), other than on temporary sojourns, which included a famous busking hike to London, then...more
This memoir by the British poeet recounts his years growing up in a Cotswold village during the First World War and after. In these years before automobiles the village was isolated to an extent hard to imagine. I people went anywhere it was almost entirely by foot. Lee grew up poor but this did not seem to affect him as virtually everyone in the village was poor. He gives colorful vignettes of his eccentric mother, sisters, brothers, and neighbors as well as the customs and practices of village...more
Started very slowly and, to be honest, I thought I'd stumbled into some kind of blank verse purgatory, such was the adjectival overkill of the first chapter.
From this unfocused, poetical overture, however, emerged an engaging portrait of growing up in 1920's rural Gloucestershire. The poverty, the creaking feudal social structures, the strong and silent returnees from the trenches; all are here: together with the drunkenness, casual violence, country "characters", good teachers, bad vicars and,...more
From this unfocused, poetical overture, however, emerged an engaging portrait of growing up in 1920's rural Gloucestershire. The poverty, the creaking feudal social structures, the strong and silent returnees from the trenches; all are here: together with the drunkenness, casual violence, country "characters", good teachers, bad vicars and,...more
Cider with Rosie was the set text for a generation of English Lit students. I did Lord of the Flies instead, but you could predict it would be one or the other. My husband managed to get through the whole English `O' Level without having read Cider with Rosie at all, just by relying on study aids. He's still puzzled by the story - like where does Rosie come in exactly?
Anyway it put me off reading it for years, as I thought it too school textbooky, which is a pity because its a lovely book. It's...more
Anyway it put me off reading it for years, as I thought it too school textbooky, which is a pity because its a lovely book. It's...more
A delightful, meandering, stroll through childhood in the 1910s/20s. Warm, funny, sad and harsh by turn, this memoir is simple but powerful. As a school set text I fear many are forced to scrutinise and wring it dry. Whereas it should be slowly supped, drinking in the poetic descriptions like a fine whiskey.
I did not know of the titular double-entendur (sp?) until I read that far, and whilst these recollections of youthful discovery might upset a prude, they were part of Laurie's life, so are pa...more
I did not know of the titular double-entendur (sp?) until I read that far, and whilst these recollections of youthful discovery might upset a prude, they were part of Laurie's life, so are pa...more
Never have I read such flowery prose and enjoyed it so immensely. The rich texture of this book is far more important that its plot or, even, its delightful characters. It recreates an atmosphere of a messy, beautiful, tragic, hilarious, fully-lived childhood, with all its misunderstandings and secret understandings. For some reason, the chapter on the feuding grandmothers cracked me up to no end. I also felt myself becoming increasingly more uncomfortable towards the end, but this fascinates me...more
I first read this book in 1989 and loved it, and kept my copy of it. So when it was chosen for my Book Group I was keen to read it again. What a surprise, though to find that I could remember almost nothing about it! Perhaps that’s because more than anything it evokes a sense of time and place made up of a number of little incidents and minor characters, which, like a jigsaw puzzle, only provide a complete picture when they are all assembled and you can stand back and admire the finished article...more
I was recommended this by a friend, who told me it caught the mood of an age, just as transport links opened up rural villages. It indeed does that. It shows life at that critical point, life which had gone on for a thousand years at the pace of a horse. It shows how those communities survived and self-policed themselves.
There is one chapter when the boys are coming up to adult-hood where he plainly states, if we had lived in the towns where would be classed as degenerates. But village life and...more
There is one chapter when the boys are coming up to adult-hood where he plainly states, if we had lived in the towns where would be classed as degenerates. But village life and...more
A beautiful book of childhood that is still compelling in the 21st century. I think this is because more than anything else, Laurie Lee captures innocence that we can all relate to. There are so many universals, love of a family, illness, growing up and the teenage years when you first start to explore sexually.
There is also a deep sadness in this book, I felt he was still grieving his mother and the lost world of his youth when he came to write this in the 50s.
This was a standard text in Engl...more
There is also a deep sadness in this book, I felt he was still grieving his mother and the lost world of his youth when he came to write this in the 50s.
This was a standard text in Engl...more
One of my all time favourites. My last copy fell completely apart and I threw the pages away as I read them. My favourite part is the description of their kitchen, "worn by our boots and our lives, was scruffy, warm and low...the windows were choked with plants, the walls supported stopped clocks and calendars....a sofa for cats, a harmonium for coats, and a piano for dust and photographs...each object encrusted by lively barnacles, relics of birthdays and dead relations, wrecks of furniture lon...more
Every once in a while an author will stumble upon a tone or style that is so fresh and exciting that the topic at hand is irrelevant. The style is what it is all about and it is the style that makes the story. Such is the case with Cider with Rosie. The story is your typical growing up in England after the war tale, but it pops off the page- dances- flies!- because the tone, imagery, life with which every sentenced is imbued is near magical. Reading this book makes me smile, regardless of what i...more
A passage back in time. An escape into a simpler era where time ran according to the seasons and characters honed by circumstance and trade dominated the evolving countryside as modern developments dragged a sleepy village, kicking and screaming, into a wider, sadder, less embracing world.
I will never forget being read this by our English teacher as we sat cross legged, squashing bugs, wondering at his range of country accents, enjoying English lessons taken on the cricket field during balmy sum...more
I will never forget being read this by our English teacher as we sat cross legged, squashing bugs, wondering at his range of country accents, enjoying English lessons taken on the cricket field during balmy sum...more
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Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE, was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie (1959), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). While the first volume famously recounts his childhood in the idyllic Slad Valley, the second deals with his leaving home for London and his...more
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“The prospect Smiler was a manic farmer. Few men I think can have been as unfortunate as he; for on the one hand he was a melancholic with a loathing for mankind, on the other, some paralysis had twisted his mouth into a permanent and radiant smile. So everyone he met, being warmed by his smile, would shout him a happy greeting. And beaming upon them with his sunny face he would curse them all to hell.”
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