At all times wonderfully evocative and poignant, Cider With Rosie is a charming memoir of Laurie Lee's childhood in a remote Cotswold villag...
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Jan 29, 2012
Vanessa
rated it: 
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 sluggis 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 sluggis More...
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Apr 04, 2010
Milica
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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 countr 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 countr More...
Oct 08, 2009
Kaput
rated it:
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 seda 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 seda More...
Feb 21, 2011
Morticia
rated it: 
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 worl 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 worl More...
Aug 07, 2011
Jamie
rated it:
Set in the post WW1 idyll of the Gloucestershire countryside “Cider With Rosie” is Laurie Lee’s first in an autobiographical trilogy of novels.
This is no tale of a rose tinted utopian ideal of a bygone age, there is death, madness, murder, grinding poverty and suicide, but all told through the innocent eyes of a young boy.
Lee’s great strength is his lyrical prose, he is able to reach out to the reader with a gentle hand and touch the soul of the poet that resides in us all, More...
This is no tale of a rose tinted utopian ideal of a bygone age, there is death, madness, murder, grinding poverty and suicide, but all told through the innocent eyes of a young boy.
Lee’s great strength is his lyrical prose, he is able to reach out to the reader with a gentle hand and touch the soul of the poet that resides in us all, More...
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Feb 13, 2012
Laura
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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 en 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 en More...
Jul 24, 2009
Debbie (Readerbuzz)
rated it:
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
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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
More...
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Dec 21, 2010
Violetheron
rated it:
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 n More...
"Her flowers and songs, her unshaken fidelities, her attempts at order, her relapses into squalor, her n More...
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Oct 24, 2010
Peter
rated it:
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 evi 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 evi More...
Jul 14, 2009
Marius
rated it:
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
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May 26, 2010
Nicola
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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
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Jan 29, 2012
Hilary
rated it:
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
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Jul 31, 2011
Sally
rated it:
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 furnit
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Feb 08, 2010
Jason
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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 wh
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Apr 28, 2010
Marvel
rated it:
I found this book quite an enjoyable read about a young boy growing up in the the s,all village in the Cotswald Valley (in Slad, Gloucestershire) in the early years of the 20th century. Coming from a large family with an absentee father, he gives lovely and lively descriptions of his sisters, brothers, and his rather off, but wonderful mother, and the family's struggles and adventures. He shares so beautifully stories given from a child's perspective and takes us up through the years of his pu
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Aug 01, 2011
Read this at school and remembered not enjoying it one bit. Decided to re-read, as I have done with most of the books we were forced to read, on the basis that they wouldn't have been set works if they didn't have something going for them. Unfortunately, I still didn't enjoy this one bit, my predominant emotion as I read through being intense boredom. There were one or two nice touches, one or two parts raised a smile, but in the main this was a somewhat dull recollection of a fairly unremarkabl
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Mar 01, 2011
Godzilla
rated it:
There are wonderful passages of prose within this book, that evoke another era and generation beautifully.
Having grown up in a rural area (I wouldn't go as far as idyll!) I can empathise with the lifestyle and attitudes displayed and recalled.
The book speaks of another time, where family was less fragmented and life centred upon it.
Sadly this seems so alien in our modern culture that the book serves to set itself apart, and may seem irrelevant to a modern read More...
Having grown up in a rural area (I wouldn't go as far as idyll!) I can empathise with the lifestyle and attitudes displayed and recalled.
The book speaks of another time, where family was less fragmented and life centred upon it.
Sadly this seems so alien in our modern culture that the book serves to set itself apart, and may seem irrelevant to a modern read More...
Feb 14, 2009
Randall
rated it:
This book, along with Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," helped form me as the writer I am today, and both books have remained my absolute favorites. "Tropic" I found on my own---"Rosie" was a gift from a girlfriend who was compelled to share it with me, and for that alone I'll remain forever grateful. It's a spare, but amazing book, with some of the most beautiful (and beautifully simplistic) prose I've ever read, and ought to be a universal text used by any who
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Feb 03, 2012
Melee
rated it:
I'm sure many of you goodreaders experience this, but whilst reading a book I'm mentally giving it stars before I'm done. (It's a reflex now, sadly.) While I was reading Cider With Rosie, my mental star level fluctuated between 3 and 5 stars, and I thought I would end up giving it 4; but as I am thinking about it now, about 5 hours after finishing, I don't feel compelled to give it much more than 3.
It took a while for me to get into the book. As with most books of this type, there's no More...
It took a while for me to get into the book. As with most books of this type, there's no More...
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Feb 15, 2012
Emily
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This is not a fast-paced adventure book but it does create a beautiful picture of quiet country lanes, honeysuckle on the breeze and both the wonders and tragedies of living so far out in a world controlled solely by the forces of nature.
It's a lovely portrait of childhood innocence and growing up, after reading it I got a desperate urge to visit the Cotswolds. The world of childhood is a very small bubble and this takes that alongside the equally small world in which this novel is set and More...
It's a lovely portrait of childhood innocence and growing up, after reading it I got a desperate urge to visit the Cotswolds. The world of childhood is a very small bubble and this takes that alongside the equally small world in which this novel is set and More...
Aug 12, 2009
Bettie
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Oct 09, 2008
Erika
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Cider with Rosie is utterly charming. Laurie Lee describes a kind of childhood that seems rare--and in ways nonexistent--now, but inspiring nonetheless in its awe and wonder, playfulness and courage. The foundation of these remembrances are the true and timeless qualities of life that are learned so young: independence, love of nature, familial love, appreciation of place (neighbors & community), curiosity, and a feeling of home.
Lee's lush prose is imbued with an easy love of life t More...
Lee's lush prose is imbued with an easy love of life t More...
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Jun 14, 2008
Cecily
rated it:
A quintessential coming of age story. It tells of Laurie Lee’s childhood in Gloucestershire, just after WW1. But it is not only Lee’s coming of age, it is also that of the village, as the rural backwater changes rapidly, losing many of its traditional village ways and gaining things such as motor vehicles.
The first time I read it, I was quite young and slightly confused as it was the first book I read that was not really chronological, but instead told the story grouped by overlappin More...
The first time I read it, I was quite young and slightly confused as it was the first book I read that was not really chronological, but instead told the story grouped by overlappin More...
Apr 18, 2009
Murray
rated it:
What can one say about a book as well known as this one. Well one thing is that it stays with you over the years - certain characters and situations often come to mind. The rich man who unwisely returns to the village, and brags in the bar; preparing for a party; the two old ladies who live one above the other and never talk . . .
Laurie Lee captured a forgotten age and village life that has utterly vanished. If you have not had the opportunity to read this book then you have a great More...
Laurie Lee captured a forgotten age and village life that has utterly vanished. If you have not had the opportunity to read this book then you have a great More...
Sep 12, 2011
Iva
rated it:
I am confident Frank McCourt was influenced by Laurie Lee, as were many who write memoirs. Lee's English childhood of poverty in the 1920's is presented in a gentler manner; however life in rural England had many harsh moments. (Bullying happened then as well.) Lee had a family structure that fascinates: a missing father who abandoned two families and Lee's mother was left with seven children to raise. Details of English life always fascinate. A little gem.
Jul 16, 2011
Manda
rated it:
I read this when I was a child, somewhere between 10 and 14, and nearer 10 probably. It was one of my parent's books, and I remember finding it to be shockingly erotic. I was allowed to borrow any book I wanted from their library, but once I had read it, I returned it secretly, cheeks flaming, sure there would be trouble if it was found out that I had read it. I did not realise it was an autobiography, and would perhaps have been even more embarrased had I.
Jan 24, 2010
Beautifully written poetic memoir of a boy in early 20th century England, lyrically detailing the life of a chaotic household in a traditional village on the verge of entering the modern age. Filled with memorable characters, like the old grannies who sleep all day and the rioutous drunken uncles, the haphazard mother and the loving assortment of siblings. The beauty of the language carries the book which is pure "show" rather than tell. I was enjoyably immersed!
Jun 14, 2011
Feral
rated it: 
Love Lee's adept descriptive passages as usual, but was completely distracted by trying to place his memoir in its historical context, as well as by the racist and mysogynist bits... Even as Lee was simultaneous trying to describe how fast times were changing during these brief years of his childhood, so much has changed again since then! All in all, a bit boring, and would better recommend his "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morming" instead.
Oct 14, 2010
Maughn
rated it:
This book was mentioned so often, and praised so highly, in a study I read on memoirs of childhood, that when I found it at a library book sale I happily paid the quarter! The book was a tremendous pleasure - stories of a childhood in the English country just after World War I, told with remarkable gracefulness. Now and then a sour note of old-time sexism, racism or violence pulled me back from the strong feeling of nostalgia the book evokes.
Feb 26, 2009
Melissa
rated it:
This is a favorite book that I have read many times. As a singer of old songs & ballads, I love books that tell the story of village life from before the Great War, and this memoir is so beautifully written.
At our midwinter ball, my husband often reads the chapter in which the boys go caroling, first at the Squire's house and then from house to house, over the hills and through the villages.
At our midwinter ball, my husband often reads the chapter in which the boys go caroling, first at the Squire's house and then from house to house, over the hills and through the villages.
