A powerful compilation of prose and poetry by one of the distinctive
thinkers of our time.
"David Hare's great quality has always been his refusal to accept the
division between fact and imagination. His creative invention is fired
by public realities and in turn he makes those realities feel deeply
personal. That same quality is wonderfully at work in his essays and
poems. Whether he is writing about Tony Blair or Joan Didion, whether he
is writing out of love or rage, evoking the intimate moments of his own
life or the great moral questions of our times, he brings his subjects
to life with an irresistible immediacy. All the wit, combativeness,
energy and edge he has brought to the stage are present here on the
page." -- Fintan O'Toole
I can't remember if I had any plans for the twenty-first century. I was
already 52 when it arrived. But events raced off in such unexpected
directions that any possible ideas must have gone out the window. Many
of us shared the sensation that history was speeding up.
Recording dizzying changes in culture and politics, these elegant essays
range in subject from the photographer Lee Miller to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, from the actress Sarah Bernhardt to the rapist Jimmy
Saville, from a celebration of Mad Men to a diagnosis of the
incoherence of Conservatism in the new century.
The poems, in contrast, are private: tender meditations, filled with
love, memory, vulnerability and the melancholy of ageing.
