Customer Reviews:
 How could a writer with such an interesting life story write such a dull retelling of it?! March 13, 2010
EMW
I was given this book and would probably never have sought it out myself to read - i have never heard of Lynn Barber and throughout the book i was left amazed that this woman had read English Literature at Oxford and had had a very successful career as a journalist. Her writing was lackluster and whilst she clearly had an interesting life story to tell, it was written with so little emotion, so little personal insight and was so painfully brief, I couldn't really fathom out why she had bothered writing it in the first place (although she does comment in the introduction that if you are going to write it may as well be for money...). As for the book being funny - the only time a wry smile past my lips was when she condemned a degree in Philosophy and Psychology from Oxford as 'useless' but then went on to ridicule anyone who couldn't see the sense in a Media Studies degree. Hmmm. The film of the same title, written by Nick Hornby, is only based on this book's first chapter and really it seems as if it sparked an idea for him rather than being a compelling story in it's own right. Lynn Barber herself admits that he made up many more elements to jazz it up and then had to fabricate an ending because the real story just petered out. I haven't seen the film but it sounds more interesting than this dull little book.
 very light February 21, 2010
a reviewer
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It should be noted that the movie is based on only about 25 pages of this book, and they're much less detailed and in depth than what is presented in the film. So if you're interested in reading this book because you want to hear more details about weekends in Paris and the relationship presented in the movie etc this isn't worth buying (though there were small details I found interesting like the author buying Je Reviens perfume instead of Chanel No 5 like what's presented in the movie.) It's also interesting that Lynn's character (Jennie) was made more innocent and naive in the movie. In the book she never has many feelings for Simon (David) and is soon suspicious and bored of his character, and even tries to leave him after she gets too bored with him and has to study for her entrance exams (this is the reason why Simon proposes to her, which makes a lot more sense than what's presented in the movie.) Though this book is interesting, it's a very light read. It reads more like outline than a novel, I feel, given the lax description of anything. I can definitely tell that a journalist wrote this book. I am impressed with the way Nick Hornby expanded so much and truly made a work of fiction just based on something light like this. It's interesting that instead of a book being turned into a movie and the movie being just a shortened version of the book, the movie was actually more detailed. Worth comparing the two if you're interested in book to film translations.
 I really liked this book.... December 10, 2009
Anne Salazar (Huntington Beach, CA United States)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I really liked this book which I bought after seeing the movie and reading Lynn Barber's long interview in The Guardian. It is refreshing to read a straight-forward, honest autobiography/memoir. What was missing in the movie was that she got tired of Simon long before her parents found out he was a liar and a creep; in the movie, you get the impression she was having the time of her life and was shocked to find out that Simon was anything other than what he told her he was. The record is set straight in the book where we learn that she thought he was weird at best and would have stopped seeing him but for the encouragement, almost insistence, of her parents, especially her father. The education she got from Simon was that people are almost always NOT as they appear. Hello Tiger Woods? (sorry)
I did like this book, though, which I thought was well written. It is always interesting to read about other people's lives to see why they took the directions in life that they did. In this case, Lynn Barber wanted to be a journalist, and she worked as a journalist wherever she could get a job. Her first job was at Penthouse magazine. Sobeit. She learned and moved on. She also became a wife and mother, jobs she didn't think she wanted or was cut out for but that she ended up loving after all. All in all, she was a lucky lady.
 The title says it all November 8, 2009
Drimble Wedge (Oxfordshire, England)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
When she was 16, Lynn Barber got into a car with a strange man. Soon - and with her parents' blessing - this obviously dodgy character was showing her a good time in London's West End and eventually he proposed. She was going to Oxford, but why bother, her parents said, when a man with money presented himself? How typical of the Striving 60s! Barber says this experience taught her to doubt the claims people make about themselves - no bad thing for a journalist. She never lost the readiness to go for it that got her to Oxford and glittering prizes that include five awards and gigs with Penthouse, the Observer and Vanity Fair. Grab the chance to read this entertaining memoir while it's being republished alongside Nick Hornby's film adaptation. When she describes her husband's final illness, this entertaining, artfully shaped memoir segues into a moving coda.
not so great, except in spots October 6, 2009
Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs)
37 out of 54 found this review helpful
I was so moved by a searingly honest excerpt of Lynn Barber's "An Education" that appeared a couple of weeks ago in the Guardian that I ordered the book forthwith. I was a little leery doing so, since, as I'd never heard of Lynn Barber before then, I was dreading a biography that would go on and on about a person I knew nothing of.
Mercifully, however, Lynn Barber's "An Education" is a swift read: 182 pages that can probably be finished in an afternoon.
So who is Lynn Barber? In brief, a British journalist who's famous for controversial interviews. In the 70's, she worked at Penthouse, which at the time was quite the louche thing for a Oxford-educated lady to do.
The reason this book is getting a bunch of press is that its third chapter, "An Education," has been turned into a movie starring Carey Mulligan, with a script written by the much-praised Nick Hornby. That's also the excerpt I read in the Guardian, and yow, is it fantastic. Here's a paragraph:
"But there were other lessons Simon taught me that I regret learning. I learned not to trust people; I learned not to believe what they say but to watch what they do; I learned to suspect that anyone and everyone is capable of 'living a lie'. I cam to believe that other people -- even when you think you know them well -- are ultimately unknowable. Learning all this was a good basis for my subsequent career as an interviewer, but not, I think, for life. It made me too wary, too cautious, too ungiving. I was damaged by my education." (pp. 55-56)
As for the rest of it, I found it pretty forgettable. Part of the problem is that, since I'm not British, I'm lost with all of the Fleet Street name-dropping. Whatever effect it was intended to have is lost on me. Here's a sample of what I'm talking about:
". . . . so I assembled a good backlog of interviews for Stephen Glover to choose from. In the very first issue he ran an interview I did with John Aspinall in which - I always believe - Aspinall admitted to having seen Lord Lucan after he murdered his nanny." (p. 133)
Other than third chapter, the only other part of the book that I felt was worthwhile was the end, where Ms. Barber finds that her youngish husband of thirty years is unexpectedly dying of a rare disease. She really put her heart on the page in those final pages, and it shows.
As for the impression you get about the life Barber has achieved, it seems like it doesn't sum to much. As quoted above, she blames her relationship with Simon for her being ungiving, but she struck me as just another typical baby boomer. Her life was one series of self-indulgent antics after another, and, though she does mention her kids, she doesn't seem too interested in them. Seems like her whole life has been more about getting rather than giving. Sadly, the author, now about 65, has apparently yet to realize this.
Quotes that creep the reader out are frequent. Here's one:
"I probably slept with about fifty men in my second year [at Oxford]. My fantasy in those days was to meet a stranger, exchange almost no words, jump into bed, and then talk afterwards." (p. 67)
In short, a poorly lived life.
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