My Family and Other Strangers, Jeremy Hardy
My Family and Other Strangers, Jeremy Hardy
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My Family and Other Strangers
Adventures in Family History

Author: Jeremy Hardy

Narrator: Jeremy Hardy

Abridged: 3 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/04/2010


Synopsis

Exploring family history is an urge that has gripped the nation, and it has gripped Jeremy Hardy too. In My Family and Other Strangers he sets out on the road and on the world wide web to find out all he can about the Hardy clan.

His aim is to prove - or more likely disprove - his grandmother Becky's dubious claims that they are descended from Sir Christopher Wren and that Jeremy's great grandfather was personal bodyguard and confident to the King. Wild stories apart, Jeremy travels as far a field as his local library and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find family traits that go beyond a big nose and IBS.

Whatever he finds, how will he know how much is in the blood and how much is coincidence? Might he discover a comedy gene? But perhaps what he will find is more important is to build up a picture of those relatives he knew too fleetingly as a small child, and the people who filled their world.

Negotiating the living and the dead, the familiar and the distant, in My Family and Other Strangers Jeremy Hardy takes us on a fascinating and often hilarious journey into the world of family ancestry.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jo on February 06, 2014

Hardy shows that family history research is not like it is on the telly. When the BBC film some celebrity learning about their ancestors, all the research has been done beforehand by various archives and local studies staff repeatedly contacted by harangued researchers. Plus they only ever make prog......more

Goodreads review by Sorrento on November 10, 2016

Jeremy Hardy is one of my favourite comedians, sadly though I found this book long and dreary. Yes it did have flashes of his comic genius, but there were long passages of uninteresting turgid writing. I am afraid I gave up half way through chapter 6. I think the problem with the book is that Jeremy......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on February 27, 2011

This is something of a stream of consciousness, with a whiff of "I've been told to write this book so I'd better get something down" However, I enjoy Jeremy Hardy and the book was very much 'him', very wry.......more

Goodreads review by Paul on June 12, 2010

Comedian Jeremy Hardy traces his family tree and clears up some family myths. Touching and funny.......more

Goodreads review by Nikki on January 12, 2024

It took me quite a long time to get through this book. As a long-time amateur genealogist myself, I thought I would enjoy it more than I did. Hardy, apparently a well-known comedian in Great Britain, was not at all familiar to me, so some of his allusions to his personal and professional life went r......more