One Fine Day

I read this very engaging book in two days over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. It’s a fabulous mix of social and personal history/memoir - witty, discursive, deeply moving, insightful, honest and at times angry. The publisher’s blurb does a better job than I can of explaining what it’s about, but......more

Its at once a memoir, biography, social history, particularly of 18th century country life and travel log. An enjoyable read witty, bittersweet and heart warming as well. At times it was not always clear what was fact from fantasy but despite this I learnt a lot and filled a few gaps on my family tre......more

The authors writing style was engaging, which was just as well, as I found the beginning hard to follow. I enjoyed this book immensely. It was fascinating, and even the politics came alive. The diary was really interesting in that with a few written words, another book was written. I would really sco......more

The good: - A very good sense of humor inhabits this book. I think my favorite sentence was “There are lots of museums dedicated to the history of the production of iron, as no one knows better than my wife and children." - It’s moving to read a man’s account of (seemingly) graceful acceptance of his......more

A lot of really good titbits here and there, very much the sort of book that aligns with the stream of consciousness of a sixty-something man, and if that isn't in my soul I don't know what is. But sometimes Marchant gets a touch too personal for no obvious reason, or, at the other end, spends a tou......more