By Alan Johnson - This Boy Paperback – 12 Feb. 2014

Very speedy delivery. Book in new condition and much appreciated. Well worth reading and strongly recommend.

I was recommended to read this by a friend. Excellent book and very touching. Would appeal to those who enjoyed the "Call the midwife" books and series.

Very happy

An excellent, absorbing biography of a desperately hard childhood, which explains a lot about the man Alan Johnson became. I couldn't put it down.

Good

Enjoyed v much.

A moving autobiography beautifully written

I reached for that book unknowingly that it was a memoir of a prominent British politician (I'm not British). I was intrigued more by the book's theme, recommended to me on the wave of 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt. So I didn't care to much about the protagonist and it was only while reading that I discovered more. It truly was a long and hard way for Mr Johnson to climb out of the excruciating poverty, lack of hopes for a change and grim prospects. And, as duly recognised in the book, thanks to two remarkable women, his mother Lily and his sister Linda.This book is more than a memoir of a person. This is a memoir of an era. So much of what Mr Johnson has descried would have stretched over thousands of families across the UK, extreme poverty and misery, day-to-day uncertainty, lack of help, interest or prospects. All of these were systemic feature of a post-war England. Well reported in Mr Johnson's book but with a personal touch.This personal note is really moving and touching. At the same time, it is without exaggerated pathos or overdone sentimentalism. Mr Johnson tell his tale in a rather dry, non-emotional tone, intertwining his personal feelings and events with social and political ones of the time, putting his life nicely in a broader context of events. We learn how passions and drive form; we learn how struggles are accepted and overcome. Or not.Lily's suffering is palpable and underlines the story throughout. As a mother myself, living comfortably and taking (too many) things for granted, I bow to the heroic fight she put to not only survive but raise her children decently and with love that was spared to them from their father. Enough to look at Linda and the values installed in her. She braved the unimaginable things that some adults would not be able to cope with. She effectively swapped the roles with her critically ill mother, took are of the family's - relative - well-being and before anything else - refuse to part with his brother after Lily's death, securing special conditions from the social services and ... keeping him safe.I won't probably read the rest of Mr Johnson's books but let this review be a credit and respect to his achievements despite going against the strong wind in the forming years of his life.