“The delicacy of Zinovieff’s perceptions, the abiding redolence of her descriptions and the captivating moods of her subjects make (The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me) a book of rare pleasure. It stands at the top of its genre.”
“An “absorbing, candid, critical and loving tale”… “and there isn’t a character in The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me whom one wouldn’t dearly wish to meet.”
“If you want a guide to the heady, bitchy, glamorous world chronicled by Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, this is a good place to start… Sumptuous.”
“Zinovieff provides a vivid sketch of the extraordinarily glamorous society of Faringdon in its heyday, especially during the 30s, as Berners and Heber-Percy reached the peak of their fashionable appeal. They knew “everyone”, and almost everyone came to stay…”
“Prepare to be seduced by outlandish delights and strange creatures”
“A compelling read”
“Sofka Zinovieff has written the strange, and strangely moving, tale of her family’s unorthodox relationships. By turns comical, tragicomical and melodramatic, her book often reads much like fiction, and she recounts it like a novel.”
“unputdownable… gloriously lavish, something fascinating to gaze at on every page. Sofka Zinovieff’s tale of Lord Berners and his lover is packed with money, sex, secrets and bad blood”.
“Sofka Zinovieff has written the strange, and strangely moving, tale of her family’s unorthodox relationships. By turns comical, tragicomical and melodramatic, her book often reads much like fiction, and she recounts it like a novel.”
“Formidably researched and wonderfully enjoyable.”
“I enjoyed every word”
“If the Berners story has been well told before… its sequel is all Sofka’s: an affecting account of how Faringdon’s improbable new chatelaine laboured to unravel the truth about her very troubled grandmother.”
“It was a house to live in, not to rush out from all day to kill enemies and animals,” wrote Nancy Mitford of Faringdon House. Sofka Zinovieff inherited Faringdon from her grandfather ’the Mad Boy” of the title, Robert Heber-Percy, the lover of Lord Berners. Sofka first went to Faringdon, a house with an illustrious and chequered history, with her mother, Victoria, when she was seventeen. “Entering the gates at Faringdon took me into an unfamiliar yet hugely seductive realm.”
“A fabulous tale of glittering, if decadent society.”
“An entertaining dose of British country life and high-style scandal.” A “well-researched, engaging memoir”
A “delicious family history”. A “sumptuously produced book that abounds with gorgeous photographs and typographical frills. Zinovieff has collected heaps of anecdotes from a bygone era when shameless hedonism reigned.”
“An absorbing as well as original book”
Henry James’s “sense of irony would have been inordinately tickled by Sofka Zinovieff’s entertaining memoir”.”Ms. Zinovieff handles her flamboyant material with considerable tact and finesse, giving due weight to the outlandishness of it all while still acknowledging a certain darkness at its core.”
“Witty, empathetic and stylish”