DUBRAY STAFF REVIEW:
The gently sarcastic but endlessly cheerful host of The Great British Bake Off sifts through her life for this hilarious and touching memoir. Baking a top rate comedian requires equal parts heartbreak and hilarity, and Sue Perkins has had her share of both. Discovering that she can’t have children left her heartbroken. The passage describing the birth of her best friend Mel’s baby will tug at your heartstrings, while her letter to her beloved dead dog is sob-inducing. But her love of dogs is also a joy to behold - even poor Parker, whose explosive episode in the back of a girlfriend’s car left him with a soggy bottom, will leave you in stitches. Warm, witty and insightful, Sue Perkins’ showstopper is an absolute joy to read.
Recommended by Martin Shannon, Dubray Rathmines
Spectacles is the hilarious, creative and incredibly moving memoir from much loved comedian, writer and presenter Sue Perkins. When I began writing this book, I went home to see if my mum had kept some of my stuff. What I found was that she hadn't kept some of it. She had kept all of it - every bus ticket, postcard, school report - from the moment I was born to the moment I finally had the confidence to turn round and say 'Why is our house full of this shit?' Sadly, a recycling 'incident' destroyed the bulk of this archive. This has meant two things: firstly, Dear Reader, you will never get to see countless drawings of wizards, read a poem about corn on the cob, or marvel at the kilos of brown flowers I so lovingly pressed as a child. Secondly, it's left me with no choice but to actually write this thing myself. This, my first ever book, will answer questions such as 'Is Mary Berry real?', 'Is it true you wear a surgical truss?' and 'Is a non-spherically symmetric gravitational pull from outside the observable universe responsible for some of the observed motion of large objects such as galactic clusters in the universe?' Most of this book is true.
I have, of course, amplified my more positive characteristics in an effort to make you like me. Thank you for reading. Praise for Spectacles: "Drama, tears and laughs - Spectacles has got it all. A brilliant, touching memoir suffused with love, it reminds you that life is best lived at wonky angles. I adored it." (Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist). "Very funny...It seems there are two Sue Perkins: the TV one, who gabbles and pratfalls, and the sensitive one who aches. The first of course, exists to protect the second. They can both write. The first writes comedy, the second tragedy; in this sense, reading her memoir is very like meeting her." (Sunday Times). "It's a proper book...so well written. Tight & bright & full of inspiration." (Chris Evans, Radio 2).
