Polly Toynbee: what my privileged start in life taught me about the British class system

It wasn’t just luck that steered the Guardian columnist to Oxford and into a media career ... She reflects on the subtle mechanics of class (and an early encounter with a naked future PM)Children know. They breathe it in early, for there’s no unknowing the difference between nannies, cleaners, below-stairs people and the family upstairs. Children are the go-betweens, one foot in each world, and yet they know very well from the earliest age where they belong, where their destiny lies or, to put it crudely, who pays whom. Tiny hands are steeped young in the essence of class and caste. In nursery school, in reception they see the Harry Potter sorting hat at work. They know. And all through school those fine gradations grow clearer, more precise, more consciously knowing, more shaming, more frightening. Good liberal parents teach their children to check their privilege – useful modern phrase – but it swells up like a bubo on the nose. There’s no hiding it.I can summon up the childhood shame at class embarrassments. Aged seven like me, Maureen, with her hair pinned sideways in a pink slide, lived in a pebble-dashed council house by the water tower. They were at the other end of Lindsey, more hamlet than village, half a mile down the road from my father’s pink thatched cottage set in the flat prairie lands of Suffolk, where I spent half my time, the other half in London, shuttling between divorced parents. I envied Maureen for what looked to me like a cheerful large family... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-20 12:00:56 UTC ]
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Want to Start an Indie Press? These Publishers Have Some Suggestions

A life in independent publishing requires moxie, malleability, and, of course, money. Just ask these presses, all of which were founded within the past decade. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-04-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Lev Rubinstein: Ordinary Life through the Lens of Russian Conceptualism, by Daria Shchukina

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[ World Literature Today | 2024-04-16 20:38:33 UTC ]
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TLA 2024 Preview: Leading the Way in the Lone Start State

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-29 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Mat Osman: ‘I wanted to write about a dirty, dangerous, working-class London’

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[ The Guardian | 2024-03-23 18:00:26 UTC ]
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Why media companies are still hybrid, four years since the pandemic started

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[ Digiday | 2024-03-22 04:01:00 UTC ]
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Pope Francis Launches New Book, 'Life,' with HarperCollins

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-20 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Shelf Life Books in Richmond Unionizes

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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I didn’t get the credit for my bestselling book: the secret life of the celebrity ghost writer

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[ The Guardian | 2024-03-11 14:00:31 UTC ]
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McDonald’s Caters to Anime Fans by Bringing a Fictional Restaurant to Life

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[ AdWeek | 2024-02-21 14:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-02-15 21:43:40 UTC ]
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Starting this year, the National Book Awards will be open to non-citizens.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-15 15:30:03 UTC ]
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Life a Cold Crematorium: A Long-Lost Memoir from a Holocaust Survivor

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[ Literrary Hub | 2024-01-25 09:53:48 UTC ]
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[ Literrary Hub | 2024-01-22 09:01:33 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-11 20:25:14 UTC ]
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Now Streaming: 'My Life with the Walter Boys'

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-01-09 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The Generative AI Copyright Fight Is Just Getting Started

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[ Wired | 2023-12-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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A Book Club Took 28 Years to Read ‘Finnegans Wake.’ Now, It’s Starting Over.

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[ The New York Times | 2023-12-07 10:40:10 UTC ]
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