Advent Book 9 – The life of a poet

Day nine of my bookish advent calendar and we have another literary biography – Dylan Thomas : The Biography by Paul Ferris. It’s probably the thickest book I have had as part of the calendar to date, with some black and white photos inserted.

As I said before (see here for the previous literary biography of this calendar) I do like to read the life stories of writers, even if I don’t know their work particularly well. What I know about Dylan Thomas is that he wrote Under Milk Wood which is a beautiful story type poem about a day in a small Welsh village which I really love (especially in the audio version where it is narrated by Richard Burton). The other things I know about this poet are that he was Welsh, he was frequently drunk and he died quite young.

I am happy to read this biography, in fact I might well have purchased it had I seen it available. It seems like a well-researched book with plenty of references and footnotes and the usual sprinkle of accolades from other writers on the cover.

The edition I have been sent is an ex-library copy from the Emery Library at Ratcliffe College (librarians always stamp their books). Research (Google) tells me that this is a private Roman Catholic school in Leicestershire. I am not sure when they dispensed with this book but it was published in 2000 – it doesn’t look particularly worn although it has been covered with sticky backed plastic.

Another winner. We have reached day 9 of my Advent calendar and all the books are readable with a few that I am really enthusiastic about starting. And, so far, there are no duplicates of books I already own or have read recently. I wonder when I am going to get the time to read all these new books given that I already have several very tall piles od volumes awaiting my attention !