A frank and fascinating journey through the first twenty years of Stephen Fry’s life, this warmly-written and self-effacing story made me feel like inviting him round for tea and giving him a big hug. ( )

I think the New York Times said it all: "Delicious!" ( )

Moab is My Washpot is a grippingly honest account of the first eighteen years of Stephen Fry's life.

Fry guides us through the joys and torments of his youth in sometimes shockingly intimate detail. The narrative moves effortlessly from a timid boy in knee high shorts to accounts of lost virginity and credit card fraud, with a few sweet shop incidents in between. Sometimes the flow of the story is sidetracked by Fry's intellectual explorations, but to its benefit, not detraction. I was particulary taken by the proposed similarities between Fry's bent nose and the British monarchy - if you can't think what those might be, you'll have to read it and see.

Not forgetting, of course, the poor dead hedgehog.

The wonder of this book and what keeps it so compelling all the way through is that is is so open, full of emotion and guts. It not just a collection of events but the story the a growth of a personality from the perspective of its person. I have good friends who have never revealed as much of themselves to me as Fry has in the pages of Moab.

The account is engagingly written and, despite the dark nature of some of the content, full of wry humorous observations. Highly recommended. ( )

This book is so honest and so personal that it feels like an intrusion to read it. Having said that, once I started I couldn't stop! ( )

Meandering, witty, defensive, wildly self-indulgent, honest, conceited and very entertaining, reading Moab is my Washpot is an experience which I must imagine is very akin to sitting down with Stephen Fry and having him talk with and/or at you for a couple of hours about any subject which comes into his head. Fry recounts the first twenty years of his life—his periods at various boarding schools; his struggles with his sexuality; his suicide attempt and his conviction for fraud—with a great deal of candour. There are elements which he is frank about editing, and other aspects which are perhaps unconsciously elided, but Fry is definitely not out to save his blushes in this work. There were times when I found that a little tedious, because he was being so aggressively honest that it would almost make you think that he was trying to hide something, or at the least to convince himself of his own point. That said, still a very enjoyable book, which gives a very amusing insight into the weird and wonderful effects which the English boarding school system can have. ( )