Gillian Tindall (1938–2025)
Author of The House By the Thames: And the People Who Lived There
About the Author
Works by Gillian Tindall
JEUNE VEUVE 1 copy
Gillian Tindall 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1938-05-04
- Date of death
- 2025-10-01
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Oxford
- Occupations
- author
journalist
historian - Relationships
- Orange, Ursula (mother)
- Short biography
- Gillian Tindall FRSL (born 4 May 1938) is a British writer and historian. Among her best-known works are the books City of Gold: Biography of Bombay and Celestine: Voices from a French Village. Her novel Fly Away Home won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1972. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, Tindall also worked as a journalist, writing stories for The Guardian, The Evening Standard, The Times, and The Independent – and for many years she was a regular guest on the BBC Radio 3 arts discussion programme, Critics' Forum. Since 1963 she has lived in Kentish Town, North London.
- Nationality
- England
UK - Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Kentish Town, North London, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Acquired via BookCrossing 27 Feb 2010 - at the Birmingham meetup
An amazing book based on real events when Tindall found a cache of old letters in a house in a French village, mainly asking for a woman's, Celestine's, hand in marriage in the 1860s. Knowing Celestine's grand-daughter lived in the village, she traces the interconnecting relationships between the villagers, the landscape, and wider French history, right up to their present-day lives in the village. Wonderful - warm and rich and show more the village seems really similar to the one we've been staying in, if in a different area. show less
An amazing book based on real events when Tindall found a cache of old letters in a house in a French village, mainly asking for a woman's, Celestine's, hand in marriage in the 1860s. Knowing Celestine's grand-daughter lived in the village, she traces the interconnecting relationships between the villagers, the landscape, and wider French history, right up to their present-day lives in the village. Wonderful - warm and rich and show more the village seems really similar to the one we've been staying in, if in a different area. show less
Very interesting ,objects that survive when we are gone and what they can tell us of lives gone and forgotten....only heard the abridged version on the radio, but would like to read the book and more of this author....this is history to me ,not wars and parliament .
Kentish Town is an area of north London very close to where I live, and after I read this book I found that I viewed the streets there completely differently. The author had stripped away the years and shown me "the fields beneath". I could understand why the streets follow the routes they do, why certain streets have the names they do. This is a great read for anyone who is interested in local history even if they are not familiar with Kentish Town, it shows how you have to look at familiar show more places from a different perspective. show less
An interesting book. It does give you a lot of hidden facts of Bombay. This is a city that I still refuse to call Mumbai. There is still a lot of energy and spirit left in the city, but it is fading. The jingoistic movements of local politicians is slowly robbing the city of its life.
While Gillian does an admirable job of tracing the history of the city, I wish she had written more about the "normal" Indian on the street, instead of focussing so much on the British who ruled India. She show more missed an opportunity to make a book that would have truly stood out. show less
While Gillian does an admirable job of tracing the history of the city, I wish she had written more about the "normal" Indian on the street, instead of focussing so much on the British who ruled India. She show more missed an opportunity to make a book that would have truly stood out. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 34
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 917
- Popularity
- #27,978
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 13
- ISBNs
- 87
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 3