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Nineteen Seventy-nine: A Big Year in a Small TownSnagging.org In association with Amazon.co.ukOnline Shop | Property Guides | Kitchen & Home | Garden Tools | Power Tools | Consumer Electronics Get the Snagging Checklist Here!  List Price: £9.99 Price: £0.01 You Save: £9.98 (100%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.45028092 EAN: 9780091894283 ISBN: 009189428X Label: Ebury Press Manufacturer: Ebury Press Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: October 02, 2003 Publisher: Ebury Press Studio: Ebury Press Related Items:
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 Rating:  - A far from mundane MussleboroughCameron's witty and at times moving description of what she in a recent interview named the crucial year of her life, makes for both an enjoyable and insightful read into the mind of a public figure with a very down to earth background. From the logging of her obsession with teachers and girls at school, to the poignant observation of her adoptive father's fight against lung cancer, the story of small town life in Scotland is far from mundane. I found her frank and honest approach to the awareness of her sexuality at such a young age a revelation to read about, and I think heterosexual and gay readers alike will find that they are able to connect in some way. Cameron speaks of many of the common (and some not quite so common) insecurities and fears of young adolscence, with just the right amount of humour and compassion inbetween. Whether you are a fan, or know very little of this comedian as I did, the book will make you laugh and cry in equal amounts. A book about belonging and the beginning of self-discovery, I'm looking forward to the next one to see how it all turned out. Rating:  - Fabulous!!!!I thought I had forgotten the 70's but this book brings it all back I mean who remembers: Pippa Dee parties, arctic roll, Embassy Regal, fights after school, playing cards in a caravan, Butterflies on TV, Chopper bikes, Ford Cortina's, Starsky and Hutch, Girl Guides - badges and captains and handbooks etc., school careers interviews, school disco's - snogging and more!! The list is endless and Rhona remembers it all and says it like it is - how does she do it? However, along with this is an honest and touching account of her struggle to fit in and the loss of her father. Truly brilliant! Rating: - Brave!I read this novel cringing with shock, surprise, and embarassment every few pages, and not just at Rhona's exploits but at how much I had forgotten about my own childhood. Did we really do all those things that Rhona is so brave to put her hands up to? "Kays catalogue" says it all really. But other than being cringeworthy, this book is a good read especially for those readers (me) who are sick to death of so-called celebrities publishing their childhood memoirs in the dim hope that they have something important to share, (they dont). Rhona is just like every one of us, it feels as if you are reading your friend's tale, because you actually care, you can share experience, and it feels as if you are gossiping with Rhona, sharing these horrible moments over a vodka and coke. When Rhona needs to get serious toward the end of the book, she does with a childlike exactness and boldness. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, soaking my pillow, before I realised. Its quite a gift to be able to make me cry! Great book - and thanks for the conclusion to Jamie's story! Rating: - More books please!Cameron's self-confessed disturbingly uncanny memory for random detail is not the only thing that makes 'Nineteen Seventy Nine' immensely readable and enjoyable. She also has an nerve-wrenching talent for causing the reader to grimace in embarassment every page or two! Bravely written, disclosing and revealing those things so few of us can bear to even remember, Cameron gives us a year in the life of a lesbian in a small town. Including her actual, 13 yr old diary entries, and telling the story with that detail that is so intriguing, and unusual to see. Described easily as a book about 'coming to terms with sexuality', or 'coming of age', these somewhat stock phrases cannot grasp the actuality that is, in truth, the painful recollection of being different in a small town. The difficulty of being the one (and always the only one) so desperately trying to dodge the machinations of the eternally too-cool, while trying too hard to be one of them; this is the true nature of the book, to one with personal comparisons to draw on. The narration is frank, sometimes touching in it's often bland emotion and honesty and the character's desperation just to fit in and be liked - by one girl, just one. Amusing, too, not to mention stomach-clenchingly cringeworthy and mostly immense fun to read. In her true stand-up style, Cameron shows us that even in this new field, nothing is off-limits, and nothing is too bad to dredge up and confess! If ever needing a change of career, Cameron might look to penning fiction in the futre - her description of detail, insight to character and own sense of irony and humour would stand her in good stead. One can only hope. -- Rating: - Sometimes...you read a book onceSometimes...you read a book twice. Usually, in my case that's because the writer has tried to confuse me me big words. With "1979" that is not the reason. I read it again because its absolutely fantastic. Rhona Cameron has written a book that is capable of making me laugh aloud in a way that only French and Saunders doing "Gone With the Wind" could before. She has also written a book that's capable of making me stop after reading a paragraph and think for a bit because what she has written is so profound (some might call that 'thought provoking' to save time). This is a book for everyone who's mum leaned out of the caravan door to call them in for tea, everyone who played 'choosing' from Kays catalogue, and everyone who called someone a lemon at school (pretty much everyone then). Teachers: Throw away "Far from the Madding Crowd" and get your class to read this 'un. If anyone gets 'queer' chalked on their back afterwards, I'll buy you a pint.  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