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Cider with Rosie: A Memoir (The Autobiographical Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Laurie Lee (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.1 3,849 ratings

Book 1 of 3: The Autobiographical Trilogy

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This international-bestselling memoir of childhood in post–World War I rural England is one of the most “remarkable” portraits of youth in all literature (The New York Times).

Three years old and wrapped in a Union Jack to protect him from the sun, Laurie Lee arrived in the village of Slad in the final summer of the First World War. The cottage his mother had rented for three and sixpence a week had neither running water nor electricity, but it was surrounded by a lovely half-acre garden and, most importantly, it was big enough for the seven children in her care. It was here, in a verdant valley tucked into the rolling hills of the Cotswolds, that Laurie Lee learned to look at life with a painter’s eye and a poet’s heart—qualities of vision that, decades later, would make him one of England’s most cherished authors.

In this vivid recollection of a magical time and place, water falls from the scullery pump “sparkling like liquid sky.” Autumn is more than a season—it is a land eternally aflame, like Moses’s burning bush. Every midnight, on a forlorn stretch of heath, a phantom carriage reenacts its final, wild ride. And, best of all, the first secret sip of cider, “juice of those valleys and of that time,” leads to a boy’s first kiss, “so dry and shy, it was like two leaves colliding in air.”

An instant classic when it was first published in 1959, Cider with Rosie is one of the most endearing and evocative portraits of youth in all of literature. The first installment in an autobiographical trilogy that includes As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War, it is also a heartfelt and lyrical ode to England, and to a way of life that may belong to the past, but will never be forgotten.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Cider with Rosie

“A remarkable book written with such dazzling verbal imagery and such relish in all the sensations of being alive that it is magically contagious.”
—New York Times

“Remains as fresh and full of joy and gratitude for youth and its sensations as when it first appeared. It sings in the memory.”
—The Sunday London Times

From the Back Cover

A wonderfully vivid memoir of Laurie Lee's childhood and youth in a remote Cotswold village.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KGMIY78
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media; New Ed edition (June 10, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 10, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2227 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 227 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #372,102 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #535 in Historical British Biographies
- #560 in Biographies & Memoirs of Authors
- #2,151 in Author Biographies

Customer Reviews:
4.1 3,849 ratings

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Laurie Lee
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Kindle Customer

A classic of autobiography

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2017

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This is Laurie Lee’s love letter to the Cotswolds’ and his impoverished though rich childhood - a memoir filled with one memorable vignette after another. The trials and tribulations, the larks and adventures are all brought vividly to life by Lee, whose writing style is extravagantly evocative and assured. One feels transported, a voyeur or witness to a bygone place and era. I read with a smile and laughed several times – especially when mother would hold up the bus while she rinsed out her scarf or looked for her shoes [there is someone in my life very much like this]. I was often moved by the poignant depiction of melancholy events, never more so than by the death of his sister. Here is an excerpt:

“It was soon after this that my sister Frances died. She was a beautiful, fragile, dark-curled child, and my Morher’s only daughter. Though only four, she used to watch me like a nurse, sitting all day beside my cot and talking softly in a special language. Nobody noticed that she was dying herself, they were too much concerned with me. She died suddenly, silently, without complaint, in a chair in the corner of the room. An ignorant death which need never have happened – and I believe that she gave me her life.”

I loved the scenes at the village school. The country festivals. The story of all his uncles. Cider with Rosie under the wagon. Most of all I hated the father and wanted terrible things to happen to him for abandoning his family, and yet the mother’s reaction to his death and the horrible realization that her fantasies that he'd return and they’d spend their final days together were finally and forever torn asunder…well, I just wanted to fold her up in my arms and let her mourn all her dashed dreams.

I’ve read a number of very fine books this year, and this is one of the best.

18 people found this helpful

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karen service

Cider with Rosie

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2020

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I had no idea what or why I was reading this book. It started slow but I began to like the story. I could relate to the author's living. I grew up very poor in the backwoods of North central New York state. I could sense the dusty crowded kitchen huddled around the stove to keep warm. I could feel the snow drifts on my bare knees. The author's sense of loneliness and isolation from the world in the outback country where he lived . The story was of happy times of mother and her 3 sons and 3 daughters raised without their absent father. Picnics, Church celebrations, Christmas caroling and the town Squire. I loved the language of the early 20th century England country folks.

5 people found this helpful

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Serena

Maybe a Kindle Isn't the Best Way to Read this Amazing Book

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2017

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I read this wonderful book on my Kindle, but was very unpleasantly surprised and disappointed when the book ended at 80%. A couple of the reviews mentioned passages that weren't in my Kindle version I guess I am going to have to get the hard copy to see what I missed. Or, perhaps I am the one who didn't download the update for this book--if there is one.

I am not usually one who notices how words are put together when I read a book. However, in Cider with Rosie I couldn't help but feel how the most perfect words and phrases were chosen for almost every paragraph. Scenes were created in my mind that made me almost feel I was there about 100 years ago. My heart broke for Laurie Lee's mother who never doubted her husband would come back to her--until she heard he was dead.

How wonderful there are more books in this series. I have them all on my Kindle, but am not sure about reading further Lee books on that device.

13 people found this helpful

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JAK

Merrie Olde England on its Last Legs

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2015

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Cider reminded me that all books shouldn't be read in the same manner.I started reading this word for word and line for line,It didn't work! I was so bored , I almost abandoned the book.That would have been too bad because it's worthwhile.So I started skimming , big time. That allowed me to carry on.It is a lyrical and at times interesting book.It's simply not as interesting as Laurie Lee imagined.

This is a memoir(probably highly fictionalized) of the authors childhood in rural England in the 1910s and 1920s. Lee has a thesis , village life was collapsing with the coming of modernity and he was one of the last to witness what was more or less old rural England.Some of his observations on this are interesting.His "lyricism" does get the better of him.At certain points ,I knew I'd had enough and turned the skimming machine on.Lee seems to substitute"lyricism" for thought.You get a little sentimental leftism but not much analysis and actually not much emotion.Lee strikes me as a shallow sort with certain artistic gifts.

The kindle edition also includes a long excerpt form his next memoir about going to London and then Spain.Moderately interesting and similar to CIDER.

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Incredibly candid, lyrical, emphathetic memoir of his childhood and a way of life

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2013

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that ended when his childhood ended. Truly beautiful writing that was moving without any sentimentality, at times it moved me to tears. The earliest memory of his loving sisters faces surrounding him and the chapter on his mother are memorable, insightful, and heart-wrenching. The grannies in the wainscotting, the school years, and life in the village before the automobile destroyed the secluded community and its self-sustaining social supports provide a glimpse of how much life has changed in a relatively short time in rural England. This is without question one of the memoirs I will keep alongside Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. Lee's writing has a wonderful, easy cadence and a gentle elegance that leads you so lightly that you don't realize you are completely immersed in his world. A memorable and touching memoir of a time and place that cannot be re-created now except in our imaginations.

4 people found this helpful

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