Overview
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ""A tour de force."" --The Washington Post In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend boarding school. A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Charles Spencer attended in his youth and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt at aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the appalling inescapability of it all. Exploring the long-lasting impact of his experiences, Spencer presents a candid reckoning with his past and a reclamation of his childhood.
Full Product Details
Author: Charles Spencer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Imprint: Gallery
Dimensions:
Width: 16.80cm
, Height: 3.60cm
, Length: 23.90cm
Weight: 0.386kg
ISBN: 9781668046388
ISBN 10: 1668046385
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 12 March 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
"""This compelling, insightful, and heartbreaking book is an important boarding school case study. A moving must-read for all parents considering sending their children away for their education."" --Philippa Perry, internationally bestselling author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read ""Moving and beautifully written, what Spencer's courageous book reveals will be horribly familiar to the thousands of us who endured the same vile abuse in dozens of schools that were clones of each other. Most of us will go to our graves with the wounds unhealed."" --Louis de Bernières, Sunday Times bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin ""This is a powerful, unforgettable story of childhood trauma, and the dark secrets and savagery of the past, told with a searing honesty and clarity that is ultimately redemptive."" --?Justine Picardie, internationally bestselling author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life"
Author Information
Charles Spencer is the author of seven history books, including Sunday Times (London) bestsellers The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I's Dream, Blenheim: Battle for Europe (shortlisted for History Book of the Year, UK National Book Awards), and Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I. To Catch a King: Charles II's Great Escape was a Times (London) bestseller in 2017 and 2018. He also cohosts The Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast and has presented historical documentaries for television. He was awarded an MA in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford University, before going on to work for the NBC News for a decade, as an on-air reporter for Today, and a presenter for the History Channel.
