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Toy Fights

A Boyhood - 'A classic of its kind' William Boyd
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( 199 ratings, 35 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
In Toy Fights, Don Paterson shares his tumultuous journey from childhood to adulthood in 1970s and 1980s Scotland. As he navigates family challenges and personal struggles, the memoir delves into his passion for music and the transformative experiences that shaped his creative path. Through vivid anecdotes and reflections, Paterson offers a poignant and often humorous glimpse into his formative years.
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Format: Hardback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this memoir if you're fascinated by intricate stories of personal and artistic growth, seasoned with humour and introspection. It offers an engaging exploration of the author's life, capturing the highs and lows with poetic flair. Delve into the world of a revered Scottish poet and musician, where every page offers a blend of wit and wisdom.

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A future classic of memoir by one of the greatest writersat work today

A future classic of memoir by one of the greatest writers at work today

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963 and spent his boyhood living on a working-class council housing estate. Toy Fights is the remarkable story of his first twenty years.

This is not just a book about music and family, but also about 'schizophrenia, hell, money, narcissists, debt and the working class, anger, swearing, drugs, books, football, love, origami, the peculiar insanity of Dundee, sugar, religious mania, the sexual excesses of the Scottish club band scene and, more generally, the lengths we go to not to be bored.

A truly remarkable feat of storytelling - as funny as it is dark - this is a memoir that sits alongside Lorna Sage's Bad Blood, Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs, Deborah Orr's Motherwell and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780571240272

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 19 January 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Faber & Faber

Edition: Main

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 27.0mm

Width: 135.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 492g

Pages: 384

About the Author

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His poetry collectionsinclude Nil Nil, God's Gift to Women, LandingLight, Rain, 40 Sonnets and Zonal. He is the author of threebooks of aphorism - The Book of Shadows, The Blind Eyeand The Fall at Home - as well as translations of AntonioMachado and Rainer Maria Rilke. He is also the author ofReading Shakespeare's Sonnets, Smith: A Reader's Guide tothe Poetry of Michael Donaghy, and The Poem: Lyric, Sign,Metre. His poetry has won many awards, including theWhitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize,the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes, and the T.S. Eliot

Also by Don Paterson

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  • Toy Fights
    A classic of its kind. - William Boyd Thought-provoking, hilarious, sardonic and scarily brilliant. - Scotsman A work of dazzling craft. - Times Literary Supplement A memoir in a million. - Sunday Times Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He spent his boyhood on a council housing estate. When he wasn't busy dreading his birthdays, dodging kids...
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  • 101 Sonnets
    Poets have been fascinated and challenged by the sonnet ever since it was imported from Italy to England in the sixteenth century. With its fourteen lines, inexhaustibly variable, it has met the particular needs of almost every major poet from Thomas Wyatt to Paul Muldoon. Don Paterson, himself an adept of the form, has devised an anthology that is both...
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  • Rain
    In this, his first volume of original verse since the award-winning Landing Light, Don Paterson is found writing at his most memorable and direct. In an assembly of masterful lyrics and monologues, he conjures a series of fables and charms that serve both to expose us to the unsettling forces within the world and simultaneously offer some protection against them....
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  • Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets
    Shakespeare's Sonnets are as important and vital today as they were when first published four hundred years ago. Perhaps no collection of verse before or since has so captured the imagination of readers and lovers; certainly no poem has come under such intense critical scrutiny, and presented the reader with such a bewildering number of alternative interpretations. In this illuminating...
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  • The Poem
    The Poem attempts to answer several questions: what is a poem? In what way is its use of language distinct? What conditions allow it to arise, and what is its cultural purpose? And how, exactly, do poems work? Part polemic, part technical treatise and part meditation, The Poem is an ambitious contemporary ars poetica. Paterson looks at the writing, transmission...
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