Book description
In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir,
P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th
and 78th birthdays, 'a time to be in earnest', as Dr Johnson said at
the comparable moment of his very different life two centuries ago. In
recording the events, thoughts and reflections of her present,
Baroness James has found herself simultaneously remembering the past
of her remarkable career. She recalls what it was like to be a
schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, then giving birth to
her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in
London during the war, working as an administrator in the National
Health Service, entering the Home Office in the forensic and criminal
justice departments, serving as a Governor of the BBC, an influential
member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the Society of
Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords. Along the way she
deals with her burgeoning reputation as a novelist, starting with
Cover Her Face in 1962, and with the craft of the classical detective
story. During this busy year she also published one of her most
intriguing and carefully researched books, A Certain Justice. This
record of twelve months in a life of creativity and public service,
told with honesty and perception, will enthral aficionados of
detective fiction. It will also appeal to those who themselves have
lived through the turbulent years of the twentieth century.
P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High
School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health
Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police
Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that
experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and has served as
a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was
Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British
Council, and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She is an Honorary
Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. She has won
awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia,
including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the
National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (US). She has received
honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in
1983, and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected
President of the Society of Authors. She lives in London and Oxford and
has two daughters, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
