This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing: A Memoir

Written by Jacqueline Winspear

Narrated by Jacqueline Winspear

The New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series offers a deeply personal memoir of her Kentish childhood and her family’s resilience in the face of war and privation.

After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her memoir tackles such difficult, poignant, and fascinating family memories as her paternal grandfather’s shellshock, her mother’s evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father’s torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents’ years living with Romani Gypsies; and Jacqueline’s own childhood working on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception.

An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing is the story of a childhood in the English countryside, of working-class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781705005613

Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Consequences of Fear, The American Agent, and To Die but Once, as well as thirteen other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels and The Care and Management of Lies, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do? and a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. Originally from the United Kingdom, she divides her time between California and the Pacific Northwest.

Reviews for This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Winspear's memoir of a childhood growing up in post-WWII England is marked mostly by how wartime trauma affected two generations of her family, and by just how long it took the English countryside to move into the 20th century after losing two generations to bloody conflict.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Digital audiobook read by the author 4**** Jacqueline Winspear, perhaps best known for her Maisie Dobbs cozy mystery series, turns to autobiography / memoir in this wonderful work. With honesty, humor, tenderness and compassion she explores her family background and her own childhood in the English countryside. Winspear’s paternal grandfather served in “The Great War” and suffered from “shell shock” (today, recognized as PTSD) the remainder of his days, sometimes leading to behavior that others were unable to explain. She explores her parents’ experiences in WWII; her mother was evacuated from London during the Blitz, while her gentle, animal-loving father was assigned to an explosives team during the war. No wonder, then, that once married, her parents sought a quieter life outside London, and spent years living among the Romany people in rural Kent. Winspear recounts childhood memories of picking hops and fruit on farms, while she dreamed of being a writer. I doubt I would have picked up this heartfelt and touching memoir were it not a book-club selection. I’m so glad I read it, and I think knowing Winspear’s own background will give me additional insight into her characters in the Maisie Dobb series.Winspear read the audiobook herself. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job.

[tangledthread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This memoir is an elegy to both of the author's parents, who died in the last decade. There are a lot of reminiscences that reveal where some of the side stories came from in her Maisie Dobbs novels.

[yukon92 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This audiobook (read by the author) was a lovely look into the life of Ms. Winspear. It explains her knowledge of hop picking, gypsies, shell shock, etc. that are an integral part of her "Maisie Dobbs" mystery series.I would love to know more about her life as a writer, etc. in the USA.

[mm_jones · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I truly enjoy Jacqueline Winspear's fiction, so was looking forward to reading this memoir. However, I only know her a a writer, so somewhat disappointed the she devoted about 80% of the memoir to childhood memories, many second-hand "...traveling back and forth across the years before my birth".

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a stand alone memoir, this is a very good one. As the memoir of Jacqueline Winspear, author of the marvelous Maisie Dobbs series, it is absolutely fascinating. Winspear is a talented storyteller and does not miss a beat in the telling of her own life story. Born into a living and very poor family, her young life was full of hardship and challenges. I was completely rapt as she shared the ups and downs of her family. Talk about resilience!! Do yourself a favor and read this one!

[bookczuk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pandemic read. Overall, enjoyed this book, for the very different slice of life it brought into my world for someone just a few years older than I am. Also the writing flow was different than Maisie, but you could see the roots of some things in the stories, especially war based stuff. I even shared some stories with Javaczuk, and he was intrigued.

[janarose1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

"This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing" is a memoir by author Jacqueline Winspear. The book outlines her parents time during WWII, and her turbulent childhood. Unfortunately, the book seemed more like a therapy session than a readable memoir. The author jumped from time period to time period, person to person, making the book hard to follow. The book was repetitive, slow moving, and unfortunately a bad read. Overall, not a book I would re-read or recommend.

[brangwinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you are a Maisie Dobbs fan, you will enjoy Winspear’s memoir focusing on the years in Britain after World War II and the life of her parents. Stories of London during the Blitz, her mother as a child being sent to Kent for safety during the war, only it was not safe. Until I read this book, I was unaware of the abuse of the children who had to leave London. The stories of her childhood, living in a caravan with Gypsies, and living in a rural setting. If nothing else, I need to find some hops to smell them since they are a trigger for memories in the book.