Audiobook9 hours
Toy Fights: A Boyhood
Written by Don Paterson
Narrated by Don Paterson
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this audiobook
For fans of Douglas Stuart and Nick Hornby comes an uproarious, tenderhearted memoir of growing up in working-class Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s.
Don Paterson is one of our most acclaimed contemporary poets, possessed of "an infinite sensitivity to the world" (Zadie Smith). But his current standing gives few hints of his hilariously misspent youth. An indifferent student prone to obsessions (with girls at school and . . . origami), Paterson nevertheless made clear early on his immense gift for observation. In Toy Fights, he vividly re-creates the customs of the Scottish working class, from the titular childhood game ("basically twenty minutes of extreme violence without pretext") to the virtues of the sugary sweet known as tablet. When American pop culture arrived, Paterson fell hard for the so-called outlaw sound; by his teens, he was traveling with his father, a Stetson-wearing "country" musician, and becoming guitar-mad himself. A memoir of family, music, and highly inventive profanity, Toy Fights is an unforgettable account of the years we all spend in rehearsal for real life.
Don Paterson is one of our most acclaimed contemporary poets, possessed of "an infinite sensitivity to the world" (Zadie Smith). But his current standing gives few hints of his hilariously misspent youth. An indifferent student prone to obsessions (with girls at school and . . . origami), Paterson nevertheless made clear early on his immense gift for observation. In Toy Fights, he vividly re-creates the customs of the Scottish working class, from the titular childhood game ("basically twenty minutes of extreme violence without pretext") to the virtues of the sugary sweet known as tablet. When American pop culture arrived, Paterson fell hard for the so-called outlaw sound; by his teens, he was traveling with his father, a Stetson-wearing "country" musician, and becoming guitar-mad himself. A memoir of family, music, and highly inventive profanity, Toy Fights is an unforgettable account of the years we all spend in rehearsal for real life.
Author
Don Paterson
Don Paterson has written several collections of poems, including Nil Nil, God’s Gift to Women, The Eyes, Rain, and Landing Light, which won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland.
Related to Toy Fights
Related audiobooks
Be Brief and Tell Them Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, and Other Things to Live For Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDomino On Your Radio: Unlikely Tales From an Introvert on the Air Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAshes to Admin: Tales from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5House Fires Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave Me Alone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Happy Mutant Baby Pills: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Better Than Me: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spells for Lost Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stuck: Why We Can't (Or Won't) Move On Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What's the T? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Never Argue with a Dead Person: True and Unbelievable Stories from the Other Side Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Perfect 10: The Truth About Things I'm Not and Never Will Be Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wide-Open World: How Volunteering Around the Globe Changed One Family's Lives Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mister Tender's Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Squeezing the Orange Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It’s Not What You Think Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMid-Life Ex-Wife: A Diary of Divorce, Online Dating, and Second Chances Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Happy: a memoir of love, sex and teenage confusion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deepest Black: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Samantha Watkins: Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Royally Screwed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Biography & Memoir For You
Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Later Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Toy Fights
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews