Time to be in earnest - P. D. James

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, and looks back
on her earlier life.

With all her familiar skills as a writer she
recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in
Cambridge, and then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst
of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her
work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service,
then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal justice
departments. She later served 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, this diary and personal memoir deals with her burgeoning reputation as a novelist, starting with Cover Her Face in
1962, and with the craft of the classical detective story. She also
details the writing of one of her most intriguing and carefully
researched books, A Certain Justice. This wonderful memoir will
enthral aficionados of detective fiction, and will also appeal to anyone
who lived through those turbulent years of the twentieth century.