If you liked Lynn Barber’s An Education…
…and are after further tales of women who have broken the rules and thrived, try reading these books:
Lorna Sage: Bad Blood
In Bad Blood, Lorna Sage looks back to her suffocating 1950s vicarage upbringing. After appalling her parents by falling pregnant at 16, Lorna threatened to climb out of the hospital window in order to sit her A-levels. She went on to get a first and, of course, enjoy a fine career as an academic and writer.
Doris Lessing: Under My Skin
And the first volume of Doris Lessing’s classic autobiography Under My Skin follows her childhood in South Africa and ends with her arrival in London in 1949. With great honesty and perception, it reveals the mind of an intransigent woman, battling against her upbringing whilst maintaining her own unique view of the world around her.
