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The memoir of an English potter, currently best-known for hosting The Great Pottery Throwdown, where he is regularly moved to literal tears by contestants' work and struggles. He's an enormous man with a very down-to-earth manner and brilliantly skilled hands who gets very emotional over art. It says something about how much men are socialized to not display emotions other than anger that people are constantly asking him if it's an act. It's not.
His memoir is unsurprisingly charming, funny, and sweet. He grew up with an alcoholic mother and cold, bitter father, (but enough about that, this isn't a misery memoir, he hastens to reassure us), has OCD and is so severely dyslexic that I am really curious how he managed to write an entire memoir (dictation? a ghost writer?), was in a somewhat successful punk band, became a professional potter, and got famous for making a video in which he dresses in drag and sings a song about pottery. Oh yeah, and while he was an apprentice his car got trashed by three lions. In England.
It's a lovely, quick-read memoir in his distinctive voice. My one criticism is that the only visual element is badly reproduced snapshots, so you may as well buy the ebook edition which is quite cheap and just look up anything you want to see.
His memoir is unsurprisingly charming, funny, and sweet. He grew up with an alcoholic mother and cold, bitter father, (but enough about that, this isn't a misery memoir, he hastens to reassure us), has OCD and is so severely dyslexic that I am really curious how he managed to write an entire memoir (dictation? a ghost writer?), was in a somewhat successful punk band, became a professional potter, and got famous for making a video in which he dresses in drag and sings a song about pottery. Oh yeah, and while he was an apprentice his car got trashed by three lions. In England.
It's a lovely, quick-read memoir in his distinctive voice. My one criticism is that the only visual element is badly reproduced snapshots, so you may as well buy the ebook edition which is quite cheap and just look up anything you want to see.