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Digital Audiobook
Toy Fights by Don Paterson

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Toy Fights

Narrator
Don Paterson
Publisher
Highbridge Company
Publish Date
11 July 2023
Run Time
9 hours 48 minutes
Format
Audiobook
$13.95

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What to expect

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.

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Details

Author
Don Paterson
Narrator
Don Paterson
Duration
9 hours 48 minutes
Release Date
11 July 2023
ISBN
9781696612111
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Highbridge Company
Genre
Biography: writers, Biography: general, Education, Publishing industry and journalism, Biography: arts and entertainment, Composers and songwriters, Musicians, singers, bands and groups

Synopsis

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.

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