This is a very well-done, very detailed and comprehensive biography of Christopher Isherwood, the writer upon whose works the stage musical and the film “Cabaret” are based. “Inside Out” goes far beyond the scope of Mr. Isherwood’s Berlin experiences during the 1930s and covers, among other things, his childhood, his boarding school and university days, his relationships with various family members and poet W.H. Auden, his immigration to the United States, his work as a writer in Hollywood and his advocacy of LGBQT rights. Author Katherine Bucknell has done an excellent job of telling the story of Isherwood’s life, even explaining to readers how some of that life's events affected, or are reflected in, his fiction. Before beginning “Inside Out,” I had never read any of Mr. Isherwood’s works. At the very least, I’ll be adding “The Berlin Stories” to my “TBR” pile. My thanks to NetGalley, author Katherine Bucknell, and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with a complimentary ARC. The foregoing is my independent opinion.

This is a brilliant book about one of the 20th Century's greatest voices. Not only are Isherwood's works fully delineated but a complete picture of the times he lived and worked are presented in their fullness. This is biography at its best. This book is worth every penny. It is fascinating in its detail and the pages turn at an alarming rate. Beautifully crafted and full of fascinating detail.

Christopher Isherwood Inside Out is a seminal and amazing book. It is rich with family, friends, emotion, mindfulness, and the role of homosexuality in the life of Isherwood and his friends. Katherine Bucknell examines, with clarity and meticulous scrutiny, every aspect of Isherwood's life. It's indubitable that Bucknell has incorporated every source available to her to create this amazing biography, the facts made more clear by Isherwood's diaries and even those of his mother.

Isherwood's writing and analysis of his family and his place in it, and the subsequent and wonderful wealth of friends in the literary world who shore him up and incorporate his role in that world are rich and profound. As a reader, I was most astonished by the number of famous and well-known writers who were part of Isherwood's world. In particular, his friendship with W.H. Auden was a powerful and important talisman in his life. Isherwood, once he moved to the US, cultivated friendships with writers, musicians, Hollywood stars, and artists. One of the scenes that has remained with me is his visiting ailing Benjamin Britten and simply sitting with Britten, holding his hand.

Isherwood traveled frequently, and his early days living in Berlin and later writing about it are one of the most clear examinations of his search for clarity in his homosexuality. In spite of some criticism of this part of his life, he liberates himself and others by being thoroughly honest about who he is and what he stands for.

Incorporated into his life is his improbable friendship with Swami Prabhavananda, an important and decades' long relationship. Isherwood learns to meditate, become mindful, and he even assists in translating the Bhagavad Gita. His life as a Hindu convert broadens his life and perspective, and it continually shows up when he needs this connection to guide his spirituality.

This biography is long and detailed. There is something infinitely satisfying about such a book because there is nothing left out in examining Isherwood and everything that he himself studies--inside and out. Reading such a comprehensive and complete study of his life incorporates so much truth and reality that the reader feels gifted by being included in this saga.

Profuse thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Net Galley for the opportunity to live with this book for some weeks. I will be thinking about it for many months.

Isherwood was a singular novelist. His Berlin novels open up to the reader a world of excess and excitement unlike anything most readers will have experienced. This record of his life is enlightening, drawing out the true man from behind this sparkling prose.