Christopher Isherwood Inside Out

"Christopher Isherwood Inside Out is the best biography I’ve ever read. The subject, Christopher Isherwood, was a mindful, moral man, an example for all, and a wonderfully talented writer. The author, Katherine Bucknell, explores every moment of his life—English, German, American—and links them all to the vast ongoing project of his life and work. The book is long but every page is full of surprises." —Edmund White

"Open this thick book to almost any page about Christopher Isherwood's important and glamorous life, and you will find a lot about the fascinating people this supreme twentieth century literary artist often saw. What stars he knew in his magic circle during his many lives, from 'thirties Berlin down to post-war Hollywood and after." —James Ivory, author of Solid Ivory: Memoirs

"The best biographies make the reader feel they are looking over the subject’s shoulder, watching them grow up and into life. Katharine Bucknell does exactly this, marshalling an enormous range of scholarship with insight, empathy, and humour. Her long immersion in Isherwood’s work and life is lightly worn, she writes beautifully, and whether she is invoking declining English country-house life, Weimar Berlin, mid-century Hollywood or the alternative cultures of California, one trusts her judgement implicitly. Christopher Isherwood Inside Out matches its subject's narrative skill and psychological insight, and brilliantly illuminates his search for a new way to live." —Roy Foster, author of W. B. Yeats: A Life

"A roller-coaster ride through a genuinely remarkable life. Katherine Bucknell has had full access to all the primary sources—and it shows. Her Isherwood is both fascinating and dangerous, as reckless in his relationships as he was scrupulous in his art. His virtues shine, and his faults are documented with admirable candor." —Neil Bartlett, author of Address Book

"This is a first rate biography of the man, the writer and the lover. If he would have stayed in England, he would have been the squire of Marple Hall in Cheshire, very very different to the Christopher I knew." —David Hockney

"This is the Isherwood book we’ve been waiting for. While Isherwood is rightly celebrated as a courageous forefather of the gay liberation movement, he should be equally celebrated as a fearless early practitioner and writer on Hinduism (Vedanta), again pulling the rest of the country with him. By telling the truth through his writing and through his life, Isherwood achieved greatness in his art and in his spiritual quest, and that will continue to move us and change us long after we, and all those who knew him, are gone." —Pravrajika Vrajaprana, author of Vedanta: A Simple Introduction

“This book—profoundly sympathetic to its subject, lucidly and excitingly written—is both a fast-paced story of an extraordinary life and a broadly illuminating history of vast cultural changes across eight decades and four continents. Katherine Bucknell, having edited four volumes of Isherwood’s diaries, has distilled her expertise into the finest literary biography of its century.” —Edward Mendelson, author of Early Auden, Later Auden