Book review: Must you go? My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser
Kate Green admires Antonia Fraser’s frank account of her life with Harold Pinter

Rarely has a book so divided reviewers. Historical biographer Lady Antonia Fraser's diary of life with the legendary Nobel Prize-winning writer, actor, director and campaigner Harold Pinter is either praised as an uplifting, tender love story or denounced as the self-satisfied ramblings of one half of the couple who helped invent champagne socialism in the 1970s.
Engrossed, I favoured the former opinion at first, flirted with the less flattering view in the middle, when bored by yet another tediously ‘brilliant' Pinter poem or lengthy name drop, before reverting back to being moved and admiring as Antonia described the Great Fear, with which anyone living with someone who is seriously ill will relate.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
Graham Norton's elegant East London home hits the market, and it's just as wonderful as you would expect
The four-bedroom home in Wapping should be studied for how well it uses two separate spaces to create a home of immense character and utility.
-
Sign of the times: In the age of the selfie, what’s happening to the humble autograph?
When Ringo Starr announced that he was no longer going to sign anything, he kickstarted a celebrity movement that coincided with the advent of the camera phone and selfie. Rob Crossan asks whether, in today’s world, the selfie holds more clout than an autograph?