Product Description

"My first big break came when I was five years old. It's taken me more than seventy years to realise that. You see, at five I first learnt to read. It's that simple and it's that profound. I left school at thirteen. I didn't have a formal education... It has been a long return journey from my two-room Fountainbridge home in the smoky industrial end of Edinburgh opposite the McCowans' toffee factory. There was no bathroom with a communal toilet outside. For years we had only gas lighting. Sometimes the light in the shared stairway would be out after some desperado had broken the mantle to bubble gas through milk for kicks." Although he is an indubitably international superstar, Sir Sean Connery still knows the city of Edinburgh practically street by street from delivering the morning milk as a schoolboy. His round included Fettes College, where Ian Fleming had sent his fictional James Bond after he was expelled from Eton. 'Being a Scot' is a vivid and highly personal portrait of Scotland and its achievements, which is self-revelatory whilst full of Sir Sean's desire to shine light upon Scottish success and heroic failure. His personal quest with his friend and co-writer Murray Grigor has been to seek answers to some perplexing questions. How did Scots come to devise so many new sports and games, or raise others to new heights? What gave fire to the Gothic tendency in Scottish literature? Why have so many creatively inventive and influential architects been Scots? Where did Scotland's unreal blend of psychotic humour originate? And what about the national tradition of self-deprecation sometimes called the Scottish cringe? Sean Connery offers a correction to misconceptions that many believe are part of the historical record whilst revealing as never before his own vibrant personal history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39776 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-21
• Released on: 2008-08-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 312 pages

Review
'a detailed, fascinating and beautifully designed study of Scottish culture and identity... there can be no doubt that this is essentially Connery's work' (THE SUNDAY TIMES )

'this long-awaited book is that rare beast: an autobiography that absolutely mirrors its subject... valiantly surprising and deeply rewarding' (THE OBSERVER )

'it has the feel-good factor - a boy from the tenements who has done good.' (LONDON LITE )

'This is canny history, lightly sprinkled with celebrity, beautifully illustrated, brimming with integrity and intelligence.' (UNISON MAGAZINE )

About the Author
Sir Sean Connery was born in Edinburgh in 1930. He shot to international fame as James Bond. His three great passions in life are acting, golf and Scotland, and he rates his love of Scotland first.

Customer Reviews

Maybe not what you expect
If you are looking for an autobiography, or revelations about Ursula Andress or Honor Blackman, then this will be a great disappointment. It is, in large part an opinionated review of Sctoland, something like the rock stars views on global warming,Tibet or PETA, and does ccasionally raise the question of 'so what?' However if you read it as a general overview of Scotland, its culture, development and background, then this is a very well written, thoughtful,thought-provoking and well produced book. Of course his perspective is different from that of most of us, his fame and wealth make that almost unavoidable. Some of it, his recommendations on the Iraqi War based 'Black Watch' play, for example, border on the patronizing - and may even be counter productive in getting his views across. On the whole it is a very worthwhile read.

shame about the writing
This is a beautifully presented volume, nicely laid out and with many high quality photographs. The ideas are great too - but the execution falls far short of what it could have been (this is not Connery's fault of course as there is a co-author listed, and books are supposed to have editors too).
Much of the writing is cliche-ridden and leaden. It goes on at length about some game called 'soccer' - a word no true Scot would use without puking. Many of the supposed quotes are obviously doctored, as when he has some 17th century public benefactor supposedly talking about 'gender equality'. The extensive picture captions are mostly repeats, word for ill-written word, of what is in the text. When different words are used, this is generally no improvement, as in the sentence "to placate the Highlands the Government built the largest defended garrison in Europe". Placate is the wrong word - they mean pacify.
But some of the writing must be Connery's own, as his famously chippy personality shines through. In his long exile from his homeland he has not lost his ability to perceive a slight to his self-importance. But then, as he opines, the Scots don't like success and do their best to cut the mighty down to size.
The book does look affie guid on a coffee table though.
- Roderick Clyne, Singapore
Being A Scot