Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Spilling the Beans: The Autobiography of One of Television's Two Fat Ladies” as Want to Read:
Spilling the Beans: The Autobiography of One of Television's Two Fat Ladies
Clarissa Dickson Wright, famously half of television's "Two Fat Ladies," was born into wealth and privilege. Her mother was an Australian heiress, her father was a brilliant surgeon to the royal family; as a child, shooting and hunting were the norm and pigeons were flown in from Cairo for supper. But Clarissa's father was also a tyrannical and violent drunk who used to be
...more
Hardcover
,
336 pages
Published
January 7th 2010
by Overlook Books
(first published 2007)
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Spilling the Beans
,
please sign up
.
Be the first to ask a question about Spilling the Beans
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
855)
"All of us have something we can do, some more than others, but everyone has a natural gift; it is just a question of discovering it.”
I remember watching my first episode of Two Fat Ladies back in 2009. Netflix kept recommending it based on my interests, and back in the day when people had discs mailed, I took a big gamble by using all three of my movie slots for the show, on a weekend no less. I was bowled over by the unique concept of the show! What didn’t these women do?! They cooked, baked, ...more
I remember watching my first episode of Two Fat Ladies back in 2009. Netflix kept recommending it based on my interests, and back in the day when people had discs mailed, I took a big gamble by using all three of my movie slots for the show, on a weekend no less. I was bowled over by the unique concept of the show! What didn’t these women do?! They cooked, baked, ...more
view all 36 comments
Sep 24, 2015
Caroline
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
auto-and-biog
,
bedtime-reading
I am not a keen cook, so was only vaguely aware of the highly successful television cooking duo, "Two Fat Ladies", who thundered around Britain on a motorbike creating meals in various unusual venues.
This is the story of one of that duo - Clarissa Dickson Wright.
She was born into a highly successful family, with perhaps with more than its far share of eccentrics. Her father was one of these. He was a lauded London surgeon, and also a violent alcoholic, and he was violent towards Clarissa, as wel ...more
This is the story of one of that duo - Clarissa Dickson Wright.
She was born into a highly successful family, with perhaps with more than its far share of eccentrics. Her father was one of these. He was a lauded London surgeon, and also a violent alcoholic, and he was violent towards Clarissa, as wel ...more
I was familiar with the author from the Two Fat Ladies cooking program, so recently listened to her narrate
Clarissa's England
, which was terrific. After that, I was truly intrigued by her life story, but the audio version comes highly abridged, so I read a print copy instead -- what a ride! Clarissa squanders early advantages many couldn't begin to imagine for the life of such a dedicated alcoholic it's amazing she made it through; at one point she's diagnosed with quinine poisoning from all th
...more
From a privileged beginning, the author suffered huge family problems in her formative years. Having 'gone off the rails' early in a promising career at the bar, she preferred to spend time in the bar. This book outlines her fight back to normality, her unplanned friendship with the other 'fat lady' Jennifer Paterson, and her passion for the countryside.
Wright was one half of the TV cooks "Two Fat Ladies". This is her autobiography and it's fascinating to see how much of her early life paralleled mine: a family connection to Singapore, an abusive home life, a best friend in boarding school called Caroline :-). Clarissa is unflinchingly honest about her life, growing up in a highly dysfunctional family, becoming a lawyer just to spite her father, her 6-year long descent into alcoholism after losing her mother and the love of her life and how she
...more
Feb 26, 2015
Margaret
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mount-tbr-2015
,
non-fiction
Despite her difficult childhood and alcoholism this is an upbeat autobiography, ending on a positive note: "Believe me on one thing: I have a splendidly enjoyable life"
Nov 30, 2008
Felicia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
memoir
,
read-in-2008
"All of us are an accumulation of the traits, genetic tendencies, geographicals and peculiarities of our forebears. These are the ingredients that we and the adventures and misfortunes of our lives process into the finished dish that becomes ourselves."
Not the greatest writing style, but definitely a very gripping read.
Not the greatest writing style, but definitely a very gripping read.
What a colourful life. She certainly didn't wait for the storm to pass to dance in the rain. What strength it must have taken to get over her addiction and lead a happy life eventually.
What an extraordinary life! An incredible, frank and honest account of her life with its extremes of highs and lows, you couldn't make it up!
Clarissa of "Two Fat Ladies" fame has written a very good and entertaining autobiography. This is an insightful look into the devastating effects of alcoholism through many generations of her family and her own downward spiral into this disease as well as the climb out of it to recovery.
She grew up in a privileged English family but in perpetual fear of her father and his physical abuse of her and her mother. The youngest of the children, she has a lot to bear and feels very responsible for supp ...more
She grew up in a privileged English family but in perpetual fear of her father and his physical abuse of her and her mother. The youngest of the children, she has a lot to bear and feels very responsible for supp ...more
I savoured this book from beginning to end. What a character, what a life!
Whether your interests are the history of farmers' markets and English cooking, the arguments for hunting in Britain, religious faith, the existence of ghosts, the demon drink and AA's 12 Steps program, recovering from child abuse, or simply insider knowledge about various politicians and the royal family, this book has it all. The author shows herself to be someone of considerable intelligence, sense of humour and pluck and this book should be read for more reasons than just that she is well kn
...more
An unflinchingly honest account of her life from Clarissa Dickson Wright, one half of The Two Fat Ladies. Her childhood was, quite frankly, awful but she never uses it as an excuse for the many things that went wrong in her life. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, her character and determination shine through and I feel full of admiration for the way she has picked herself up and started again on numerous occasions. Well worth reading if you like a well written, good autobiography.
This is a very entertaining auto biography...I was always fascinated but the PBS Show Two Fat Ladies and now the story of Clarissa ...she was a wounded child and smart ...very smart...growing up privileged in England is a different type of life ...fox hunts,boarding school and all that.
She was a crazy alcoholic but by 40 became sober and really recovered ....the end of book bogs down on Brotains stoppage of fox hunts..which she was pro on
Overall a light summer read.
She was a crazy alcoholic but by 40 became sober and really recovered ....the end of book bogs down on Brotains stoppage of fox hunts..which she was pro on
Overall a light summer read.
Jul 11, 2008
Sarah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Sarah by:
Mammy
Shelves:
autobiography
,
borrowed
A frank autobiography by the surviving "Fat Lady". She pulls few punches as she writes about her abusive childhood, her debauched twenties and thirties, her recovery from alcoholism and her eventual television fame.
CD-W writes just as she speaks - you can almost hear her voice as you read. Unfortunately, the book suffers from poor or nonexistent copy-editing. There are errors throughout - not what I would have expected from Hodder & Stoughton.
CD-W writes just as she speaks - you can almost hear her voice as you read. Unfortunately, the book suffers from poor or nonexistent copy-editing. There are errors throughout - not what I would have expected from Hodder & Stoughton.
A very frank autobiography by the surviving Fat Lady chronicling her passage from disfunctional childhood to early legal success followed by her sinking into total alcoholic dissipation when she blew her 2.8 million pound inheritance and descended to the depths followed by her drying-out and rehabilitation leading to TV fame. She is a remarkable woman with a deep love of the countryside and tells a good story.
Mar 18, 2010
Katarina
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who enjoy a story well told
Shelves:
biography-muistelmat
Well written, frank, amusing, shocking, gossipy. I did briefly mourn over her lost 2,8 million pounds and career in law (she did have talent!) but heck why - Clarissa didn't seem to cry over spilled beans. A lesson we should all learn.
The campaigning for fox hunting went on a bit, but otherwise no objections.
The campaigning for fox hunting went on a bit, but otherwise no objections.
I am surprised to say that I found this book quite gripping. What an extraordinary life! I felt that it very much demonstrated that money does not bring happiness and it is clear that her terrible childhood contributed massively to her destructive alcohol addiction. It was actually quite inspiring to see how she turned her life around. I found the name dropping at times a little bit difficult to believe but I guess if you move in those circles then you just end up constantly mixing with people m
...more
Very frank autobiography. Often quite painful to read. There's much about her lifestyle now that I disagree with, e.g., support of blood sports, but I can't help but have enormous respect for what she has overcome personally to reach this stage in her life.
Clarissa certainly had a colorful and sometimes tragic life. She triumphed over adversity and always kept her sense of humor. This memoir made for very interesting reading.
Fascinating memoir but terrible editing. I felt I should have had a red pen with me but this Fat Lady does tell her story very well otherwise.
This was a hugely interesting read. She lived such a fascinating life, very sad in parts but she made the absolute best of her intelligence and she became happy, in no small part due to her strength of character. I bought this book because I had enjoyed her robust no nonsense style when cooking and this is also evident in her writing, which is excellent, brimming with colourful phrases and not shying away from the parts of life some may be too squeamish to discuss.
It made me want to wear tweed a ...more
It made me want to wear tweed a ...more
I am happy I finished reading Clarissa Dickson Wright's (more presicely Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright's) book titled Spilling The Beans. The book is the autobiography of a lady with a very unusual path of life. She was born in the middle of the nineties into a noble British family just to sink to the deepest depths later on. From there she could emerge again as one of the most famous chefs in the UK - actually that is how I to
...more
This really is a fascinating and uncompromising autobiography. Clarissa is very honest about her difficult and often violent family life growing up, and later her own alcoholism. Her life during the 1970's and 80's seemed a constant round of parties, pubs and drinking buddies and at one point Clarissa admits that the Falklands war had passed her by - she'd had no idea it had happened. Although this does make for difficult reading on one level - it was strangely fascinating on another and it is p ...more
I had my eye on this around Christmas but it didn't appear in my stocking so I was very pleased to find it on the shelf of a local library.
Well - I'm glad I didn't buy this one. It wasn't written particularly well, but was fairly interesting. What did come across strongly was the fact that she is of a different era and a different class, and isn't very good at pitching her story to her audience. We were meant to know what arctic convoys and Grenfell alluded to, yet she felt the need to explain ...more
Well - I'm glad I didn't buy this one. It wasn't written particularly well, but was fairly interesting. What did come across strongly was the fact that she is of a different era and a different class, and isn't very good at pitching her story to her audience. We were meant to know what arctic convoys and Grenfell alluded to, yet she felt the need to explain ...more
Jun 12, 2014
Chi
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
https-www-goodreads-com-review-li
I actually "heard" the book and the author/narrator's accent makes the experience very intimate like a conversation over a cup of tea. The first "half hour" at listening to her story as a child, as a young and rebellious woman was captivating. She holds your attention without saturating your interest; you did not want more, you just savor every moment... until you get to her 40s and the makings of the "Two Fat Ladies". Then, it muddles.
Splendid! Witty while sharing her life of woes and achievements, Clarissa is clever and her typical British humor is brilliantly delivered - this autobiography is totally engrossing. Sadly, the heiress, barrister, alcoholic, entrepreneur, bon vivant, and woman best known for her role as the sidecar-occupying half of the Two Fat Ladies passed away in March. While she may have passed on, her larger than life (pun intended) life story is not to be missed.
I was given this book by an American friend who has spent quite a bit of time in the U.K and is also a foodie which you pretty much have to be to understand this book.
In addition, I have never seen the BBC English program called "Two Fat Ladies" about two English woman who scour the English countryside talking about all things related to food (farming, hunting and restaurants) and so therefore this book was not an enjoyable read but to hear the story of this woman, Clarissa Dickson Wright and he ...more
In addition, I have never seen the BBC English program called "Two Fat Ladies" about two English woman who scour the English countryside talking about all things related to food (farming, hunting and restaurants) and so therefore this book was not an enjoyable read but to hear the story of this woman, Clarissa Dickson Wright and he ...more
Having found the TV series, "Two Fat Ladies" enormously entertaining and interesting, I enjoyed reading Clarissa Dickson Wright's autobiography, "Spilling the Beans". It the tale of a life lived to the hilt, the bad, the good, the adventurous, the heartbreaking. She survived physical abuse by her famous surgeon father, and 10 years of alcoholism and promiscuous sex, and finally through hard work, good friends, and AA, managed to lick her demons. Much of the book is about her wild years and it en
...more
Interesting - I didn't understand a lot of the references to English/Scottish life but it was interesting to get the insight into the roller coaster that was Clarissa's life. I really loved the TFL show and both Clarissa and Jennifer reminded me of my mother in a lot of ways - the love of knowledge and the somewhat quirky was about themselves. I wish the show was free on Amazon Prime - but maybe one day I'll treat myself to the
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright is an English celebrity chef and food historian who is best known as one half, along with Jennifer Paterson, of the Two Fat Ladies. Having trained as a lawyer, at the age of 21, Dickson Wright passed her exams and became the country's youngest barrister. She is also one of only two women in England
...more
More about Clarissa Dickson Wright...
