Most memoirs organize themselves by decade. This audiobook organizes itself by bus stop, and the author explains the choice in her own words inside the description: a sort of memoir, her sort, built from the view out of the Number 12 bus, mostly the top deck, front seat on the right, running from Dulwich in South East London to the BBC in the heart of the capital. Nine hours and thirty minutes, read by Sandi Toksvig, published by Little, Brown Book Group on October 31, 2019. She wrote it and she reads it, which for a broadcaster of nearly forty years is less a bonus feature than the whole reason to choose this format over the page.
A Blue Plaque, Spanish Coffee, and Lady Gangsters
Sandi Toksvig has worked as a writer, broadcaster, activist and comic on stage, screen and radio for close to four decades, and the description leads with the two credits most listeners will recognize on sight: presenter of QI, star of the Great British Bake Off. What follows in the copy is a list rather than a life, and the list is the best advertisement the book has. A blue plaque for Una Marson. The finest Spanish coffee under Southwark's railway arches. A short history of lady gangsters at Elephant and Castle. Climbing Mount Sinai and reading the Ten Commandments aloud at a fellow passenger's request.
Dulwich Station arrives through the story behind a Pissarro painting. The Footlights arrive through a performance alongside Emma Thompson. A boarding school arrives through the memory of being sent to Coventry. Proximity rather than chronology is the organizing principle, which is exactly why a bus route works as a structure: every stop becomes an excuse for whatever the author's mind produces next, from Prince Charles to Monica Lewinsky to Grayson Perry to a friendship with John McCarthy. The description concedes the point cheerfully, calling it probably not a sensible way to write a memoir at all.
Nine and a Half Hours That Earn Their Keep
Nine and a half hours is a long ride, and this is where the format earns its keep. A memoir assembled by association can read as scattered on the page, because the eye keeps hunting for a through-line that was never promised. Delivered aloud by the person whose associations they are, the same material turns into conversation, and the pauses do the work the paragraph breaks were failing to do. The book also argues, in its closing lines, for putting the phone down and talking to the person next to you, which is a slightly awkward case to make in a medium people use precisely to avoid talking to the person next to them.
Guy Incognito's five-star notice is barely a review. A self-described ex punk and forty-eight-year-old gen x-er writes that Sandi is a true wit, a true intellect and a treasure, the mum we all wish we had, then admits that after years of watching QI and hearing podcasts, reading this book was an absolute delight. That is a fan letter filed in a review box, and this column is largely made of them, which tells a prospective buyer something real about who the book is for. Affection of that kind is not evidence about a recording, but it is honest evidence about the relationship the book is built on.
A Badge Backed by Just Six Ratings
Kirsten Herold gets nearest to the substance and hands a prospective listener the most to work with: the genuinely moving passages about family, especially a father who was a legend in Denmark, and about growing up gay in England, including abuse and hurt inflicted by institutions that should have known better. That entry also does the triage the publisher copy avoids, naming three separate kinds of people who might want the book, from admirers of the family to readers of gay memoir to anyone interested in local London history. Nothing in the publisher description sorts an audience that cleanly.
Monica Mac stops at four stars and offers the most ordinary route in: first encountered on the Bake-Off, enjoyed the back-and-forth with Noel Fielding, saw the book recommended by a bookish friend, found it interesting. That is how most listeners will arrive. A fourth entry addresses the author directly on the page, opening with thanks and continuing with I think I saw you on the British bake off and I definitely watch you on QI, which is a strange and rather touching thing to meet in a product review. A fifth pushes back at the idea that short lesbian geek is how she should be remembered.
Television is doing more work here than the description admits. Nearly every notice arrives through QI, the Bake Off or BBC radio, which means much of the pleasure here depends on already carrying that voice in your head. A listener with no prior exposure is buying nine and a half hours of London anecdote from a stranger, and no recording can supply the affection these reviewers brought with them through the door. Six ratings stand behind the 4.6 badge, which is a thin foundation for any verdict, and five of the written notices are filed from the United States for a book about a South East London bus.
Ride the Whole Route or Stay Off
Travelers who like a city told through its side streets will take more from this than from any guidebook, and the London material is specific enough to follow with a map open: Peckham Rye, Elephant and Castle, the railway arches, Dulwich Station, and then the Zambezi River in a father's canoe when the route finally leaves town. Anyone who wants the LGBTQ+ thread will find it running through the middle rather than decorating the edges, and one reviewer is clear that the account of growing up gay in England carries real damage in it rather than nostalgia.
Fans of the presenter are the safest recommendation and the least surprising one. Anyone who needs a memoir to advance in a straight line will be restless within the hour, and anyone hoping for a complete professional account will find the bus interrupting it at every stop. Nine and a half hours is also a great deal of London for a listener who has no feeling for London, and the description never pretends the city is incidental. Ride the whole route or stay off the bus, because this is not a book that rewards dipping in and out.
Quick Take
- Narrator: Toksvig reads her own memoir, which for a broadcaster with four decades of radio behind her is the reason to pick audio over print.
- Subjects: a bus route as autobiography, growing up gay in England, a Danish father, London history, forty years in broadcasting
- Tone: Wandering, warm and sharper than it looks
- Bottom line: A delight if the voice is already in your head, and a long ride with a stranger if it is not.
Questions Listeners Ask
Does Sandi Toksvig narrate the audiobook herself?
She does. Both credit lines carry the identical name, and the description quotes her at length explaining the book's structure in the first person. For a memoir written by someone who has worked in radio for decades, the delivery is the strongest argument for choosing this over the printed edition.
How long is the audiobook and who released it?
Nine hours and thirty minutes. Little, Brown Book Group released it on October 31, 2019. The record shows six ratings behind a 4.6 badge and five written notices, all filed in the United States, which is a modest sample for a memoir by a broadcaster this well known in Britain.
