Party Animals

Party Animals

My Family and Other Communists

Summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY AWARD

David Aaronovitch grew up in Communist Great Britain – a Britain hidden from view for most, but for those on the inside it was a life filled with picket lines, militant trade unions, solidarity rallies for foreign Communists, the Red Army Choir, copies of the Daily Worker, all underpinned by a quiet love of the Soviet Union.

In this idiosyncratic blend of memoir, history and biography, David Aaronovitch uncovers the story of his family’s life by picking through letters, diaries and secret service files, which in turn unleash vivid childhood memories of a lost and idealistic world. Party Animals is about personal life and political life becoming tragically intertwined, and one family’s search for meaning in the twentieth century.

Reviews

  • An affectionate and insightful account of 20th-century history that also amounts to a manifesto for the power of words – and belonging.
    Helen Davies, Sunday Times, Book of the Year

About the author

David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his wife, three daughters and Kerry Blue the terrier. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more