Trying to Please

A Year’s Worth of Favorites

“John Julius Norwich is not as widely known in this country as he deserves to be, but in his more than 80 years he has become a prominent figure in Britain, where he writes well-received popular histories on a broad range of subjects and appears frequently on television as host of historical documentaries. His life, as described in his memoir Trying to Please, has been full, accomplished and happy, and traveling with him through all those years is pure pleasure.”

“The author of this thoroughly delightful memoir is scarcely so well known in this country as in England, where he was born more than eight decades ago. John Julius Norwich began his working life in 1952 (he was then named John Julius Cooper) as an officer for the British Foreign Service, but he did not set off on his path to renown until the fall of 1963, when he decided to leave the service and try his hand at freelance writing. He has done so ever since, having written more than 20 books, most of them in the field of popular history, but he is best known as a lecturer on cultural subjects and the host of historical television documentaries.

“Trying to Please is an absolutely delicious book, in part because Norwich writes so fluidly and engagingly, in part because he has been to so many places and done so many interesting things, and in no small part because he happens to be the only child of one of the most famous and mythologized couples of the first half of the 20th century….

“He seems to have no illusions about its shortcomings or the injustices that helped sustain it, but only the terminally hard-hearted will fail to be captivated by his description of life at Belvoir Castle or his nostalgia for it:

‘What has gone (or very nearly) is the sense of amplitude—the sheer scale of that aristocratic life of three-quarters of a century ago, made possible only by the existence of an enormous staff but of a thriving social community numbering several hundred people, with the great house at its center. One or two may still continue, at Chatsworth for example, or perhaps Blenheim; but the combination of hereditary wealth and old tradition without which such houses cannot survive is nowadays rare indeed. In the 1930s it was not. Belvoir was in no way exceptional. There were in those days dozens—perhaps hundreds—of houses in which that sort of life went on, not all of them on quite the level I have described, but not a few on a scale more magnificent still. Nor, in the surrounding country, was there any resentment, any more than there was any servility. The house was a source not only of employment, but of pride….’

“It's a good life, and Norwich shows no sign of slowing it down. More power to him.”

“John Julius Norwich has lived a charmed life and would be the first to acknowledge it…. In Trying to Please [he] … records his life…. There are grim events—infidelity, divorce, deaths—but there is much more travel, discovery and insouciance.”

“[Norwich] writes ... with typical cheerfulness.... This is a genial, old-fashioned book. Its value lies…in its anecdotes and details about great persons and places from a vanished era.”

“…Mr. Norwich is clearly very much his own man, not just interesting for being Duff Cooper’s son--Trying to Please is a success, for it is indeed attractive and winning--all in all a very pleasant read and, with its unusually modest price, a bargain to boot.”

“Born into the cream of English aristocracy, Norwich boasted a host of godparents that included practically every celebrated figure of the early twentieth century. Shipped off to America as a student to avoid the dangers and privations of WWII Britain, he gained inside access to Churchill, Roosevelt, and DeGaulle. Formally educated at Eaton and Oxford and skilled in both French and Russian languages, he embarked on a diplomatic career. Representing the Crown in the Balkans, he learned to appreciate the artistic achievements of the Ottoman Empire and its Byzantine predecessor. To the superficial reader, Norwich’s recounting of his life offers a surfeit of name-dropping, but ultimately his intelligence and sound taste shine through. Additionally, more than a few of his well-crafted anecdotes about personalities and institutions he encountered may provoke outright laughter. These memoirs illuminate the history of the postwar era with insight into both politics and the arts.”

"John Julius Cooper . . . is an elegant grandee of taste and refinement, a man of no pretense and good cheer, someone who has lived a rare and good life and has the grace to acknowledge it without vengeance or reprisal. Trying to Please is splendid testimony to that life as well as good reading for a chilly autumn afternoon."

“Memoirs can create a variety of responses in a reader; Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich is entertaining, witty, and a plain old-fashioned good read….”

"If British memoirs with celebrity name dropping and juicy gossip on every page are your cup of tea, this one is for you. Lord (John Julius) Norwich can’t help it he grew up among and world's richest, most powerful and talented characters from the 1930s forward, and he has what it takes to be a great memoirist: a photographic memory, great storytelling ability, and a wildly interesting life. To call him ‘worldly’ is a vast understatement. Educated at Oxford and Strasbourg, foreign diplomat in Lebanon and Yugoslavia, author, historian, filmmaker and broadcaster, he makes the Kennedys seem like choirboys. His aristocratic parents— she a silent film star and he ambassador to France— raised him 'to please.' He did so throughout their lives and does so for all of us with this pleasing and entertaining book."

“How good if the young were to read this book. After all, Lord Norwich, author of multi-volume works on Venice and the Byzantines, television presenter, and music buff, is a faintly fearsome figure. Refreshing to discover from these engrossing memoirs . . . that the title came almost by accident, and that he is the happy possessor of two tattoos, one on each arm.”