Doris May Lessing

Under My Skin: Volume 1 of My Autobiography, to 1949

Doris May Lessing

• 1995 LATimes–Biography winner
• 1994 JT Black-Biography winner
• Score: 20.45

“I was born with skins too few. Or they were scrubbed off me by…robust and efficient hands.”

The experiences absorbed through these “skins too few” are evoked in this memoir of Doris Lessing’s childhood and youth as the daughter of a British colonial family in Persia and Southern Rhodesia Honestly and with overwhelming immediacy, Lessing maps the growth of her consciousness, her sexuality, and her politics, offering a rare opportunity to get under her skin and discover the forces that made her one of the most distinguished writers of our time.

Walking in the Shade: Volume 2 of My Autobiography, 1949-1962

Doris May Lessing

• 1997 NBCC–Biography finalist
• Score: 6.47

Walking in the Shade covers the years 1949 -1962, from Lessing’s arrival in London with her son, Peter, and the manuscript of her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, under her arm to the publication of her most famous work of fiction, The Golden Notebook.

This was the period of the Cold War, a poisonously political time, but Doris Lessing reminds us—in perhaps the book’s most striking achievement—of what has been forgotten: that it was a time also of idealism and hope, of a sense of personal responsibility for the world, and of generosity…

African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe

Doris May Lessing

• 1993 LATimes–Current Interest finalist
• Score: 6.43

A highly personal story about returning to her African roots by the eminent British writer, African Laughter is also a rich and penetrating portrait of Doris Lessing’s homeland. In it she recounts the visits she made to Zimbabwe in 1982, 1988, 1989 and 1992, after being exiled from the old Southern Rhodesia for twenty-five years for her opposition to the white minority government. The visits constitute an unforgettable journey to the heart of a country whose history, landscape, people and spirit are evoked by Lessing in a dazzling narrative of vivid detail and…

The Fifth Child

Doris May Lessing

• 1988 LATimes–Fiction finalist
• Score: 6.38

A self-satisfied couple intent on raising a happy family is shocked by the birth of an abnormal and brutal fifth child.

The Good Terrorist

Doris May Lessing

• 1985 Booker shortlist
• Score: 6.35

In a London squat a band of bourgeois revolutionaries are united by a loathing of the waste and cruelty they see around them as they try desperately to become involved in terrorist activities far beyond their level of competence.

Only Alice seems capable of organising anything. Motherly, practical and determined, she is also easily exploited by the group and ideal fodder for a more dangerous and potent cause. Eventually their naïve radical fantasies turn into a chaos of real destruction, but the aftermath is not as exciting as they hoped. Nonetheless, while…

The Sirian Experiments

Doris May Lessing

• 1981 Booker shortlist
• Score: 6.31

The Sirian Experiments is the third volume in Doris Lessing’s celebrated space fiction series. “Canopus in Argos: Archives”. In this interlnked quintet of novels, she creates a new, extraordinary cosmos where the fate of the Earth is influenced by the rivalries and interactions of three powerful galactic empires, Canopus, Sirius and their enemy, Puttiora. Blending myth, fable and allegory, Doris Lessing’s astonishing visionary creation both reflects and redefines the history of own world from its earliest beginnings to an inevitable, tragic…

Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris May Lessing

• 1971 Booker shortlist
• Score: 6.21

A fascinating look inside the mind of a man who is supposedly “mad.”

Lessing's Autobiography series

Doris May Lessing