Full name: Stand Before Your God: An American Schoolboy in England

Author: Paul Watkins Year: 1994 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Memoirs, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780679759416 0679759417

At the age of seven, Paul Watkins was roughly transplanted from his home in Rhode Island to England's Dragon School. He was greeted by a delegation of bullies who, in time, would become his friends and whose rules would become his own. For at Dragon, and later at Eton, "there was no middle ground. You could not go here and come out not caring one way or the other. You had to stand before your God and commit." In this enthralling and sometimes harrowing memoir, the acclaimed author of The Promise of Light gives us a masterly companion to such classics as Brideshead Revisited and A Separate Peace. Here are the masters who paddle boys for small infractions and then offer them sweets; the seniors who pamper pretty favorites and subject all others to humiliating servitude; the deep friendships and sudden, devastating betrayals. Above all, here is the exhilaration of a boy discovering own capacities for learning and creativity, in a book that conveys with astonishing insight the pangs of growing up. Similar books: Whatever Happened to Margo? by Margaret Durrell Bad Blood by Lorna Sage Period Piece by Gwen Raverat Kitchen Privileges by Mary Higgins Clark The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff Wait for Me! by Deborah Mitford A House Unlocked by Penelope Lively An Open Book by Monica Dickens Curriculum Vitae by Muriel Spark Miracles of Life by J. G. Ballard Under My Skin by Doris Lessing Nobody's Son by Luis Alberto Urrea Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley Being Jordan by Katie Price Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Educated by Tara Westover Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls