"Charming, effortless, honest and tinged with sadness. As we imagine Liz is, it's slightly batty but utterly lovely."

"Threaded through with her struggles, the book shines with Smith's enthusiasm and idiosyncratic observations."

'Typically idiosyncratic... shot through with shafts of broad comedy. It's difficult not to gobble it all up in one go'

Liz Smith, once called the nation's favourite fictional grandmother, is a familiar face to all TV and cinema viewers. She is most often recognised for her role of Nana in The Royle Family. OUR BETTY is Liz's life story - from her cosseted yet lonely childhood with her beloved grandparents (her mother died giving birth to Liz's stillborn sibling), through the war with the WRENS, marriage and children, divorce and poverty, long years working in dead-end jobs such as in a plastic bag factory, until her heavenly escape of evening acting classes provided the chance for a career. While working at Hamley's one Christmas ('I was one of those tiresome people who stop you and beg you to try samples of this and that'), she received a phone call from a young director who wanted to make an improvised film. His name was Mike Leigh and the film Bleak Moments. From that point, when Liz was 50, her career took off and she has worked with some of the most famous names in the entertainment business. OUR BETTY is, like its author, original, amusing and fascinating on the struggles, hopes and successes endemic of a life in front of the camera.

2007-11-16 A Star Read

I loved this book. I started idly flicking through it at a friend's house when I had nothing else to do, and ended up reading it from cover to cover in one sitting. It's a wonderful evocation of life from a woman who has the knack of making everything she says seem both intimate and pertinent. I particularly liked the fact that it was episodic, rather than a long narrative full of minute detail. This is written like memories are, as she dips in and out of her mind telling us the interesting bits, the things that struck her, the things that moved her and the things about her life that make her who she is. The drawings that accompany it are also funny and quirky and it was a delight from beginning to end.