Please note: I first published this book review on the “Goodreads”-website in 2023.
My rating: 5 (of 5) “stars”
I was given a paperback copy as a Christmas gift a few years ago, and only got around to reading it in 2023. The book was published by Headline Publishing in 2005.
I loved it. Bacall’s autobiography (“By Myself”) was first published in 1978, when she was 54 years old. 27 years later she wrote an additional 90 pages (“And Then Some”), and they both were published as one book in 2005, when she was 81 years old.
The second part of her autobiography is more wistful and emanates sadness; over the years she had to mourn the deaths of ever more family members and friends, and she became very aware of the fact that she herself had little time left. She died in 2014, a few weeks shy of her 90th birthday.
I’d never before read an autobiography where you could witness the writer’s aging process in quite the same way, but because “By Myself and Then Some” was written at different stages in her life, 27 years apart, you get a glimpse of Bacall’s life and personality at different stages in her life, and watch her age while you read the book. It’s truly fascinating.