A beautiful finale - Rated 
I've been a fan of Melvyn Bragg for as long as I can remember - at least forty years and he never disappoints me. Remember me is no exception - beautifully written with (dare I say it?) resonances of the Hughes/Plath relationship. A beautiful and fitting conclusion to the story of Joe Richardson (Melvyn Bragg?) I didn't want it to end.
How disappointing - Rated 
Having read the first three novels in the tetraology -- "The Soldiers Return, "A Son of War" and "Crossing the Lines", I was looking forward to this. What a disappointment. Unlike the freshness of the earlier books this was over written with clumsily constructed sentences. Th dialogue was stilted and the self indulgent navel gazing of the main characters became tiresome. Perhaps Lord Bragg intended that the style should reflect the increasing sophistication of Joe Richardson. I just wish he hadn't.
Oh dear..... - Rated
How I finished this book I just don't know. It has to be one of the most boring books I have ever read.
It maybe semi autobiographical, but if it is, I wouldn't want to be part of Melvyn Bragg's self obsessed, navel gazing circle. You very quickly lose all sympathy for the main protagonists, who have money, and so on, but instead of enjoying life to the full, spend their lives seeing therapists, while their marriage goes down the pan. Maybe it's trying to say something about lack of communication between couples, but by the end of this VERY LONG book I really didn't give a flying one.
Melvyn Bragg is a great tv and radio presenter, but I won't be reading another of his books.
I'd Rather Forget - Rated
Firstly, let me admit, I have only got to half way through this dreary semi autobiographical account before giving up. In all my years as an avid reader, this is only the second book I have ever not finished. I would liken reading it as worse than having teth pulled with out pain relief of any kind.
I have read the other previous books written by this authour where he writes about himself as the fictional character 'Joe', and although not the greatest books in the world, they were not too bad. I had expected more from this author than the 'Aga Sagas' that the others had been, but they were enjoyable enough for me to also buy this book with an anticipation of picking up the journey with some familiar characters.
I was sorely disappointed. This book, if written by an unknown author, in my opinion, would never have been published. One knows pretty soon the main character's wife is going to commit suicide at some point. One can understand why if life was as depicted in the book up until the point I gave up - I felt like doing the same.
What a disappointment- I would certainly NOT recommend this author to any other reader.
A Memorable Work - Rated
Over the past twenty years or so I have read virtually all of Melvyn Bragg's works of fiction, up through his three autobiographical novels, each published about two years apart. Early in 2007, when Amazon.co.uk offered "Remember Me..." as a preorder for April, I didn't hesitate. Only after I clicked the button did I notice that it was due not in April 2007, but 2008! I let the order stand (probably setting an Amazon.co.uk preorder record) and waited. When it finally arrived last month, I knew instantly that this was not a quick study, and as I read, I saw why #4 had not come as easily as #1, 2 and 3.
There are certain elements of Bragg's writing that I've come to expect, and all of them were present in this book: savory phrases ("...playing Blind Man's Bluff, bumping into the furniture of our old lives"); skillful evocations of time and place (Oxford and London of the '60s); clever literary devices (such as using the era itself as an unseen character in the story, a force powerful enough to jerk the other two primary characters around inside the plot).
But this time there was something I had not seen before: deep emotion; the author himself. This is the fourth in an ongoing autobiographical series about his own life. Yet up to now we have been presented with a sort of family album. Snapshots of "Joe" as a boy against the backdrop of an England at that time, looking back at a child wrestling with issues we presume he later overcame.
In "Remember Me..." there is such raw immediacy that, although it is 40 years past, it feels like now. The sense is that, as he was writing, a chunk of the writer was still back there, and he was bringing it forth for us to see, wounds still open and bleeding. As such, I see "Remember Me..." as not only the finest piece of fiction Bragg has written to date, but also the bravest, given his vulnerability as a public figure. I have been impressed by his writing skills in the past, but never much emotionally moved. I choked up toward the end of this one, something no book has inspired me to do in many years. I strongly recommend it for all the reasons noted above, and for its insight into the chasms and pitfalls of mental illness.
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