Learning to Think

Learning to Think A Memoir About Hardship, Education, Hellfire, Family, Finding a Way to Break Free

Paperback (13 Mar 2025)

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Publisher's Synopsis

'Tracy King's memoir is heartbreaking and hopeful...An incredible true story of survival and forgiveness.' TIM MINCHIN

'Raw and unflinching.' CAROLINE CRIADO PEREZ


'A brilliant writer.' ADAM KAY

'What would you do if you began to suspect the events of your childhood didn't happen as you remembered them? In this evocative memoir, Tracy King confronts the stories we all tell ourselves in order to live.' HELEN LEWIS


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When you have nothing, you cling to whatever gives you hope.


Put yourself in Tracy King's shoes. Growing up in an ordinary council estate outside Birmingham; a house filled with creativity, curiosity and love, but marked by her father's alcoholism and her mother's agoraphobia.

By the time she turns twelve her father has been killed, her sister taken into care and her mother ensnared by the promises of born-again Christianity.

This isn't the stuff of cult documentaries; this is the story of an ordinary family trapped in a broken system. It's a story that could happen to anyone without the tools to transform their circumstances. And it's the story of how Tracy found her way out.

A shocking, inspiring and ultimately hopeful memoir that holds up a mirror to the everyday realities of living in poverty, it is also a testament to the power of books and to learning to question our world.

Book information

ISBN: 9781804991947
Publisher: Transworld
Imprint: Penguin Books
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 500g
Height: 198mm
Width: 127mm
Spine width: 35mm