The author is the son of broadcaster and adventurer Macdonald Hastings, and journalist and gardening writer Anne Scott-James. Max's father roamed the world for newspapers and as a presenter for BBC TV's legendary Tonight programme, while his mother edited Harper's Bazaar, became a famous columnist and wrote bestselling gardening books. One of Max's grandfathers was a literary editor, while the other wrote plays and essays. His great-uncle was an African hunter who wrote poetry and became one of Max's heroes.

In this audiobook, the author brings together this remarkable cast of forebears—with guest appearances by a host of celebrities such as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad and John Betjeman. By turns moving, dramatic and comic, the book portrays Max's own childhood fraught with rows and explosions, in which the sudden death of a television set was only one highlight, and helps to explain why Max Hastings, whose family has produced more than 80 books over three generations, felt bound to follow their path of high adventure and popular journalism.