I really enjoyed this book...very pleasant quick portraits of some real characters written with genuine insight and empathy

It's pretty straightforward.
Tim Walker is a journalist and has interviewed lots of famous people since the 1980s. Around eighty or so short versions of these interviews are included here. All are pretty short but just long enough to give you a flavour of the person being interviewed.
In some cases, the person has taken a dislike to Walker (for example, Stephen Fry). On some occasions, he has disliked them (Michael Winner). Sometimes he has found his subject to be surprisingly dull (Rowan Atkinson).. In just a handful of cases, I'd not heard of the person being interviewed..
But in general this is uncontroversial: a revealing and readable insight into the lives - Donald Sinden, Lauren Bacall, Peter Ustinov, Diana Rigg, Peter Bowles, Eartha Kitt, Cliff Richard, Vera Lynn - of many big names who are often (but not always) no longer with us today.

This books pulls back the curtain and exposes our heroes and legends for what they are - human. Whilst quite a few of the vignettes are formed from speed networking during press junkets (Kirk Douglas, Rupert Everett), he provides enough context so as to make the reader empathise with the people he is reviewing. Particularly noteworthy are the back-to-back chapters on Dame Maggie Smith/Toby Stephens and the moving profile on Hugh Grant

My thanks to NetGalley SunRise Publishing Uk for a copy of “ Star Turns” for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book !
I must admit I was unaware of who Tim Walker was, and I was just attracted to the book by the cover.
I’m a big fan of autobiographies and enjoy getting an insight into the lives of famous people.
The short chapters were well written and entertaining, and covered genuinely talented stars.
It was so refreshing to get to hear what impression these people leave in those they meet.
I honestly couldn’t put this book down and will definitely be recommending it.

This book is an absolute delight. A collection of profiles done by Tim Walker over the years, each little essay is a perfect little jewel of beautiful writing. Each chapter completely stunned me with how perfectly Walker succeeds in capturing the essence of a person, or the milieu of their craft. All of them are lovely, but I particularly loved the ones on Indu Rubasingham, Roger Moore, Michael Grandage, and Claudine Mawby. Even in instances where the person being interviewed or profiled has not been very forthcoming, it's amazing to me how Walker still manages to get at their personality-his profile of Lauren Bacall is deeply moving. I expected this to be a perfect weekday read, one that I could dip into now and then, I ended up racing through it in one sitting, and starting over from the beginning. COmpletely unmissable.