Over the centuries, the river had slowly carried away mountainsides, tumbling and cracking rock, reducing boulders into a rainbow of smooth, flat stones the size of a child's hand.

CNN: The seven stones of simpler living

But the heart of the book is the story of how this full-blown late Romantic grew up in semi-detached suburbia by the River Thames during the second world war, and set out from there in search of a rainbow that turned out to be made of celluloid.

ECONOMIST: Film autobiography