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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The first ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, memories and reflections from the first two, actuallyyears Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as he's not the family history of a man to do things by halvessea-going family, came about by accidentwith the docks dominating lives. There had been a plan to raise some money for Other stories blend seamlessly into the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to what-might-have -been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done It's a book to bring people in settle into and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakesallow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, but Burrell had made a hobby to think of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had simpler times when life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002 he went for seemed less constrained, despite the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped blitz that was a constant factor in One HourMcArdle's early years. Both I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were successful almost soundless and more than £300 could appear after the all-clear was raised for Children in Needsounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>154712251X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elena LappinAnnie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=What Language Do I Dream In?The Possession
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Speaking many languages fluently seems close to Ernaux opens with a disclaimer, warning readers that what follows is more or less a superpower to most of us. Elena Lappinconfession: ''s memoir is about how she came I have always wanted to write as if I would be at home in five or more languages, and what effect this has on her identitygone when the book was published''. Her family's history and Towards the end of the emigrations book, she claims that led the title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a brief period of time in her learning so many languages are caught up with European events. As a child she moved from Russia to Czechoslovakia life, labelled and from there to Germany. Elena was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad to learn French and English too. Then documented here as ''The Possession'', in which she chose university felt herself in Israel the throes of an all-encompassing and learnt Hebrew. So just as seductive jealousy targeted at the rest new partner of us might pick up bits of furniture or books W, a man she has since separated from our various homes, Elena picked up after a language every time. A clever member of an intellectual household, with parents who were translators and writers, there never seems to have been great effort involved in acquiring languages, it just happenedsix-year long affair.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844085783</amazonuk>1804271497
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{{newreview <!-- remove 1/9 -->Frontpage|author=Parrain ThoranceMary McCarthy|title=The French Cashew TreeMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The place isnMary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect''t given a name, but we can work out that itobsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her 's 'burning interest in the Caribbean and itpast''s here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, brother and sister until he was eight years old. It was then that his mother who died suddenly and in the family was broken up: his brother and sister went to live 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with an aunt and Parrain stayed with his father - but an aunt and uncle moved into her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the family home. The aunt - his harsh guardianship of her late father's sister - was fine, but Parrain Irish Catholic parents and her husband never got onabusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. The easyLater, generous days she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of childhood, sitting under the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted againupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524681458</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Hunter DaviesVirginie Despentes|title=King Kong Theory|rating=4|genre=Autobiography |summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.|isbn=191309734X}}{{Frontpage|author=Joan Didion|title=The Year of Magical Thinking|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.|isbn=0007216858}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the Dayopportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: Memories A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of Sixties places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035025299|title=Went to London, Lots Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Fowler|title=Word Monkey|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of Writinggoing to my beach hut. The weather closed in, The Beatles rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my Beloved Wifeshack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=0857529625}}{{Frontpage|author= Kit De Waal|title= Without Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 54
|genre= Autobiography
|summary= Although I knew As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the name Hunter Davies before I picked this bonds that bind family. This book up, I was unaware just how pivotal is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a figure lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Swinging Sixties Hunter Davies really wasCaribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. Take him, Harold Wilson and This intersectionality plays a certain musical quartet from Liverpool out of large role in the decadeautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and you are left written with a bit care, love, and the kind of anger only a vacuumchild can express to their parents. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471161293</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1638485216|title= WarBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=In war''Corruption is not department, are we at our heroic best gender or our cowardly worst? Featuring race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahlworld. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's time as neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a fighter pilot in backlash against the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict police - and strife, Dahl reveals not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the human side of our most inhumane activityChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia BlackburnBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John CraskeI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=John Craske was a fishermanWhen the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, from a family I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of fishermen, who became too ill the world responds to go to seayour book. He was born in Sheringham on I know, having read the north Norfolk coast book in 1881 and question, that Lindeblad would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill healthdisagree with that thought. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years He knows (and at a time and he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit core so do I) that his work had to be done on it matters very much how the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures rest of the sea. Then he moved on world responds to embroiderythis book, producing wonderful pictures of because it tells the Norfolk coast - andtruth as it is, most famously, of in the evacuation at Dunkirkearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Elkingareth_steel|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and LondonNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=History Animals and Wildlife|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: theyI don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''re places where you canNever Work With Animals't or shouldn't it seems to be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking appropriate. Stories of everything from a vet's life have proved popular since 'Madame Bovary'All Creatures Great and Small'' but ' to 'Never Work With Animals'Revolutionary Road'is definitely not the companion volume you')ve been looking for. When she imagines to herself what As a TV show the female version of author would argue that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneurAll Creatures''lacked realism, might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the worldbook is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'streetwalker' applied to themt lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Saqib NoorDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Surgery on the Shoulders of GiantsSpeedy: Letters from a doctor abroadHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The letters begin much in How to summarise the fashion life of any young man away from home, perhaps Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a quite exciting country, writing back pithy sentence to family and friends to tell them kick off a review of his experiencesmemoir? Do you know, the sights heI really don's seen t think I can. Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and the people a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's met. It's just struggled with a little different in ''Surgery on controlling father, run away to join the Shoulders of Giants'' though: Saqib Noor is circus (not a junior doctormetaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, training to be an orthopaedic surgeon designed and over a period of ten years he visited six countriespainted theatre sets, not as a tourist but to give medical assistance. They're countries which Noor describes as ''fourth world'' - third world with added disaster - and their need is desperatehit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1521173192</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Johnny RingwoodOtegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|titlesummary=Cargoes & Capers: ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The life family was hard-working, principled and times determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London Docklands manand then a place at New College, Oxford.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Johnny Ringwood Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was born in 1936, just three years before the start sort of the second world warlife where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as he saysan adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''slap bang next to the Royal Victoria dockMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety''. His education was somewhat limited, not least because it was regularly interrupted by is the Luftwaffe. You might therefore be surprised at what he has managed result - or so we are given to achieve in the intervening eighty years. I certainly wasbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1544833555</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker
|title=A Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.
|isbn=1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.''
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sakinu Ahronglong|title=Hunter School|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.|isbn=1999791282}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1544641923|title=[[Outskirts by John Grindrod]]Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.}}
''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have.''}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Wilbourne190874572X|title=Shepherd of Another FlockLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=[[:Category:David Wilbourne|David Wilbourne's]] CV looks like Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a career path for people who are hardwonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-humouredfriends. Banker, teacher of Ancient Greek, vicar, bishop…none of these are jobs normally connected in our minds with I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a jovial twinkle. Yet in David's case we'd be totally wrong later one that Paula told me I really had to assumeread Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The current Bishop of Llandaff takes us by Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the hand to show us episodes from his life as vicar ''Sort Of'' translations of the character-packed Yorkshire parish rest of Helmsley proving that tears of sorrow are equally shared with tears of laughterJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283072709</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie Nelson1908745819|title=The Red Parts: Autobiography of a TrialSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Maggie Nelson is Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of four volumes herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of poetry and five wide-ranging works where I am. Add to that my love of nonfiction that delve into the nature natural world, of violence those aspects of the poetic and sexuality. From what I'd heard lyrical that are about her writingstyle not form, I knew to expect an important and unconventional thinker with a distinctivesubstance most of all, lyrical styleabout connection. Now Vintage is making some of her backlistOf course, including this book (originally published in 2007) and the uncategorisable ''Bluets'', available had my name on it. It was written for the first time in the UKme. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784705799</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Marsh1906852472|title=AdmissionsWild Child: A Life in Brain SurgeryGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=ItFor Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's more than hardly news two years since I read [[Do No Harm: Stories of Lifelater – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh|Do No Harm: Stories of Lifeit's beautifully written, Death and Brain Surgery]] but the memories have stayed with memany exciting moments. What I had thought then most enjoyed was the feeling that a book about brain surgery might sound as though I was taking my pleasures too sadly, but many of the book was superb - and very easy reading and when I heard about questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''AdmissionsWild Child'' I decided to treat myself to an audio download, particularly as Henry Marsh was narratingwith a satisfying clunk. I knew Seemingly all that my expectations were unreasonably high, but how did 's now left in the book do?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474603866</amazonuk>drawer is unpublishable.
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