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<!-- Thion'o -->{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D|title=Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy|rating=5[[image:Thiongo_Birth.jpg|leftgenre=Autobiography|linksummary=https://wwwI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions.amazon It's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University.coIn fact, he was one of the founders of the department.uk/gp/product/1784701300?ie}}{{Frontpage|author=UTF8&tagAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=thebookbag-21&linkCodeThe Other Girl|rating=as2&camp4|genre=1634&creativeAutobiography|summary=6738&creativeASIN=1784701300]]''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''

Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=The Possession|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ernaux opens with a disclaimer, warning readers that what follows is more or less a confession: ''I have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the book was published''. Towards the end of the book, she claims that the title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a brief period of time in her life, labelled and documented here as ''The Possession'', in which she felt herself in the throes of an all-encompassing and seductive jealousy targeted at the new partner of W, a man she has since separated from after a six-year long affair. |isbn=1804271497}}{{Frontpage|author=Mary McCarthy|title=Memories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=[[Birth Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a Dream Weaverdifferent kind of upbringing.|isbn=1804271659}}{{Frontpage|author=Virginie 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 opportunity 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: A writerCuban 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 awakening family weren't in the happiest of 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, 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 going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, 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 shack. 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= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= 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 bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by Ngugi wa Thiongand marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the kind of anger only a child can express to their parents.|isbn=1472284852}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1638485216|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man'o]]s Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''

[[image:5star''One more body just wouldn't matter''.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]

The true story murder of KenyaGeorge 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 world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's foremost author in his own wordsdeath was an exception. Ngugi wa Thiong The image of Chauvin kneeling on George'o s neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the most important writer that youprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all''ve tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{Frontpage|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (or at Translator)|title=I May Be Wrong|rating=5|genre= Autobiography|summary= When the very leastDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I've) never heard m inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest ofthe world responds to your book. In this volume of his autobiographical series we follow Ngugi as he ventures to University I know, having read the book in Uganda question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and starts writing professionally. Ngugi tells the story of British colonialism at core so do I) that it matters very much how the end rest of the Empire as clearly as his own tale – making world responds to this one of book, because it tells the most important books on truth as it is, in the market todayearly 21st century. [[Birth |isbn=1526644827}}{{Frontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a Dream Weaver: A writervet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's awakening by Ngugi wa Thiongwritten it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'ot lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.}}{{Frontpage|Full Review]]author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer<br>|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.

Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|isbn=B0965V3LLN}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=[[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza]]Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''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

[[image:4star''0.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]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

Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up in Nigeria and Otegha Uwagba came to Britain to study for her A levels the UK from Kenya when she was 18five years old. Her parents used their savings to give her this opportunity sisters were seven and called it an investment in nine. It was her future. Now a qualified pharmacistmother who came first, married and with a child of her ownfather joining them later. The family was hard-working, Tabitha looks back at her childhood principled and reflects on determined that their children would have the way her mother and father raised herbest education possible. And she gives their parenting top marks There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. [[Parenting through When Otegha was ten the Eyes of family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza|Full Review]]place at New College, Oxford.<br>}}

<!-- Micheal -->[[image:Micheal_Revelation.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524666866?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524666866]] ===[[Revelation Ch:25 - A Letter To The Churches From The 24th Elder by Edward K Micheal]]=== [[image:1.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Spirituality and Religion|Spirituality and Religion]] Edward K Michael has taken the brave step of laying out his spiritual journey for all to see. It is a deeply personal book and he's honest enough - genuine enough - to wonder if he would have taken a different path if he had known then what he knows now, but he's generous enough too to hope that people will find comfort in the supernatural manifestations he has seen. Before you begin reading you will need to accept that the book seems to have been written without editorial intervention: you are hearing the real man speak and what you will read is very close to stream of consciousness. [[Revelation Ch:25 - A Letter To The Churches From The 24th Elder by Edward K Micheal|Full Review]]Frontpage<br> <!-- McGowan -->[[image:McGowan_Art.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786071827?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786071827]]0571365884 ===[[The Art of Failing: Notes from the Underdog by Anthony McGowan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] I had not come across Anthony McGowan's work before reading this book, as he mainly writes for Young Adults. I can imagine his books to be engaging and humorous from the clever way he constructs sentences, and the ironic subtlety with which he uses descriptive details. [[The Art of Failing: Notes from the Underdog by Anthony McGowan|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> <!-- Smith -->[[image:Smith_Dont.jpg|left|linktitle=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147212345X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147212345X]] ===[[Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]  Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms Mess is part autobiography and part rallying call for society to tackle the systemic, endemic and debilitating inequality faced by the people of the United Kingdom, particularly in the North. Through reflecting on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith has painted a frank and uncompromising picture Bit of the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had to endure due to the poverty faced by his family contrasted with the, shamefully still, grim and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cuts, austerity and political turmoil. [[Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Bristow -->[[imageLife:Bristow China.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910985902?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1910985902]] ===[[China Adventures in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow]]===Anxiety [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Travel|Travel]] Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations. [[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Moore -->[[image:Moore Bientot.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782438610?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782438610]] ===[[A Bientot... by Roger Moore]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Entertainment|Entertainment]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on for ever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, ''À bientôt…'', to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away. [[A Bientot... by Roger Moore|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Burrell -->[[image:Burrell_12.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/154712251X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=154712251X]] ===[[Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Sport|Sport]] The first of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accident. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people in and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002 he went for the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Need. [[Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author=Elena Lappin|title=What Language Do I Dream In?Georgia Pritchett|rating=54

|summary=Speaking many languages fluently seems close to Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a superpower to most of uschild. Elena Lappin's memoir is She would worry about how whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she came had nothing to be at home in five or more languages, worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and what effect this has on her identityfar between. Her family's history and the emigrations that led On a visit to her learning so many languages are caught up with European events. As a child therapist, as an adult, when she moved from Russia was completely unable to Czechoslovakia and from there to Germany. Elena speak about what was wrong with her it was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad to learn French suggested that she should write it down and English too. Then she chose university ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Israel and learnt Hebrew. So just as Anxiety'' is the rest of us might pick up bits of furniture result - or books from our various homes, Elena picked up a language every time. A clever member of an intellectual household, with parents who were translators and writers, there never seems so we are given to have been great effort involved in acquiring languages, it just happenedbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844085783</amazonuk>

{{newreview <!-- remove 1/9 -->Frontpage|author=Parrain ThoranceDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The French Cashew TreeA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5

|summary=The place isnAlzheimer't given s is a name, but we can work out disease that it's in the Caribbean slowly wears away your identity and it's here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his parentssense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, brother as have many. Your memories and sister until he was eight years oldpersonality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It was then seems as if nature wants that his mother died suddenly final victory over you and the family your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was broken up: his brother and sister went to live diagnosed with an aunt Alzheimers and Parrain stayed with has documented his father - but an aunt and uncle moved into the family home. The aunt - his fatherjourney in ''s sister - was fine, but Parrain and her husband never got A Tattoo on. The easy, generous days of childhood, sitting under the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted againmy Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524681458</amazonuk>1108838936

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Hunter Davies1529109116|title=Call Me Red: A Life in the Day: Memories of Sixties London, Lots of Writing, The Beatles and my Beloved WifeShepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= AutobiographyLifestyle|summary= Although ''I knew want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the name Hunter Davies before nation. I picked this book don't think that is too much to ask.'' The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up, I on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was unaware just how pivotal twenty although she'd always had a figure deep love of the Swinging Sixties Hunter Davies really animals. Her original intention was. Take himthat she would become 'Dr Jackson, Harold Wilson whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a certain musical quartet from Liverpool out family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the decade, and determination that you are left with a bit 'll soon realise is an essential part of a vacuumher, she set about achieving her ambition. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471161293</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl0008333173|title= WarHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the autobiographical stories judges on ''Masterchef''. You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from Roald Dahl's someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the time as a fighter pilot . You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her. I've often wondered about the Second World War as well as seven other tales woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of conflict Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activitybreak your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Blackburn1504321383|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John CraskeSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman

|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=John Craske ''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''. This was what Louisa Pateman was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, who became too ill brought up to go to seabelieve. He It wasn't unkind: it was born in Sheringham on simply the north Norfolk coast adults in 1881 and her life advising her as to what they thought would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill healthbe best for her. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years at a time and he It was on occasions described as 'an imbecilereinforced 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. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had Few girls are lucky enough to be done on brought up ''without'' the available surfaces in his homeexpectation that they will marry and have children. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - It was a belief and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirkit would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren ElkinSakinu Ahronglong|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and LondonHunter School|rating=4.5|genre=History Autobiography|summary=Lauren Elkin The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is down on suburbs: theya work of fiction. That're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, s possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in fictionthe sense that Ahronglong made it all up, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame Bovary'' or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''Revolutionary Roadrecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''). When she imagines to herself what It feels like the latter. It feels like the female version of that well-known historical figurestories he tells about his experiences as a child, the carefree ''flâneur''as an adolescent, might beas an adult are real and true. But memory is a fickle thing, she thinks about women who freely wandered the world's great cities without having the and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to thempeople will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Saqib Noor1544641923|title=Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroadAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=The letters begin much in It's tempting to think that the fashion of any young man away from homediplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, perhaps in a quite exciting country, writing back to but family and friends to connections tell them of his experiences, the sights heme that it is far from luxurious. Now you's seen and the people here not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's met. Itreally like (it's just a little different in not ''Surgery on the Shoulders of Giantsdiplomatic'' though: Saqib Noor is a junior doctorto do so, training to be an orthopaedic surgeon and over a period of ten years he visited six countriesyou know), not as a tourist but to give medical assistancethe diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. TheyShe (and it still usually is a 're countries which Noor describes as she''fourth world'' - third world with added disaster - and their need is desperate) can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1521173192</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johnny Ringwood0241446732|title=Cargoes & CapersOur 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 life Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and times 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 London Docklands manway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=191280493X|title=Coming of Age|author=Danny Ryan

|summary=Johnny Ringwood was born in 1936, just three years before the start of the second world war, as he says, ''slap bang next to He began writing novels and poetry at the Royal Victoria dock''. His education was somewhat limitedage of twelve, not least because but it was regularly interrupted by the Luftwaffeto take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. You might therefore be surprised at what Consistently unpublished for all that time, he has managed to achieve in the intervening eighty yearsremains a shining example of hope over experience.. I certainly was.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1544833555</amazonuk>}}''

===[[Outskirts by John Grindrod]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] ''Outskirts'' is an interesting take on This a phenomenon memoir from someone you have never heard of the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of countryside surrounding inner city housing estates. John Grindrod grew up on the edge of one such estate in the 1960's and '70's, as he puts it, ''I grew up on the last road in London- but will feel like you have.'' Grindrod explores the introduction of the green belt, and the various fights and developments it has gone through over the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions. Within this topic, he has somehow managed to wind around his personal memories of childhood, producing a memoir with a lot of heart. [[Outskirts by John Grindrod|Full Review]]<br>}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Wilbourne190874572X|title=Shepherd of Another FlockLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)

|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>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie Nelson1908745819|title=The Red Parts: Autobiography of a TrialSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45

|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

|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.