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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D|title=Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy|rating=5|genre=Autobiography__NOTOC__|summary=I 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. 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. In fact, he was one of the founders of the department.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''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==Autobiography==1804271845}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Fitzjohn1036916375|title=Born Wild: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Passion for Lions and for AfricaJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Maybe it's just my rock-chick nature but "Born Wild" feels 'Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a little clunky collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as titles gothe family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Surely it should Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have -been "Born To Be Wild"? Perhaps that phrase has been copyrighted and wasn't available. Or maybe Fitzjohn was deliberately referencing Joy AdamsonIt's a book "Born Free" – since much 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 part of his own time in Africa was spent with her husband George. "Born To Be Wild" would have been more accurate as wellyears. Many I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the animals we meet weren't born wild at all – though a good few of them got to live out the remainder of their days and die that way-clear was sounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918911</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Judith SummersAnnie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=The Badness of King GeorgePossession
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=People know how to get round me: they offer me Ernaux opens with a book and then say 'It's about disclaimer, warning readers that what follows is more or less a dogconfession: ' and like Pavlov's canine I say have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the book was published'Oh, lovely'. And so it was with The Badness Towards the end of King George. George is the book, she claims that the title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel brief period of time in her life, labelled and I have to quibble with the title – superb documented here as it is – because George is not bad. If anything he's badly done by as Judith Summers'The Possession'', plagued by empty nest syndrome when her son goes to universityin which she felt herself in the throes of an all-encompassing and seductive jealousy targeted at the new partner of W, decides to foster rescue dogs. Poor George has absolutely no idea what a man she's let him in for. And nor has Judithsince separated from after a six-year long affair.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046473</amazonuk>1804271497
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin LewisMary McCarthy|title=The Kid: A True StoryMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on a povertyMary 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-stricken London council estate hand memories from her parents, who died in the sort of home that 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the neighbours complain about. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most harsh guardianship of her six children late father's Irish Catholic parents and he was beaten her abusive Uncle Myers and starved by both of his parentsAunt Margaret. You might think that Social Services would have stepped in and removed himLater, but any relief was she moved to Seattle to be short-lived. Eventually he was put into care but even then the support was inadequate live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and Kevin found himself caught up in her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a criminal underworld where he was known simply as 'The Kid'different kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dai HenleyVirginie Despentes|title=B PositiveKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Dai Henley counts himself lucky ''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to have been born to loving and nurturing parentsarms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. When they discovered that his blood group was B positive they gave him his motto Originally written in life, and coincidentallyFrench, the title of this book. As he explains, it's not a celebrity autobiography (you might be selling yourself a little short there, Dai) and nor is it a misery memoir. It's the story collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a man who has made woman through the most complex prism of every opportunity he's been given – her varied life: from rape to sex work and a few mistakes along pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the way – but he's won through despite the difficulties and played book can feel somewhat disjointed, a fair amount reflection of sport tootheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907499180</amazonuk>191309734X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Malalai JoyaJoan Didion|title=Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story Year of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak OutMagical Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=Forget entertainment – this This book is a book to read if you have any interest in Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the war in Afghanistangrief she endured following her husband's sudden death. My particular view has developed from Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a British armchair, comprising part emotional reaction, a smidgeon of history beautiful and an overnecessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-reliance on British media sources. In a war zone where truth has been a casualty throughoutpity, this book gives the general reader an authentic view of conditions in Afghanistan over the past twenty five years of continual warfare. Written by a young denial and delusion and hot-headedmakes them utterly normal, wildly patriotic 'ordinary' woman, this is no more reliable than any other partisan view, but its value is lends them a human face to help put official news sources into their proper context. I found it educative in several senseswear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846041503</amazonuk>0007216858
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Duno1787333175|title=Last Dog On The HillYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=PetsPopular Science|summary=Driving through northern California Steve Duno found 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 puppy by glorious mixture of insight into the side workings of the road. He was flea-bittenNHS, tic infested, emaciated humour and suffering from an infectionautobiography. His father was a Rottweiler and his mother a German Shepherd - both were guard dogs at the local marijuana farm. When Steve whistled the dog came to him and it's no exaggeration 'You Don't Have to say that in that moment his life changedbe Mad... He'd always wanted a dog, ' promised the same elements but hadn't been able moved from physical problems to have one as mental illness and the work of a childpsychiatrist. There 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 moment's indecision at the side of the road – person and it is always delivered with empathy and then Lou became Steve's dogunderstanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330520024</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Perrin0241636604|title=WestThe Trading Game: A Journey Through the Landscapes of LossConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Where would If you go if the love were to bring up an image of a city banker in your lifemind, and your son, both died within a short few months you're unlikely to think of each other? someone like Gary Stevenson. Jim Perrin headed West A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin- to stripe suit and his background is the scraggly patches of land off IrelandEast End, closer to the setting sunwhere he was familiar with violence, nearer poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the further horizon, beyond the noise, information and opinion London School of humanityEconomics. Of course, that question could also be answered in Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a more metaphoric way. Jim went inward, before coming outwardfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He suffered - "involuntarily, the tears have come. Who would have thought also realised that death would release so many.most rich people expect poor people to be stupid." He alsoIt was his ability at what was, although he would probably hate me for saying itessentially, went on a "psycho-geographical ramble" - both in lifecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and in making this bookturned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546116</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=G Willow Wilson1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Butterfly Mosque: A Young Woman's Journey to Love and IslamSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=This memoir is told in the first person so straight away there is a connection with the readerSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. The story starts - not His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in Egypt his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on- but in the USA. Willow (lovely name) says shecall put on his father's ''in life. When he was seventeen he took the market for opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a philosophy.'' And in vet and was convinced this search she is extremely thoroughwas the job for him. She looks Before long, he was at mainstream religions - Christianity, Buddhism to name but two and puts them under the microscope, so to speak. She dismisses all of them before settling on IslamLiverpool University. It appears to offer what she is after, what she is looking for, that enigmatic thing. But also, therehadn's some little twist which helps make her mind up. But not before she digs deep and seeks answers to complex and awkward questions. She reads and researches Islam and finds out surprising facts, which she shares t - as with the reader. Willow is well-read and wellso many students -educated. She seems set for been his dream since he was a good career of her choice on American soilchild. Why not settle for that? But sheIf anything, he's set on travel d wanted to the Middle East come what maybe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548283</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna Del ConteEdel Rodriguez|title=Risotto with NettlesWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary= People who are serious about food will know We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the name 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 Anna Del Contehis were kind of taking his time away. SheOur narrator's a serious writer about Italian food but 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 someone who has courted fame via the television screenliked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. You'll have met her in places like 'Sainsbury's Magazine' or read The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of her brilliant writing about the food heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of her native Italy.heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099505991</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Hutchinson1035025299|title=Missing Went to London, Took the Boat: Chasing a Childhood Sailing DreamDog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=SportAutobiography|summary=As Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a youngster in the nineteen eighties, Michael Hutchinson was passionate about sailing. He acquired a dinghy and crew, and spent his early sabbatical after being away for twenty years messing around on Belfast Lough. He learned to sail, race Mirrors and fling jellyfish accurately She's been at passing competitors. In time, his salty daydreams became ambitious, encompassing the Olympic Games, AmericaVictoria's Cup and Round the World yacht races. Trouble was, Hutchinson proved smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to be a deeply mediocre dinghy sailorwriting, clocking up only one win in several seasons round the buoysas there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Although he was good enough at race tactics and seamanship, he lacked the sprinkling The other side of gold dust that differentiates the very good performer from the brilliant. And so eventually, as is the way decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of sensible young men, he became disenchanted and stopped trying. Ironically, he then found he had Deborah Moggach) at a talent for cycling which took him as far as the Commonwealth Gamesvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552345</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Greg BaxterChristopher Fowler|title=A Preparation for DeathWord Monkey|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I've always been slightly wary decided not to swim at the pool in favour of autobiographies which are written whilst 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 subject is still relatively youngdust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. They can often feel incompleteThere is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, particularly when and you know the author he actually is still successful in their chosen careerat that point, because he does. Frequently they are also written from an immediate perspective which time can alter thanks to hindsightHe did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141048433</amazonuk>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 and 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'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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary YoungeBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?I May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on When the Dalai Lama adds his articles for words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the Guardian newspaperworld responds to your book. I know, as he mentions having read the book in his acknowledgementsquestion, but it isn’t just a collection of his journalismthat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. Who Are We? is partly a memoir He knows (and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the politics and political impact of identityworld responds to this book, including race, gender, language groups, religionbecause it tells the truth as it is, sexuality in various countries around the worldearly 21st century. He sets out to explore 'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized to accentuate our universal humanity as opposed to separating us off into various, antagonistic camps?'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Jacksongareth_steel|title=MoonwalkNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Michael JacksonI don's autobiography, based on tape-recorded conversations t often begin my reviews with a warning but with his editor Shaye Ereheart, was first published in 1988''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. This new edition has an introduction by Berry Gordy, founder Stories of Motown Records a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and his original mentorSmall'' 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, and an afterword by Areheart about how the book was writtenas do other similar programmes. The main part of Gareth Steel says that the book is a straight reprint of the original, not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with no updating at allhim. Intriguingly, although GordyHe says that he's four pages refer written it to is protégé in the past tenseinform and provoke thought, calling him ''the greatest entertainer that ever livedparticularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, Areheart's writing, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and also the cover, refer to him in the presenteating. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547953</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Captain William WellsDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=A Sailor's TalesSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Captain William Wells was born How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in New Zealand where a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his father ran a successful carpentry businessmemoir? Do you know, but his heart wasnI really don't in following his father into the family firm or in most of the lessons at schoolthink I can. He was Dave is an author and an enthusiastic sportsman but what enthralled him most were the ships sailing out artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of Wellington harboura Lutheran minister, which he could see from his bedroom window. Without his parents' knowledge he applied for s struggled with a scholarship which allowed six boys each year to travel controlling father, run away to join the UK circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and undertake their basic nautical training. Billy Wellspainted theatre sets, who previously had only got 2% in his English exam (his name was spelled correctly) had the second highest score in and hit rock bottom when the country and was soon on his way to Englandbottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095629040X</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=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
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Stewart0571365884|title=Three Ways to Capsize My Mess is a BoatBit of Life: An Optimist AfloatAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Books Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about sailing fall into two sortswhether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: those written by authors who know what they are talking it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about, (though sometimes they don't convey it too well) she would become anxious but such occasions were few and those who don't have far between. On a visit to a cluetherapist, as an adult, but like when she was completely unable to think they do. Well, Chris Stewart may have started the book speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a light and frothy touch as Bit of a novice sailor, but he ends up with Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the credentials of an Ancient Marinerresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003842</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael WolffDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert MurdochA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdoch. Over four decades heAlzheimer's built News International into is a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian basedisease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. His position in 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 UK media is such elements. It seems as if nature wants that he's courted by politicians final victory over you and has your dignity. This is what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is not elected and is not even a UK citizen. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop'A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett0008333173|title=The Reluctant TommyHungry: An Extraordinary A Memoir of the First World WarWanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ronald Skirth was I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up in the First World Warjudges on ''Masterchef''. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, was promoted to Corporal, and sent You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the western fronttime. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he was an unquestioning servant You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of King and country, fighting for what he believed was righther. On I've often wondered about the battlefields of Flanders, one day he came across woman behind the body media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Hans, a German soldier the same age, if not younger. The dead manWanting More's hand was clutching a photograph of his girlfriend, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ella, Skirth's own sweetheart. Like two of his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died as is a result of the stupidity of othersstunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Lynch1504321383|title=The C-WordSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the beginning was the word, closely followed by the internet. The two combined to form the wonder that is blogging, and when that took off and people wanted a more concrete and permanent record, books quickly followed. Perhaps that's not 'You can'exactly'' how the quote goes, but it's close enought be happy and fulfilled on your own. Breast cancer at twenty eight is You are not just scary and unusual. For journalist Lisa, it's downright inconvenient. But, when complete until you find a stage three tumour bulges out of her boob, she decides to document her subsequent fight against the big C (or, as she affectionately calls it, 'man'The Bullshit'') online for all to see. The [http://alrighttit.blogspot.com/ blog] was a success, it garnered some famous fans ([[:Category:Stephen Fry|Stephen Fry]], among others) and a book offer followed. This is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gervase PhinnSakinu Ahronglong|title=Road to the Dales: The Story of a Yorkshire LadHunter School|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=As a teacher currently anticipating (I won't say looking forward to!) an OFSTED inspection, school inspectors aren't generally my favourite people. I'll make an exception for Gervase Phinn, though, as he's entertained me for many hours with his previous books on his time in the Dales doing the job. I was expecting his memoirs of his childhood to be equally entertaining – and feel slightly letdown, if I'm honest.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718149114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pattie Boyd and Penny Junor|title=Wonderful Today: The Autobiography of Pattie Boyd|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Pattie Boyd will always be remembered for one unique, extraordinary claim The flyleaf to famethis little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. She became I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the wife of arguably the two most famous and revered rock guitarists of the erasense that Ahronglong made it all up, George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and thus inspired three of their compositions which became three of or whether it is as the ageblurb goes on to say ''s seminal love songsrecollections, namely folklore and autobiographical stories'Something'. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, 'Layla'as an adult are real and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and 'Wonderful Tonight'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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755316436</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Baggott1544641923|title=The Girl on the Wall: One Life's Rich TapestryAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Jean Baggott It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is now seventy two privileged and in the final year of her history degree at Warwick Universityluxurious. After almost a lifetime of bending her life to the needs of other people she has decided It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that now 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 time to look after herself – diplomatic spouse, the eleven year old girl whose picture hangs on her wallaccompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She plans to achieve what that girl would want her to achieve (and from this it still usually is a 'she's found great fulfilment) can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311265</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Abby Lee0241446732|title=Girl With a One Track MindOur House is on Fire: Exposed: Further Revelations Scenes of a Sex Blogger Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Abby Lee is back 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 a brand new book thatwhat was happening. In such circumstances, it's sure natural to seek a solution close to bring her readers closer home, but eventually, it became clear to her than the family that theywere 've ever been before. For those who missed the media spectacle that surrounded her first book, 'Girl With burned-out people on a One Track Mind' followed twelve months in the life of burned-out planet'Abby Lee', a film runner who became an internet sensation after starting a blog in 2004 detailing her sexual exploits and thoughts. The book became an immediate success with men and women alike and earned Abby If they were to find a couple of thousand more hits on her blog ever dayway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509691</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Kenton191280493X|title=Love Affair: The Memoir Coming of a Forbidden Father-daughter RelationshipAge|author=Danny Ryan|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=For some years, I had been aware of Leslie Kenton's books on healthy living, 'He began writing novels and also poetry at the age of Stan Kenton's work as twelve, but it was to take him a jazz bandleader, though I had never made the connection until nowfurther forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. This family memoir reveals Consistently unpublished for all about the famous father and later-to-be-famous daughterthat time, and it is he remains a disturbing taleshining example of hope over experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091910536</amazonuk>}}..''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Taylor190874572X|title=To School Through The FieldsLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=To School Through Back at the Fields is beginning of the memoir of century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in the 1940s (though the book never mentions the date wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of when -friends. I can't remember if it is set)was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Taylor makes I do know that it clear at the beginning was four years later that she is writing a nostalgic look back at the era I finally acquired an English translation of her childhoodThe Summer Book, before and that I eagerly awaited the 'changing winds 'Sort Of'' translations of timethe rest of Jansson' s work and then presents a series of anecdotes about her parents, her family and some of the other characters who lived in her villagedevoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Daniels1908745819|title=Phil Daniels: Class ActorSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we were asked to nominate the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over the last twenty years take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high on unless it turns out that we didn't like the listbook. That's a rare experience. Born in Islington in 1958 and raised in Kings CrossPeople who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, he I was a graduate told why. The blurb speaks of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicole Dryburgh|title=Talk to the Hand|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'The Way I See It' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, which she wrote at eighteen, and which detailed her battles with cancer and the loss of her sight. We loved those aspects of the warts-poetic and-all picture of her life lyrical that she gave us thenare about style not form, and so we were really substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to see that she's written a second bookhave it fall onto my path so quickly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1906852472|title=Wild Child: Growing Up a Nomad
|author=Ian Mathie
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=For Ian Mathie's association fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with Africa began when the missing link in his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four narrative, the story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the very years oldthat made him the amazing man he became). School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africansbook is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. Even when he What I most enjoyed was joined by others he was still part the feeling that many of an ethnic minority although he didnthe questions in Ian Mathie't realise it! He was taught s later books are answered in the local language and grew up ''Wild Child'' with the local childrena satisfying clunk. It was his home and was to be Seemingly all that's now left in the centre of his life for decades to comedrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
}}
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