Newest Autobiography Reviews
From TheBookbag
Autobiography
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All by Christina Thompson
Subtitled an unlikely love story, this was an interesting and inspiring memoir written by an American academic, who met and fell in love with a Maori - and what a beautiful tale it tells! Referred to as a 'contact' encounter (i.e., chance meeting) it sounds almost like a fairy tale, and in part it is - but a fairy tale which includes huge amount of hard work too. Full review...
An Eagle in the Airing Cupboard by Rex Harper
We first met Rex Harper in An Otter on the Aga where he told us of how he and his wife, Julie worked first to help injured or abused animals and then founded their own animal sanctuary. It was a book of laughter, sadness at the way that some people will treat animals and gratitude that there are people like Rex and Julie who devote their lives to the welfare of animals. At the end of Otter the sanctuary had been taken over by the RSPCA and An Eagle in the Airing Cupboard takes up where Otter finished and looks at a year in the life of a warden. Full review...
Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne
Growing up in a poor family in Dublin in the 1950s, Lorna Byrne seemed to be in a world of her own. When she was two years old, a doctor interpreted her behaviour, in the language of the time, as "retarded". However, as Lorna confides later, her world was full of light beings, later to be called angels. She communicated with them without language, but by thought. She was also aware of the spirits of people who had died, including her brother Christopher who had died as a baby, many years before. Full review...
A November to Remember by Taryn McKeiver
This book charts the arduous, heartbreaking and inspiring journey of a young and vibrant mother of five, as she shares her experiences of battling the cruellest of diseases - cancer. In Taryn's case, doubly cruel, as she was affected by a cancer which is more usual in the elderly population - bowel cancer. Full review...
A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco by Suzanna Clarke
Perhaps it's a little unfair to come to A House in Fez still inspired by the storytelling of Tahir Shah's In Arabian Nights, because this is a very different take on Morocco, aimed (as a book) no doubt at a very different market, but reading the two in quick succession it is hard to avoid comparison. Full review...
Prezza: My Story: Pulling No Punches by John Prescott
John Prescott polarises opinion. It seems that people either love or loathe him and I've yet to meet anyone who isn't at least aware of him. Coming from relatively humble beginnings he rose to be the UK's longest-serving Deputy Prime Minister by the time he resigned in June 2007. He's been just about as close to the top of British politics as it's possible to get and his autobiography was expected to be revealing and possibly even tell us where some of the bodies are buried. So, how did it measure up? Full review...
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle by Robyn Scott
As misery memoir piled upon misery memoir and we were obliged, even those who chose not to read the genre, to bear witness to the appalling things some parents are capable of doing to their own children, I began to wonder if the happy childhood had gone the way of Spangles and club trips to the seaside: things I knew had existed once upon a time. My overwhelming thanks then to Robyn Scott (and publishers Bloomsbury) for restoring my faith. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle is subtitled the Story of an African Childhood, but more than that it is the story of a recent and happy childhood. For that alone it would be worth the read. Full review...
A Place In My Country: In Search Of A Rural Dream by Ian Walthew
At the age of 34 Ian Walthew was the worldwide marketing director of the International Herald Tribune living in various parts of the world and leading a jet-set lifestyle. He was also on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Faced with a move back to London, he resigned and rather than buy a property in London he and his Australian wife bought a cottage in the Cotswolds to give Ian the peace which he needed to recuperate. Full review...
Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh by Amy Raphael (Editor)
Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh is an intimidatingly chunky book. The director himself stares out of the cover, holding a camera lens up to one eye. It's a fitting image for Mike Leigh, a simple representation of a man in love with the cinematic medium, but who has never sacrificed his emphasis on characterisation and human emotion within his films. Full review...
Ronnie by Ronnie Wood
As a member of the Rolling Stones for over thirty years, Ronnie Wood has become virtually synonymous with the term 'hellraising'. Despite a burning-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle, though, he has reached his sixtieth birthday intact. Moreover, unlike Pete Doherty and the late Sid Vicious, he will always be remembered for his music than for merely making the wrong sort of headlines. Full review...
Clara's War by Clara Kramer
This WW2 memoir of a 15-year-old Jewish girl in Poland, hidden with her family in a damp, cramped bunker under the floorboards of a house occupied by a man believed to be a virulent anti-Semite, draws inevitable comparisions with The Diary of Anne Frank. Four families endure terrible hardship while hiding from the Nazis; Clara Kramer kept a diary of their lives, recording their gruelling existence and daily terror of discovery. This book is based on those diaries, from her perspective sixty years later. Full review...
Moments by Cristiano Ronaldo
For football fans the name of Cristiano Ronaldo conjures images of Manchester United and the famous number 7 shirt worn by the likes of David Beckham, Eric Cantona, Bryan Robson and George Best in the past. Originally thought of as nothing more than a nice face and hairstyle he's now proving himself to be a footballer of great talent and possibly even the best of his generation. Moments is not an autobiography but a series of snapshots of his life. Full review...
Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes by Ferdinand Mount
Some books start well, then run out of steam. Less frequently, in my view, they begin pleasantly, and only really come alive rather later on. Had I not been reading this for review, I'm not sure I would have finished it. I persevered, and about two-thirds of the way through my patience was rewarded. Full review...
Family Romance by John Lanchester
Having published three novels, John Lanchester turns to non-fiction for his fourth book. Though subtitled A memoir, it is largely a biography of his parents. The main emphasis is on his mother Julia, born in Ireland in 1920. In her teenage years she became a nun, decided the life was not for her, and left the convent, a move which resulted in estrangement from her family. While working at a sanatorium during the Second World War she contracted TB, fell in love and became engaged to another patient who sadly died soon afterwards. Full review...
The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende
This volume of Isabel Allende's memoirs focuses on the Chilean novelist's life in the US, where she has lived for over 25 years. It follows on from The House of the Spirits and My Invented Country about her life in Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup and, most notably, Paula, a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma, eventually dying of the inherited condition porphyria. Full review...
Blue China by Bamboo Hirst
An intriguing memoir of a half-Chinese, half-Italian woman, and of her parents who meet prior to the outbreak of World War II. Full review...
Anne's Song by Anne Nolan
To most of us, the Nolans probably conjure up wholesome cheesy visions of TV light entertainment shows, 'I'm In The Mood for Dancing' (top three early in 1980), and the wholesome image of a squeaky-clean family act – rather like an Irish female version of the Osmonds, perhaps. But scratch almost every showbiz legend and somewhere there's going to be darkness. Full review...
Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes' memoir is a brief family history with a look at his grandparents, parents and his brother, but the real substance of the book is in his thoughts on mortality and religion. He says that this is not my autobiography and whilst it might not be the definitive work it is certainly autobiographical and it's Barnes himself who emerges most vividly from the book. The rest are names, sometimes just initials or a set of facts, but rarely do they have personality. Full review...
If You Don't Know Me by Now: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton by Sathnam Sanghera
The irony in the title is delivered in several directions by this autobiography. First, our narrator Sathnam has decided with the evidence of his own tastes, and six failed short-term relationships, that he needs to tell his mother that he is just not interested in being forced into an arranged marriage, and would much prefer to try and find the white girl that suits him better. Of course, he will have to find someone to exactly reproduce his thoughts in written Punjabi so the message will get across with no doubts. Full review...
Mixed Blessings: My Psychic Life by Diane Lazarus
Diane Lazarus had a troubled childhood, largely due to a violent and sadistic father, but also because of the strange sounds and visions she experienced from an early age. In other circumstances, it would seem natural for children to withdraw from this reality into a make-believe world, and it is seems clear that Diane's "hallucinations" and strange behaviour are largely put down to being a reaction to the domestic problems. Full review...
Life with Beau: A Tale of a Dog and His Family by Anna Quindlen
Bristol's Beauregard Buchanan, Beau to his family and friends, is an old dog when we first meet him. Whilst Anna Quindlen is at the vet's collecting his prescription Beau is sleeping on the rug in the foyer. The rug smells. Beau smells and he has little sight or hearing, but then he's nearly fifteen years old. He's reached that stage in an older dog's life when there's no point in his going to see the vet (he certainly doesn't want to go there ever again, after what happened to his prostate…) and the next house call will be the last. Full review...
Unveiled: A Woman's Journey Through Politics, Love, and Obedience by Deborah Kanafani
In the early 1980s, Deborah Jacobs was a college student from Long Island, New York. Her great-great-grandmother had arrived in America from Lebanon, following the failure of a marriage, and had become a successful entrepreneur. Deborah's mother had a short marriage to a charismatic, ambitious lawyer, whom Deborah continued to idolise, despite some difficulties. His glamorous and, at times, rather edgy lifestyle contrasted strongly with her simple life with her mother. Full review...
Heart of Darfur by Lisa French Blaker
Imagine something went really wrong in this country. Imagine fighting broke out. Imagine government forces lost control in some areas. Imagine one of those areas was your town. Militia men of one force or another are shooting one another in the streets. They're shooting any civilians who venture out of doors too. Rockets are being fired into town. One hit your next door neighbour yesterday. She died. Her little boy is staying with you, because his grandparents live in another town and they're not allowed in to get him. Full review...
Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison
As I write I have my grandson's photo on my desk. He has Asperger's Syndrome which is at the 'able' end of the autistic spectrum. He has a loving family and a supportive school which understands his difficulties and works with him to get through them. He's a happy child and apart from an occasional tendency to be tactless ('I've never seen you look so old, Nanna.') you wouldn't know that there was a problem. Full review...
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being A Woman by Nora Ephron
Not long ago I was moved to tell a friend that gravity was having such an effect on my body that I was convinced that eventually the entire problem would be contained in a stout pair of wellies. I've never looked my age but I'm now finding that I look an age that I don't want to be, so when I saw Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck I knew that I had to read this book. This woman understood me. Full review...
My Animals and Other Family by Julia Blackburn
The best thing about Julia Blackburn's childhood was the animals which lightened the burden of her parents' constant rows. My Animals and Other Family is primarily about the animals – from Congo the bushbaby through to Jason and Henry the dogs – but in telling of them she allows us an insight into the people around her. Her father was Thomas Blackburn, the poet, who would frequently return home drunk and spoiling for a fight with his artist wife, who would later complain to Julia of his violence and infidelity. Much of her childhood was spent in trying not to hear the rows. Full review...
