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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ ==Autobiography=={{newreview|author=John Burnside|title=Waking Up In Toytown|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=After years of alcoholism and borderline insanity, John Burnside decides to become normal. This involves moving to Surrey, working in an office and settling into a numbing daily routine he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards bad habits. These memoirs chronicle the failure of his bid for normality and subsequent disillusionment with the project. It's a solipsistic account but the writing is powerful and it draws you in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk!-- Remove -->0099507838 </amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhoda Janzen0241636604|title=Mennonite in a Little Black DressThe Trading Game: A Memoir of Coming HomeConfession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Even although the obliging blurb on the back cover tells the reader If you were to bring up an image of a little about being Mennonitecity banker in your mind, I couldnyou't resist looking it up in the dictionary. I was intrigued re unlikely to start readingthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. And emblazoned across A hoodie and jeans replaces the front cover pin-stripe suit and his background is 'No 1 In The US'. Great praise indeedthe East End, I thought. But how would it go down across the pond? Time to find out ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789031X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tony Judt|title=The Memory Chalet|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=In 2008 the historian Tony Judt where he was diagnosed familiar with amyotrophic lateral sclerosisviolence, a degenerative disorder that eventually results in complete paralysis for the suffererpoverty and injustice. Unable to jot down ideas as they came to him, Judt had to rely There was no posh public school on his memory to hold them until CV - but he had the chance been to dictate his words to somebody else. His memory, which was already good, became exceptional. The progress of the disorder left Judt unable to move, but no mental deterioration or lack London School of sensation occurred, which Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he describes as has a mixed blessingfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He had also realised that most rich people expect poor people to endure whole nights lying in the same positionbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, unable to roll over or even to scratch an itchessentially, a prisoner in his own body. To preserve his sanity during these tortuous nights he focussed on events from his own past, linking then card game which got him an internship with other events and ideas it had never occurred to him were connectedCitibank. It was during these reveries that the essays in The Memory Chalet were not only conceived Eventually, but also developed in their entiretythis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020966</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Leon Davis1529395224|title=Running ScaredLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: For 22 Years He Was The Secret Life of a Fugitive - The Corrupt Cop Busted by GodVet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Robert Davis was the eldest of nine children all living with their grandmother in New Orleans – on welfareSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His grandmother father was a good, honest woman GP and Davis loved and respected herRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, but money particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was so tight that seventeen he resorted to thieving to bring some extra food in for took the opportunity of doing work experience with a familyfriend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. He knew that she would be deeply upset about itBefore long, but hunger is hungerhe was at Liverpool University. In your heart you canIt hadn't blame him and it seems that all is coming good when Davis becomes a respected police officer in the mid nineteen-seventies. He's living as with so many students - been his dream since he was a good, decent woman and looks set to have a good careerchild. GreatIf anything, you think, sometimes life he''is'' fair and it works outd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854249932</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Denis O'ConnorEdel Rodriguez|title=Paw Tracks at Owl CottageWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=3.54|genre=PetsGraphic Novels|summary=We'Paw Tracks at Owl Cottagere in childhood, and we' is the story re in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of four pedigree Maine Coon cats which the author country, has proven himself a Communist, and his wife acquired after moving back not done nearly enough to create a cottage where they had previously livedlevel playing field for all. This is the sequel to a volume called Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren'Paw Tracks t in the Moonlight'happiest of places here, which I have not readan 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 which features their first cat Toby Jug. Apparentlywatched, on and not liked for his demisesuccessful photography business, they had sold success being frowned upon. The mother gets the cottage; couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but now, a little more advanced in yearsthis sultry island country, they buy it again, and do extensive renovations before deciding that it's ready for another cat.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016402</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase Phinn1035025299|title=TwinkleWent to London, Twinkle, Little StarsTook the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=I spent many of my teenage Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years reading James Herriot. She's booksbeen at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about itas there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Perhaps it was just The other side of the setting, for Phinn decision was sealed when a school inspector in the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack room became available (courtesy of capturing Deborah Moggach) at a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculous. Here he collates stories from his other books, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed betweenvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicky HaslamChristopher Fowler|title=Redeeming FeaturesWord Monkey|rating=35
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nicholas HaslamIt'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, interior designerrain arrived, columnist, reviewerand I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, the man whom I realised it was said would attend because (a lighted candle) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, let alone 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 partyman who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, socialite and name dropper - this you know he actually is your lifeat that point, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009954623X</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gok WanKit De Waal|title=Through Thick Without Warning and ThinOnly Sometimes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Famous for his sensitivity and understanding with womenAs Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, encouraging them your mum and enabling them dad/ They may not mean to accept themselves, but they do” Without Warning and their bodies, as they are, Gok Wan's autobiography sadly tells Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book is a very different story with regards to his own body acceptance. Having gained weight throughout his childhood, getting up to twenty one stone memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager, he loathed his body and ended up starving himself, becoming anorexic living in a desperate effort to be thin and, therefore, successfullower class area of Birmingham. Perhaps this Her father is where his empathy comes from? That when he stands St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a woman in front of black man. This intersectionality plays a wall of mirrors large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her underwearrace, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, he actually truly understands what it is and the kind of anger only a child can express to loathe your own bodytheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091938392</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Wynn1638485216|title=Two Sons in a War ZoneBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Afghanistan: The True Story of a FatherA Black Man's ConflictOdyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's almost a nightly occurrence – that news item which contains the words '… has been killed in Afghanistan' and we think of a young lifeCorruption is not department, gender or young lives cut tragically shortrace specific. They're fresh-faced young men or women at what should have been the beginning of their adult life and now they are no more. You feel for them and their families, but what about the families who have people they love out in Afghanistan, who live each day with the worry that the knock will be coming to their door? Stephen Wynn It has two sons who have done tours of duty in Afghanistan and who are likely everything to do so againwith character. Period. 'Two Sons in a War Zone' is his story of how he copes with the unrelenting pressure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570244</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel JohnsonBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as EditorI May Be Wrong|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Along with most When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of my contemporaries the world responds to your book. I've never know, having read 'The Lady' except once when looking for an au pair job the book in my student daysquestion, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that, it turns out, is the problem. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed in June 2009 matters very much how the average age rest of the readership was 75world responds to this book, because it tells the circulation was dropping and the magazine was haemorrhaging money. The Budworth family, proprietors of 'The Lady' since truth as it was founded 125 years agois, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn in the magazine's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editorearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brandgareth_steel|title=Can't Stand Up For Sitting DownNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=34|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I am don't often begin my reviews with a big fan warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of Jo Brand a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and I love her inimitable droll style of comedy. I always enjoy her stand up performances as well as her appearances on my favourite panel programme QISmall'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a consequence I was really interested to read her second autobiographical book – CanTV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures''t Stand Up for Sitting Downlacked realism, as do other similar programmes. As she states at Gareth Steel says that the beginning though, this book is not really an autobiography but a collection of thoughts suitable for younger readers and experiences - after reading - I agree with him. He says that have resulted due he's written it to her life as a stand up comedian. The book covers the period from her first professional gig up to the present dayinform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Her early life It deals with some uncomfortable and career in psychiatric nursing distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are covered in her earlier book [[Look Back in Hunger by Jo Brand|Look Back in Hunger]]occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355261</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ellen MacArthurDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Full CircleSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's some years since I read [[Taking on How to summarise the World by Ellen MacArthur|Taking on the World]] and – against all expectations thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not a sailor and don't have a great deal life of interest Dave Letterfly Knodererv in yacht racing – but what appealed a pithy sentence to me immediately was the character kick off a review of someone who was determined not to let ''anything'' stand in the way of her ambitions. My only disappointment came later as I felt that the book had been written too soon – his memoir? Do you know, I really wanted to know about don'''that''' big race and what you do with the future when you've done everythingt think I can. How lucky did I feel when ''Full Circle'' landed on my desk?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718148630</amazonuk>}}
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{{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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Lewis0571365884|title=The KidMy Mess is a Bit of Life: A True StoryAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a poverty-stricken London council estate in child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of home that the neighbours complain life where if she had nothing to worry about. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most of her six children and he was beaten she would become anxious but such occasions were few and starved by both of his parentsfar between. You might think that Social Services would have stepped in and removed himOn a visit to a therapist, as an adult, but any relief when she was completely unable to be short-lived. Eventually he speak about what was put into care but even then the support wrong with her it was inadequate suggested that she should write it down and Kevin found himself caught up ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as Anxiety'The Kid'is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dai HenleyDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=B PositiveA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Dai Henley counts himself lucky to Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been born to loving and nurturing parentsdirectly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. When they discovered that his blood group was B positive they gave him his motto in life, Your memories and coincidentally, personality worn away like a statue over time affected the title of this bookelements. As he explains, it's not a celebrity autobiography (It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you might be selling yourself a little short there, Dai) and nor your dignity. This is it a misery what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoirso admirable. It's the story of Daniel Gibbs is a man neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has made the most of every opportunity hedocumented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain's been given – and a few mistakes along the way – but he's won through despite the difficulties and played a fair amount of sport too.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907499180</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{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.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Duno0008333173|title=Last Dog On The HillHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Where would you go if I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the love of your life, and your son, both died within a short few months of each other? judges on ''Masterchef''. Jim Perrin headed West - You know that you're going to the scraggly patches get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of land off Ireland, closer to the setting sun, nearer to the further horizon, beyond the noise, information and opinion of humanitytime. Of course, You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that question could also be answered good food in a more metaphoric wayfront of her. Jim went inward, before coming outward. He suffered - "involuntarily, I've often wondered about the woman behind the tears have come. Who would have thought that death would release so many.." He also, although he would probably hate me for saying it, went on media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a "psycho-geographical ramble" - both in life, stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in making this bookequal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546116</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=G Willow Wilson1504321383|title=The Butterfly Mosque: A Young Woman's Journey to Love Single, Again, and Again, and IslamAgain|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This memoir is told in the first person so straight away there is a connection with the reader. The story starts - not in Egypt - but in the USA. Willow (lovely name) says she's 'You can'in the market for a philosophy.'' And in this search she is extremely thorough. She looks at mainstream religions - Christianity, Buddhism to name but two t be happy and puts them under the microscope, so to speak. She dismisses all of them before settling fulfilled on Islamyour own. It appears to offer what she is after, what she is looking for, that enigmatic thing. But also, there's some little twist which helps make her mind up. But You are 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 with the reader. Willow is well-read and well-educated. She seems set for complete until you find a good career of her choice on American soil. Why not settle for that? But sheman''s set on travel to the Middle East come what may.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548283</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael HutchinsonSakinu Ahronglong|title=Missing the Boat: Chasing a Childhood Sailing DreamHunter School|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=As a youngster in the nineteen eighties, Michael Hutchinson was passionate about sailing. He acquired a dinghy and crew, and spent his early years messing around on Belfast Lough. He learned to sail, race Mirrors and fling jellyfish accurately at passing competitors. In time, his salty daydreams became ambitious, encompassing the Olympic Games, America's Cup and Round the World yacht races. Trouble was, Hutchinson proved to be a deeply mediocre dinghy sailor, clocking up only one win in several seasons round the buoys. Although he was good enough at race tactics and seamanship, he lacked the sprinkling of gold dust that differentiates the very good performer from the brilliant. And so eventually, as is the way of sensible young men, he became disenchanted and stopped trying. Ironically, he then found he had a talent for cycling which took him as far as the Commonwealth Games.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552345</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Greg Baxter|title=A Preparation for Death|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. Iam 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''ve always been slightly wary of autobiographies which . 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 written whilst the subject is still relatively youngreal and true. They can often feel incompleteBut memory is a fickle thing, particularly when you know the author is still successful in their chosen careerand 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. Frequently they are also written from an immediate perspective which time can alter thanks to hindsightMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141048433</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Woodsford1544641923|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic FriendshipAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. HeIt's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends tempting to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas think that the diplomatic life is privileged and moreluxurious. MeetIt might be privileged, too, Frances Woodsfordbut family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. SheNow you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's reaching middle-agenot ''diplomatic'' to do so, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouthyou know), but the diplomatic spouse, and working for the local baths as organiser of eventsaccompanying baggage, office lackey and more. I suggest you do meet themwell, although neither ever met the otherthat's an entirely different matter. Despite this they kept up a brisk She (and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60s. And as it still usually is a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style comment'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Beaumont0241446732|title=The Secret Life Our House is on Fire: Scenes of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The ObserverErnman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. He joined the paper in 1989 Malena Ernman was an opera singer and has spent much Svante Thunberg took on most of the intervening time dealing 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 kind of 'foreign affairs' family that is better described as they were 'war reporting'. burned-out people on a burned-out planet'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years in the field. It is If they were to find a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve way to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really live happily again their solution would need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrappedbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge191280493X|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for the Guardian newspaper, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just a collection of his journalism. Who Are We? is partly a memoir and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the politics and political impact Coming of identity, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality in various countries around the world. 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?'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAge|author=Michael Jackson|title=MoonwalkDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Michael Jackson's autobiography, based on tape-recorded conversations with his editor Shaye Ereheart, was first published in 1988. This new edition has an introduction by Berry Gordy, founder 'He began writing novels and poetry at the age of Motown Records and his original mentortwelve, and an afterword by Areheart about how the book but it was written. The main part of the book is to take him a straight reprint of the original, with no updating further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all. Intriguingly, although Gordy's four pages refer to is protégé in the past tense, calling him ''the greatest entertainer that ever lived'time, Areheart's writing, and also the cover, refer to him in the presenthe remains a shining example of hope over experience.. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547953</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Olga Alexandrovna, Paul Kulikovsky, Sue Woolmans and Karen Roth-Nicholls190874572X|title=25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga AlexandrovnaLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882Back at the beginning of the century, youngest child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and thus sister we became sort-of the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas IIfriends. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Her first marriage to Prince Peter Oldenburg, who I do know that it was probably gay, ended in four years later that I finally acquired an amicable divorceEnglish translation of The Summer Book, and in 1916 she married Colonel Nicholas Kulikovsky. They escaped from Russia after that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the revolution, rest of Jansson's work and settled in Denmark for nearly thirty years until, feeling threatened by Stalin’s regime, they moved to Canada. She outlived him by two years, dying in 1960devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906775168</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Stewart1908745819|title=Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist AfloatSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Books about sailing fall into two sorts: those written by authors who know what they are talking aboutSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, (though sometimes they dontell you 't convey 'this one has your name on it too well) and those who don't have a clue'. 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 think they dohearing 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 herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. WellAdd to that my love of the natural world, Chris Stewart may have started of those aspects of the book with a light poetic and frothy touch as a novice sailorlyrical that are about style not form, but he ends up with the credentials and substance most of an Ancient Marinerall, 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 have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003842</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Wolff1906852472|title=The Man Who Owns the NewsWild Child: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdoch. Over four decades he's built News International into Growing Up a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in the UK media is such that he's courted by politicians and has what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizen. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNomad|author=Neil MacFarquhar|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''What are the chances of change in the Middle East?'' is the question central to this book. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length and breadth of the Islamic stronghold of the Middle East, I feel inclined to believe his in-depth assessment. In descriptive and reasoned terms, he identifies conservative forces which predominate in the region, primarily the religious and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernization. This discussion of attempts to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or the media, is strengthened in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations with particular reference to their readiness and motivation for change. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarIan Mathie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ronald Skirth was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up in the First World War. He joined with the Royal Garrison Artillery missing link in 1916, was promoted to Corporal, and sent to the western front. Like most of his contemporariesnarrative, when he went he was an unquestioning servant of King and country, fighting for what he believed was right. On the battlefields story of Flandersa very unusual childhood (yes, one day he came across the body of Hans, a German soldier very years that made him the same age, if not youngeramazing man he became). The dead manbad – well it's hand was clutching a photograph of his girlfriend, who could almost have been hardly news two years later – is that the twin sister of Ellabook is published posthumously. As always, Skirthit's own sweetheartbeautifully written, with many exciting moments. Like two What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died as the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a result of satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the stupidity of othersdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Lynch1999811402|title=The C-WordPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the beginning was the wordIt's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, closely followed by but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the internetbest results. The two combined to form answer would be something along the wonder that is blogginglines of 'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, and when that took off and people wanted became a more concrete busker, finally got into medical school and permanent record, books quickly followedis now an A&E consultant (part-time). Perhaps I found out thatthere's not an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''exactlyCasualty'' how the quote goes, but itthat isn't really what the book's close enoughabout. Breast cancer at twenty eight is not just scary and unusual. For journalist Lisa, it There's downright inconvenient. But, when a stage three tumour bulges out of her booblot about rock & roll, she decides which seems to document her subsequent fight against be the big C (orreal passion of Hartley's life, as she affectionately calls but it, didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'The Bullshitdoing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that') online for all to sees the one. 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 It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>
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