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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ingrid von Oelhafen and Tim Tate0241636604|title=Hitler's Forgotten ChildrenThe Trading Game: My Life Inside the LebensbornA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5

|summary=You see that name that credits the author If you were to bring up an image of this book? Forget ita city banker in your mind, ityou's not accurate. (I don't mean Tim Tate's workmanlike, journalistic ghost writing, more of which later.) The narrator re unlikely to think of this book did change her name by deed poll to something someone like Ingrid von Oelhafen some time ago, but not exactly how she wantedGary Stevenson. She grew up as Ingrid von Oelhafen, although that was A hoodie and jeans replaces the name of her father, who was so desperately absent, in being over a generation older than pin-stripe suit and his wifebackground is the East End, with whom where he was separatedfamiliar with violence, poverty and injustice. She might well have had her mother's maiden name if her parents There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had divorced – and indeed her mother did move on been to have a second family, the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and was terribly distant herself – young Ingrid would plead and plead for her company while in he has a remote children's home, and a lot facility with numbers which most of family secrets were not passed down at opportune timesus can only envy. Oh, and legally, due to what little documentation was He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be seen, such as immunisation record cards, Ingrid stupid. It was not Ingrid his ability at all, but Erika Matko. Through this book, we find she what was not blood-kin with her brother, her step-brother was to dieessentially, she was not blood-kin a card game which got him an internship with her sister, but was her brother's, – Citibank. ohEventually, and even in this day and age you can still find turned into permanent employment as a changeling foundling. Such incredibly convoluted family trees are the fault of the Lebensborntrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783961201</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alistair McGuinness1529395224|title=Half a World AwayLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: Surviving the Move to The Secret Life of a Land Down UnderVet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Sometimes you read about Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly exciting time in an authorwhen he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life but later you find yourself wondering how they're . When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing, how life worked out work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for themhim. Since I read [[Round the Bend: From Luton to Peru to NingalooBefore long, a Search for Life After Redundancy by Alistair McGuinness]]about eighteen months ago Ihe was at Liverpool University. It hadn've often wondered how t - as with so many students - been his dream since he and Fran were doing in Australia and I was delighted when ''Half a World Away'' landed on my deskchild. When we left Ali and Fran theyIf anything, he'd had an exciting and eventful year during which they'd travelled through Central and South America and then on wanted to Africa, but they were planning to settle down in Australiabe a professional footballer. Don't worry if you haven't read ''Round the Bend'' as both books read well as stand alones and you can always go back to the first book later, can't you?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00XIVXB68</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McMillanEdel Rodriguez|title=Neither Nowt Nor SummatWorm: In search of the meaning of YorkshireA Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=Ian McMillanWe're in childhood, poet, radio presenter, poet and we're in residence at Barnsley Football Club and professional Yorkshireman, is worriedCuba. It The revolution has crossed his mind that he might not be ''Yorkshire enough''happened, given that his father was not from God's Own Countyand Castro, but was first thought of as a Scot by birth. In a series saviour of discursions on the subject of Yorkshire he attempts to distil the essence of the county country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to understand what being create a Yorkshireman meanslevel playing field for all. To this end we accompany him through towns and citiesWell, the Cudworth Probus Club, Ilkley Moor and elicit contributions from Mad Geoff the barber, a kazoothose hours-playing train guard and four Saddleworth council workers in search long speeches of a mattress. Amongst others. All his were kind of Yorkshire life is heretaking his time away. Including Yorkshire puddings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959950</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mary Hazard|title= Sixty Years a Nurse|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary=“Sixty Years a Nurse” is Our narrator's family weren't in the remarkable true story happiest of Mary Hazardplaces here, who travelled from Ireland an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as a naïve teenager in 1952 he would probably be shipped off to start life some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as a nurse in an NHS hospital. From a strict Catholic backgroundAngola) and the father being watched and watched, Mary's lifestyle choice had alienated her familyand not liked for his successful photography business, her success being frowned upon. The mother in particular, who viewed gets the couple jobs with the whole decision as doomed party to failure. However, Mary proved her mother wrong and went on to become one ease some of the longest serving nurses heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the NHS with an interesting and varied career.kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>000811837X</amazonuk>1474616720

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Swados1035025299|title=My Depression : A Picture BookWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=If you have ever suffered from depression you'll find it very difficult Nina Stibbe is returning to explain to other people how you're feelingLondon for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. YouShe're not feeling s been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn'just a little bit down't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. A treat or a dollop The other side of positive thinking will not miraculously cure you. You're definitely not swinging the lead, but suffering from decision was sealed when a legitimate illness which deserves to be recognised. Elizabeth Swados is room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a long-term sufferer from severe depression: she's also a talented storyteller and has told her the story of how depression feels for her - complete with drawings, which fill in those gaps which words can never fill for any sufferer from depressionvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1609806042</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Red SzellChristopher Fowler|title=The Blind Man of Hoy: A True StoryWord Monkey|rating=3.5

|summary=Redmond Széll was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) at age 19. It's now 26 years since he got the life-changing newsfirst 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. Although The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not completely sightless 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 sees shadows is dying, and shapes – you know he actually is registered blind 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 walks with the stereotypical white stickbonds that bind family. This hasn't stopped him 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 pursuing his hobby of rock-climbing, though, both indoors on climbing walls St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and on Britain's cliffsmarrying a black man. The culmination of his climbing obsession came This intersectionality plays a large role in 2013, when he became the first blind person autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to climb the Old Man of Hoyher race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the 449-foot cliff off the Orkney Islands kind of Scotlandanger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124222</amazonuk>1472284852

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vesna Goldsworthy1638485216|title=Chernobyl StrawberriesBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=45

|summary=A book about ''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of George Floyd, a woman from forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a warforty-four-year-shredded countryold police officer, who discovers she has breast cancer…Not in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a bundle murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of laughs, Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one would assume. One would be wrongwhich I'll ever forget and the protests 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 ''Chernobyl Strawberriesall'' istarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{Frontpage|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=I May Be Wrong|rating=5|genre= Autobiography|summary= When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, amongst other thingshaving read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very funnymuch how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908524472</amazonuk>1526644827

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Kempgareth_steel|title=Caring for ShirleyNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=John KempI don's wife, Shirley, suffered from dementia and loss of coordination and for eight years he was her full-time carer as she was unable to walk unaided (well, she t often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''couldNever Work With Animals'' - but it was likely seems to result in be appropriate. Stories of a serious fall) vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and took care of all her most personal needsSmall'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. Probably As a TV show the most heart-breaking part of this is author would argue that Shirley didn't recognise John as her husband - apart from 'give us a kissAll Creatures''lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the question 'wherebook is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's John?' was usually the first which sprang written it to her lips in any situationinform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Although she could often have quite an affable disposition she was capable of kicking It deals with some uncomfortable and biting when she was being 'encouraged' to do something which she didndistressing issues but it doesn't want to dolack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1479374245</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PronkoDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Beauty and ChaosSpeedy: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo LifeHurled Through Havoc

|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=Adapting How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a Buddhist metaphorreview of his memoir? Do you know, Michael Pronko declares that I really don'writing about [Tokyo] is like catching fish with a hollow gourdt think I can.' In other words, it   Dave is an elusive author and contradictory place that resists easy conclusionsan artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. Anyone who has seen the Bill Murray film ''Lost in Translation'' will retain the sense The son of a glitteringLutheran minister, bewildering place that Westerners wander through in he's struggled with a daze. A long-term resident but still a perpetual outsidercontrolling father, Pronko is perfectly placed run away to notice join the many odd circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and wonderful aspects of Tokyo lifepainted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00PDH4KVA</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Derek Niemann0008350388|title=A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime GermanyWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devil's Dictionary 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 include the following – Talk About Money''family: noun; place where the greatest secrets are keptby Otegha Uwagba ''0. 7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Niemann family is no exceptionBookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was long known that grandfather Karl was in Germany during the Second World Warher mother who came first, people could easily work that out from the family biographywith her father joining them later. Yet little The family was spoken of, apart from him being an officehard-bound worker, either in logistics or finance. Since the War two of three surviving siblings had relocated to the Glasgow environsworking, principled and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (''family: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in determined that their children would have the best way'')education possible. What There was always a surprise to our author, and many painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of his relatives, anything: it was that things were a lot closer to the former than had been expected, for Karl simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was such an office worker – for ten the SSfamily acquired a car. With For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a lot of family history finally out of the closet of silent mouths, private school in London and with incriminating photographic evidence revealed in unlikely waysthen a place at New College, the whole truth can be knownOxford. But this is certainly not just of interest to that one small family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erwin Mortier and Paul Vincent (translator)0571365884|title=Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of Hours|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=A chateau in the country. So far, My Mess is a fine life behind you. Just 65 years Bit of age. A happy collection of three successful children. Alzheimer's. You work out what's the one bummer Life: Adventures in that circumstance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270213</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAnxiety|author=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)|title=The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of LeningradGeorgia Pritchett

|summary=If life Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a girl of school-leaving age is hard enough, think about it when you're stuck in a great city under a horrendous siegechild. Lena Mukhina's diary only covers half She would worry about whether the 800-odd days monsters under the nightmare in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular bed were the circumstances that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what comfortable: it was like, courtesy of these pages. I've been there and never felt the ghost sort of the siege in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw life where if she had lived onnothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. But On a visit to a dreadful time this therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was. At the peak times of Nazi oppression suggested that she should write it down and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minuteMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' of the day on average. The city was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is a place where it can – and does here – snow in June. Without giving too much of the diet away, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having a menagerie of small animals result - or so we are given to live with – but no dogs or catsbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margery Kempe and Anthony Bale (editor)Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The Book of Margery KempeA Tattoo on my Brain

|summary=Born around 1373, Margery Kempe grew up in Alzheimer's is a family disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of good standing - her Father serving self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a mayor, statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and as your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a member neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|isbn=1108838936}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529109116|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=''I want the image of parliament. Whilst no records remain a British farmer to simply be that of her childhood, it a person who is unlikely proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that Margery would is too much to ask.'' The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have received any kind 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 on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of formal educationanimals. She Her original intention wasthat she would become 'Dr Jackson, howeverwhale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, taught religious textsalthough 'Hannah Jackson, which may well have set farmer' lacked the way for kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the visions determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she would encounter later in lifeset about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199686645</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Esterly0008333173|title=The Lost CarvingHungry: A Journey to the Heart Memoir of MakingWanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=45

|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David Esterlyjudges on ''Masterchef''s seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it You know that you's not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is re going to get an element of hard-won retreat honest opinion from the trials someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of life in this memoir, but at the same time there is an argument for . 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 essential difficulty of woman behind the artistmedia image and 's life. 'Carvers are starvers,Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterlystunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edzard Ernst1504321383|title=A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth Single, Again, and Finding TroubleAgain, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman

|summary=Professor Edzard Ernst ''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''. This was born in Germany not long after the end of World War II and grew up with guilt about what had happened in the years before he Louisa Pateman was born as well as an insatiable curiosity - with the two not being entirely entirely unconnected. He also developed an attitude of speaking his mind - as an early challenge brought up to his step-father about the death of six million Jews in the course of the war provedbelieve. In his teens he It wasn't determined to become a doctor - he had a hankering unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be a musician - despite best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the fact that it was girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the family business, handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to speak, but came round to be brought up ''without'' the idea expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and practiced in various countries it would be many years before settling in Exeter as Professor of Complementary Medicine at the universityLouisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845407776</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedySakinu Ahronglong|title=Oscar & LucyHunter School

|summary=Travelling The flyleaf to Infinity maps the tapestry this little collection tells us that it is a work of a rich and complex lifefiction. That's possibly misleading.  Jane Hawking, I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the first wife of acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawkingsense that Ahronglong made it all up, reveals or whether it is as the inner-workings of their life together. Reflecting blurb goes on the meteoric rise of her husband alongside his physical deteriorationto say ''recollections, she charts the path of their marriage folklore and family throughout autobiographical stories''. It feels like the highs and lows of their circumstancelatter. As asserted by It feels like the author herself this story could indeed belong to any English family of the era. What sets this one apartstories he tells about his experiences as a child, howeveras an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is the fame a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and publicity of one family member, the widely celebrated, Stephen Hawkingtherefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883660</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan1544641923|title=Tsunami Kids: Our journey from survival to success Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=On Boxing Day 2004, when many of us were celebrating It's tempting to think that the Christmas holidays with our families, eating leftover turkey, reading books diplomatic life is privileged and enjoying time with loved onesluxurious. It might be privileged, a huge tragedy was unfolding on the other side of the worldbut family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. The Boxing Day Tsunami killed over 230,000 people, and caused widespread devastation Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to large parts of Sri Lankado so, Thailandyou know), Indiabut the diplomatic spouse, the Maldives and Somalia. The Forkan family - Mumaccompanying baggage, Dadwell, and four of their children, were in Sri Lanka, a spur of the moment choice of destination that ultimately proved to be tragic's an entirely different matter. The parents, Kevin She (and Sandra, were killed in the flood. The children, orphaned, injured and without any possessions, traveled the 200 kilometres back to it still usually is a city, where they contacted elder siblings and were swiftly flown back to the UK'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433570</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Macdonald0241446732|title=H Our House is for Hawkon Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=When I saw Helen Macdonald speak at a nature conference, she recounted a conversation with a Samuel Johnson Prize judgeThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. S/he had remarked that Macdonald's Malena Ernman was three books in one: a memoir an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of grief after their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her father's unexpected deathsister, Beata, a biography of T. H. Whitethen nine years old, and an account of falconry experiments struggled with Mabel the goshawkwhat was happening. Macdonald quipped that the description made her book sound like washing powder In such circumstances, but it's accurate nonethelessnatural to seek a solution close to home, and explains why but eventually, it became clear to the book won the Samuel Johnson Prize (the first memoir family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to do so) and is shortlisted for the Costa Biography awardbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097008</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dylan Thomas and Peter Bailey191280493X|title=A Child’s Christmas in Wales|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Christmas time growing up in a Welsh seaside town was magical for Dylan Thomas, always snowy and full Coming of adventure. From attempting to extinguish house fires with snowballs to hippo footprints in the snow his childhood in the snow was a time of wonder and pure joy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444013467</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAge|author=Henry Marsh|title=Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain SurgeryDanny Ryan|rating=54

|summary=We've all heard 'He began writing novels and poetry at the phrase 'it's not brain surgery' age of twelve, but what is it really like was to take him a further forty-eight years to operate on someone's brain in the frightening knowledge realise that a small slip, a slight error can have the most devastating consequences he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for the patientall that time, with death probably not being the worst? Henry Marsh is he remains a Fellow shining example of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley/St Georgehope over experience...'s. If anyone knows what it's like then Henry Marsh is the man to tell you.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178022592X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jennifer Klinec|title=The Temporary Bride: A Memoir ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of Love and Food in Iran|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Jennifer Klinec is the daughter of Hungarian immigrant parents who ran an automotive factory in southwest Ontario. She learned early on to be self-sufficient, even enrolling herself in boarding schools in Switzerland and Dublinbut will feel like you have. After graduation she moved to London, made a pile as an investment banker, and opened her own cookery school. At age 31, though, she decided to travel to the Iranian city of Yazd to learn Persian dishes. She met Vahid, 25, a military veteran with an engineering background, in a park and he introduced her to his mother for cooking lessons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844088235</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marion Coutts190874572X|title=The Iceberg: A MemoirLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)

|summary='Something has happenedBack at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. A piece I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of news-friends. We have I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had a diagnosis to read Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that has the status I finally acquired an English translation of an event. The news makes a rupture with what went before.' With these plainSummer Book, unsentimental words Coutts begins her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of her husband Tom Lubbock's decline and death from a brain tumour. Shortlisted for the Costa Biography award and longlisted for that I eagerly awaited the ''GuardianSort Of'' First Book Award, it was also a finalist for translations of the Samuel Johnson Prizerest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782393501</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wendy Cope1908745819|title=Life, Love and the ArchersSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary=As Sometimes when people suggest that you read a rulecertain book, poetry does they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not appeal , 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 me - at school hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it was something to be learned and recitedwrong. In this case, regardless of merit or meaning and I came to dread those lessons - but there are two exceptionswas told why. I love John DrydenThe blurb speaks of the author considering 's 'an older, less tethered sense of herself.'Absalom and Achitophel' Older. Less tethered. That' for its irreverence - and Wendy Cope, because she speaks to me in words s not a bad description of where I can understand about matters which concern meam. I discovered her when Add to that my daughter gave me a copy love of the natural world, of those aspects of {{amazonurl|isbn=0571167055|title=Serious Concerns}} the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and her humorous poems tempted me to read some substance most of the more serious contentall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. I It was smittenwritten for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. Over the years I've followed with interest what she has had am pleased to say about such matters as copyright and the chance to review ''Life, Love and the Archers'' was far too tempting to misshave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444795368</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1906852472|title=A Tour of BonesWild Child: Facing Fear and Looking for LifeGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Denise IngeIan Mathie

|summary=American-born Dr Denise Inge was an expert on seventeenth-century mystic poet Thomas TraherneFor Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, mother to two daughtersthe story of a very unusual childhood (yes, and wife to an Anglican clergymanthe very years that made him the amazing man he became). Her husbandThe bad – well it's appointment as Bishop of Worcester saw them move to a townhouse adjacent to Worcester Cathedral hardly news two years later – and attached to a charnel houseis that the book is published posthumously. Whatever to do As always, it's beautifully written, with a basement full of bones? An even more pressing question many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was what to do with her fear the feeling that many of the death they represented, especially when Inge was diagnosed questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with inoperable sarcoma late a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the writing processdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472913078</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|title=Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952|author=Diana Cooper|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Though she is perhaps little remembered these days except as the mother of writer and historian John Julius Norwich, Lady Diana Cooper was one of the towering figures in society life between the wars and for much of the period before her death in 1986.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009957859X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Pamela O'Cuneen|title=Hummingbirds in My Hair: Adventures of a Diplomatic Wife in the Caribbean|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summaryisbn=Pamela O'Cuneen was what is known in the business as a 'diplomatic wife': the spouse of a diplomat sent abroad to represent his country. It's generally unpaid and extremely hard work - I've always thought of it as one of the original BOGOF deals. When we first meet Pamela she and her husband, KJ, have been transferred from their beloved Africa to Suriname, or ''Suri-where?'' as people always responded when it was mentioned to them. It ''used'' to be Dutch Guyana on the Caribbean coast of South America and there are few people who would think of it in terms of a holiday destination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373637</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1999811402|title=Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's BodyguardPainting Snails|author=Rochus MischStephen John Hartley

|summary=It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I am proud to declare thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an interest in all things Holocaustallotment it would be a lifestyle book, one of but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the key areas of which was best results. The answer would be something along the last days lines of Hitler – the Downfall'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, if you likebecame a busker, way before youtube satiristsfinally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). So this book, from the man who for some unspecified years was the last eye-witness I found out that there's an awful lot more to have been what goes on in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of the Nazi regimea Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', was always going to be a great read. It remained but that even after isn't really what the foreword dismissed its own book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, pointing out differences here which seems to be the canon real passion of thought about Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the timings etc of April/May 1945, and declaring impossible the author somewhat naïve in not being so aware, circumspect and authoritative about hard way'? Yep - that's the major points of WWIIone. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848327498</amazonuk>