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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phyll MacDonald-Ross and I D Roberts0241636604|title=Bandaging the BlitzThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Why would anyone want If you were to know about mebring up an image of a city banker in your mind, dear?'you' she said. Everyone has an interesting story re unlikely to tellthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. Yet how many life stories actually make it into printed form A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, perhaps because the individuals involved did not feel that anyone would be interested in their lives? This where he was almost the case for Phyllis Macdonald-Rossfamiliar with violence, who served as a nurse in a busy London hospital during the Blitzpoverty and injustice. It There was only thanks no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to her determined granddaughter and devoted husband that she finally decided to put her memoirs down on paper and submit them for publicationthe London School of Economics. The result Stevenson is an exciting and emotional comingbright -ofextremely bright -age story about and he has a young nurse entering her training during one facility with numbers which most of the us can only envy. He also realised that most turbulent times in British historyrich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559911</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Bruce Hugman1529395224|title= Letting the Cat Out of Boundsthe Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 43.5|genre= AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary= Author Bruce Hugman has been Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a school teacher, probation officer, smallholder, university lecturer, PR Professional, is an international communications consultant GP and teacher Rowlands didn't want to follow in healthcare and patient safetyhis footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. Having nursed two partners through When he was seventeen he took the final stages opportunity of AIDS, doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and survived was convinced this was the 2004 Asian Tsunamijob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. A varied and interesting life then – and it is the first thirty years of it that Hugman chooses If anything, he'd wanted to concentrate on herebe a professional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1508423709</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison PickEdel Rodriguez|title=Between GodsWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary= Alison PickWe's paternal grandparents escaped Czechoslovakia just before re in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the Holocaust by bribing the Nazis country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for visas to Canada; the rest all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of the taking his time away. Our narrator's family died weren't in Auschwitz. They spent their whole lives trying the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to pass be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as Christianshe would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and Pick's the fatherbeing watched and watched, tooand not liked for his successful photography business, was reluctant success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to have anything to do with Judaism. Pick only learned he was Jewish through a conversation overheard when she was 11.ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472225090</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Clarke1035025299|title=Low Life: The Spectator ColumnsWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There Nina Stibbe is a story that back in 1997 there were three deaths at about the same time and God had taken the shift at the pearly gates returning to do the paperwork. Princess Diana came first and was quickly followed by Mother Teresa. Stories of their good works flowed out and God hated to admit it but he was little wearied. Still it was the end of his shift... but then another soul appeared. Jeffrey Bernard! It was with relief that God dashed to the bar to get the first round in... There might have been high jinx in heaven but back on earth ''Life'' was not so clear cut and even Taki Theodoracopulos was London for a little worriedsabbatical after being away for twenty years. He wrote She's been at Victoria'High Lifes smallholding in Leicestershire which isn'' for the Spectator, but where would t all that be without its counterpointconducive to writing, as there''Low Life'' which had been written for years by Bernard? s always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Fortunately there The other side of the decision was an able replacement waiting in the wingssealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373912</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tom SperlingerChristopher Fowler|title= Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under OccupationWord Monkey|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary= Towards the end of Tom SperlingerIt's the first bookof 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, he says education can open people's eyesrain arrived, making them aware 'and I decided not to do that we make assumptions all of the timeeither. When I finished reading this book, without even knowing they are assumptionsI 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''Romeo – and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation'' his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a fine example of this belief in learningman who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, an assumption-shattering book and you know he actually is at that offers a new perspective on Palestinian life not seen on the news or in the paperspoint, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782796371</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elena Dunkle and Clare B DunkleKit De Waal|title= Elena VanishingWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 54
|genre= Autobiography
|summary= There’s 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 voice lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in Elena’s head, the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and it’s harshmarrying a black man. 'You’re This intersectionality plays a failurelarge role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race,' it saysher class and her gender. 'You’re a fat flabby mess.' And she agreesHer parents loom large and are written with care, love, she is both and the kind of those thingsanger only a child can express to their parents. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1452121516</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ingrid von Oelhafen and Tim Tate1638485216|title=HitlerBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Forgotten Children: My Odyssey in Life Inside the Lebensbornand Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=You see that name that credits the author of this book? Forget it, it's 'Corruption is not accuratedepartment, gender or race specific. (I donIt has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't mean Tim Tatematter''s workmanlike, journalistic ghost writing, more of which later.) The narrator murder of this book did change her name George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by deed poll to something like Ingrid von Oelhafen some time agoDerek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, but not exactly how she wantedin the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. She grew up as Ingrid von Oelhafen, although that was the name We rarely see pictures of her father, who was so desperately absent, in being over a generation older than his wife, with whom he murder taking place but Floyd's death was separatedan exception. She might well have had her mother's maiden name if her parents had divorced – and indeed her mother did move The image of Chauvin kneeling on to have a second family, and was terribly distant herself – young Ingrid would plead and plead for her company while in a remote childrenGeorge's home, and a lot of family secrets were neck is not passed down at opportune times. Oh, one which I'll ever forget and legally, due to what little documentation was to be seen, such as immunisation record cards, Ingrid was not Ingrid at all, but Erika Matkothe protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. Through this book, we find she There was not blooda backlash against the police -kin with her brother, her step-brother was to die, she was and not blood-kin with her sister, but was her brotherjust in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all''s, – oh, and even in this day and age you can still find a changeling foundling. Such incredibly convoluted family trees are the fault of tarred by the LebensbornChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783961201</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair McGuinnessBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Half a World Away: Surviving the Move to a Land Down UnderI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Sometimes you read about a particularly exciting time in an authorWhen the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I's life but later you find yourself wondering how theym inclined to think it doesn're doing, t really matter how life worked out for themthe rest of the world responds to your book. Since I know, having read [[Round the Bend: From Luton to Peru to Ningaloobook in question, a Search for Life After Redundancy by Alistair McGuinness]]about eighteen months ago I've often wondered how he and Fran were doing in Australia and I was delighted when ''Half a World Away'' landed on my deskthat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. When we left Ali He knows (and Fran they'd had an exciting and eventful year during which they'd travelled through Central and South America and then on at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to Africathis book, but they were planning to settle down in Australia. Don't worry if you haven't read ''Round because it tells the Bend'' truth as both books read well as stand alones and you can always go back to it is, in the first book later, can't you?early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00XIVXB68</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian McMillangareth_steel|title=Neither Nowt Nor Summat: In search of the meaning of YorkshireNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=Politics Animals and SocietyWildlife|summary=Ian McMillan, poet, radio presenter, poet in residence at Barnsley Football Club and professional Yorkshireman, is worried. It has crossed his mind that he might not be I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with 'Yorkshire enough'Never Work With Animals', given that his father was not from God's Own County, but was a Scot by birth. In a series of discursions on the subject of Yorkshire he attempts it seems to distil the essence of the county and to understand what being a Yorkshireman meansbe appropriate. To this end we accompany him through towns and cities, the Cudworth Probus Club, Ilkley Moor and elicit contributions from Mad Geoff the barber, a kazoo-playing train guard and four Saddleworth council workers in search Stories of a mattress. Amongst others. vet's life have proved popular since ''All of Yorkshire life Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is heredefinitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. Including Yorkshire puddings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959950</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mary Hazard|title= Sixty Years a Nurse|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary=“Sixty Years As a Nurse” is TV show the remarkable true story of Mary Hazardauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, who travelled from Ireland as a naïve teenager in 1952 to start life as a nurse in an NHS hospitaldo other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. From a strict Catholic background, MaryHe says that he's lifestyle choice had alienated her family, her mother in particularwritten it to inform and provoke thought, who viewed the whole decision as doomed to failureparticularly amongst aspiring vets. HoweverIt deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, Mary proved her mother wrong although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and went on to become one of the longest serving nurses in the NHS with an interesting and varied careereating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000811837X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth SwadosDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=My Depression Speedy: A Picture BookHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you have ever suffered from depression you'll find it very difficult How to explain summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to other people how kick off a review of his memoir? Do youknow, I really don're feelingt think I can. You're not feeling ''just a little bit down'' Dave is an author and an artist. A treat or An inspirational speaker and a dollop of positive thinking will not miraculously cure youprofessional horseman. You're definitely not swinging the lead, but suffering from And a legitimate illness which deserves to be recognisedrecovering alcoholic. Elizabeth Swados is The son of a long-term sufferer from severe depression: sheLutheran minister, he's also struggled with a talented storyteller controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and has told her hit rock bottom when 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 depressionbottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1609806042</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Red Szell0008350388|title=The Blind Man of Hoy: A True StoryWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=3.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Redmond Széll was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) at age 19. It's now 26 years since he got the life'To be a dark-changing news. Although not completely sightless – he sees shadows and shapes – he skinned Black woman is registered blind to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and walks with the stereotypical white stickultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... This hasn't stopped him from pursuing his hobby ' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of rock-climbing, though, both indoors on climbing walls and on Britaincolour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''s cliffs. The culmination of his climbing obsession Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came in 2013, to the UK from Kenya when he became the she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first blind person to climb the Old Man of Hoy, the 449with her father joining them later. The family was hard-foot cliff off working, principled and determined that their children would have the Orkney Islands best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of Scotlandanything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910124222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vesna Goldsworthy0571365884|title=Chernobyl StrawberriesMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=A book Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a woman from visit to a war-shredded countrytherapist, as an adult, who discovers when she has breast cancer…Not a bundle of laughs, one would assume. One would be was completely unable to speak about what was wrong. with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''Chernobyl StrawberriesMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is, amongst other things, very funnythe result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524472</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John KempDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Caring for ShirleyA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=John KempAlzheimer's wife, Shirley, suffered from dementia is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and loss sense of coordination self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and for eight years he was her full-personality worn away like a statue over time carer affected the elements. It seems as she was unable to walk unaided (well, she ''could'' - but it was likely to result in a serious fall) if nature wants that final victory over you and took care of all her most personal needsyour dignity. Probably the most heart-breaking part of this This is that Shirley didnwhat makes Daniel Gibbs't recognise John as her husband - apart from 'give us memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a kiss', the question 'where's John?' neurologist who was usually the first which sprang to her lips diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in any situation. Although she could often have quite an affable disposition she was capable of kicking and biting when she was being 'encouraged' to do something which she didnA Tattoo on my Brain''t want to do.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1479374245</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Pronko1529109116|title=Beauty and ChaosCall Me Red: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo LifeA Shepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=TravelLifestyle|summary=Adapting ''I want the image of a Buddhist metaphor, Michael Pronko declares British farmer to simply be that 'writing about [Tokyo] of a person who is like catching fish with a hollow gourdproudly employed in feeding the nation. I don' In other words, it t think that is an elusive and contradictory place that resists easy conclusionstoo much to ask. Anyone who has seen '' The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the Bill Murray film land where ''his''Lost in Translationfamily have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It' will retain s not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the sense Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of a glitteringanimals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, bewildering place that Westerners wander through in whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a dazefamily holiday to the Lake District. A long-term resident but still She saw a perpetual outsiderlamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, Pronko is perfectly placed farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to notice be a shepherd. With the many odd and wonderful aspects determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of Tokyo lifeher, she set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00PDH4KVA</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Derek Niemann0008333173|title=Hungry: A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story Memoir of an SS Family in Wartime GermanyWanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devil's Dictionary to include always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the following – judges on ''family: noun; place where the greatest secrets are keptMasterchef''. The Niemann family is no exception. It was long known You know that grandfather Karl was in Germany during the Second World War, people could easily work that out you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the family biographytime. Yet little was spoken You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of, apart from him being an office-bound worker, either in logistics or financeher. Since I've often wondered about the War two of three surviving siblings had relocated to woman behind the Glasgow environs, and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels media image and Gorbals (''familyHungry: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in the best wayA Memoir of Wanting More''). What was is a surprise to our author, stunning read which will make you laugh and many of his relatives, was that things were a lot closer to the former than had been expected, for Karl was such an office worker – for the SS. With a lot of family history finally out of the closet of silent mouths, and with incriminating photographic evidence revealed break your heart in unlikely ways, the whole truth can be knownequal measures. But this is certainly not just of interest to that one small family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=1504321383|title=Erwin Mortier Single, Again, and Again, and Paul Vincent (translator)Again|titleauthor=Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of HoursLouisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=A chateau in the country''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. So far, You are not complete until you find a fine life behind youman''. Just 65 years of age This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. A happy collection of three successful childrenIt wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. AlzheimerIt was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she'susually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. You work out whatFew girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without''s the one bummer in expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that circumstance''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270213</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)Sakinu Ahronglong|title=The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of LeningradHunter School|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If life as The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a girl work of school-leaving age is hard enough, think about it when youfiction. That're stuck in a great city under a horrendous sieges possibly misleading. Lena Mukhina's diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular were the circumstances sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it feels like one is given as the clearest insight into what it was likeblurb goes on to say ''recollections, courtesy of these pagesfolklore and autobiographical stories''. I've been there and never felt It feels like the ghost of latter. It feels like the siege in the modern St Petersburgstories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw had lived onas an adult are real and true. But memory is a dreadful time this was. At the peak times of Nazi oppression fickle thing, and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minute'' of the day on average. The city was desperate for fuel, maybe poetic licence has taken over here and food – there and this is a place where maybe calling it can – fiction means that its safer and does here – snow in Junetherefore more people will read it. Without giving too much of the diet away, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or catsMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margery Kempe and Anthony Bale (editor)1544641923|title=The Book of Margery Kempe|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Born around 1373, Margery Kempe grew up in a family of good standing - her Father serving as a mayor, and as a member of parliament. Whilst no records remain of her childhood, it is unlikely that Margery would have received any kind of formal education. She was, however, taught religious texts, which may well have set the way for the visions she would encounter later in life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0199686645</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=David Esterly|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of MakingSandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David EsterlyIt's seems tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be an idyllic existenceprivileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Yet Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in this memoir''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but at the same time there is an argument for diplomatic spouse, the essential difficulty of the artistaccompanying baggage, well, that's lifean entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'Carvers are starvers,she' 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 Esterly) can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edzard Ernst0241446732|title=A Scientist in WonderlandOur House is on Fire: A Memoir Scenes of Searching for Truth a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Finding TroubleSvante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Professor Edzard Ernst The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was born in Germany not long after an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the end parenting of World War II their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and grew up her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with guilt about what had happened in the years before he 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 to his step-father about the death of six million Jews in the course of the war provedhappening. In his teens he wasnsuch circumstances, it't determined s natural to become seek a doctor solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned- he had out people on a hankering burned-out planet''. If they were to be find a musician - despite the fact that it was the family business, so way to speak, but came round live happily again their solution would need to the idea and practiced in various countries before settling in Exeter as Professor of Complementary Medicine at the universitybe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845407776</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Kennedy191280493X|title=Oscar & Lucy|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=With the film about Alan Turing, ''The Imitation Game'' getting rave reviews and award nominations right, left and centre, the sterling work done by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII is quite high in our minds. But Enigma wasn't the only code broken and Turing wasn't the only one doing secret but heroic work. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>095646968X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewComing of Age|author=Andy Miller|title=The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My LifeDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Travelling to Infinity maps ''He began writing novels and poetry at the tapestry age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a rich and complex lifeshining example of hope over experience... ''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan190874572X|title=Tsunami Kids: Our journey Letters from survival to success Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=On Boxing Day 2004, when many Back at the beginning of us were celebrating the Christmas holidays with our families, eating leftover turkey, reading books and enjoying time with loved onescentury, a huge tragedy was unfolding I went on the other side of the worldholiday to Nepal. The Boxing Day Tsunami killed over 230,000 people, I met a wonderful Finnish woman and caused widespread devastation to large parts we became sort-of Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Somalia-friends. The Forkan family - Mum, Dad, and four of their children, were in Sri Lanka, I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a spur of the moment choice of destination later one that ultimately proved Paula told me I really had to be tragicread Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The parentsSummer Book, Kevin and Sandra, were killed in that I eagerly awaited the flood. The children, orphaned, injured and without any possessions, traveled ''Sort Of'' translations of the 200 kilometres back to a city, where they contacted elder siblings rest of Jansson's work and were swiftly flown back to the UKdevoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433570</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Macdonald1908745819|title=H is for HawkSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When I saw Helen Macdonald speak at Sometimes when people suggest that you read a nature conferencecertain book, she recounted a conversation with a Samuel Johnson Prize judgethey tell you ''this one has your name on it''. S/he had remarked Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that Macdonaldwe didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was three books in one: a memoir told why. The blurb speaks of grief after her fatherthe author considering ''s unexpected deathan older, a biography less tethered sense of Therself. H'' Older. White, and an account Less tethered. That's not a bad description of falconry experiments with Mabel the goshawkwhere I am. Macdonald quipped Add to that my love of the description made her book sound like washing powdernatural world, but it's accurate nonethelessof those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and explains why the substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book won the Samuel Johnson Prize (the first memoir to do so) and is shortlisted for the Costa Biography award.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097008</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Dylan Thomas and Peter Bailey|title=A Child’s Christmas in Wales|rating=4had my name on it.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Christmas time growing up in a Welsh seaside town It was magical written for Dylan Thomas, always snowy and full of adventureme. From attempting It would have found its way to extinguish house fires with snowballs me eventually. I am pleased to hippo footprints in the snow his childhood in the snow was a time of wonder and pure joyhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444013467</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Marsh1906852472|title=Do No HarmWild Child: Stories of Life, Death and Brain SurgeryGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=We've all heard For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the phrase 'amazing man he became). The bad – well it's not brain surgery' but what hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it really like to operate on someone's brain in the frightening knowledge that a small slipbeautifully written, a slight error can have the with many exciting moments. What I most devastating consequences for enjoyed was the patient, with death probably not being the worst? Henry Marsh is a Fellow feeling that many of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley/St Georgequestions in Ian Mathie'slater books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. If anyone knows what itSeemingly all that's like then Henry Marsh now left in the drawer is the man to tell youunpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178022592X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Klinec1999811402|title=The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in IranPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Jennifer Klinec is the daughter of Hungarian immigrant parents who ran It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an automotive factory in southwest Ontario. She learned early allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be self-sufficient, even enrolling herself in boarding schools in Switzerland something along the lines of 'try it and Dublinsee'. After graduation she moved to London Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, made became a pile as an investment bankerbusker, finally got into medical school and opened her own cookery schoolis now an A&E consultant (part-time). At age 31 I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', thoughbut that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, she decided to travel which seems to be the Iranian city real passion of Yazd to learn Persian dishesHartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. She met Vahid, 25, Did we have a military veteran with category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the one. It's an engineering background, in a park and he introduced her to his mother for cooking lessonsautobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844088235</amazonuk>
}}
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