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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angie Beasley0241636604|title=The Frog PrincessTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I expected If you were to bring up an image of a tabloid expose of the beauty queen industrycity banker in your mind, or a spirited defence against feminist ethical attacks you're unlikely to think of the past few years from one of its successful 'victims'someone like Gary Stevenson. Best of allA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, I enjoy an ordinary person telling an authentic emotional talewhere he was familiar with violence, whatever their circumstances or personal historypoverty and injustice. Sadly I'm afraid that this book fell rather short There was no posh public school on these attractionshis CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. At first I felt that Angie Beasley deserved Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a lot more editorial help in developing her manuscriptfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Then I He also realised that the story most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was ghost written, essentially, a card game which explains the lack of authentic voice fairly neatlygot him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718158318</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Art Spiegelman1529395224|title=MetaMAUS|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Before Letting the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|a child-like near-fable for all]], and before it was Cat Out of the focus of superb history books such as [[BloodlandsBag: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga The Secret Life of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volume.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewVet|author=John Bull|title=The Smile on the Face of the Pig: Confessions of the Last Cub ReporterSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=John Bull Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was born in the mid thirties – old enough to be able a GP and Rowlands didn't want to say that he was bombed follow in his cradle but young enough not to be directly involved. He was one of footsteps, particularly when he considered the last cub reporters – after strain that they changed the name – and 'The Smile being on-call put on the Face of the Pighis father' is s life. When he was seventeen he took the story opportunity of his time as doing work experience with a reporter, family friend who was a National Serviceman, a husband vet and father in was convinced this was the nineteen fiftiesjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. Ithadn's t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a gentle, nostalgic look back at a decade when life was differentchild. There might have been more hardships – but itIf anything, he's difficult d wanted to say that it was ''harder'' and this book is be a reminder for those of us who were around at the time of what it was really likeprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559549</amazonuk>
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|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Despite the titleWe're in childhood, Volume 2 really begins and we're in 1945Cuba. During The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the warcountry, Beckett was working with the French Resistancehas proven himself a Communist, and had not done nearly enough to go into hidingcreate a level playing field for all. In order to keep the picture reasonably completeWell, there is a chronology those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the war yearshappiest of places here, and an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the introduction includes a lettercard sent country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to James Joyce in February 1941some minor pro-Communism skirmish, a pre-printed postcard presenting prefabricated phrases which such as Angola) and the sender could strike out as appropriatefather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. During The mother gets the war only couple jobs with the mildest party to ease some of family news could be sent through the mailheat, and even but in this was subject to censorship. Joyce never received sultry island country, it remains the card, as he died kind of heat forcing you out of the day after it was written.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521867940</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)1035025299|title=Under Went to London, Took the Sun. The Letters of Bruce ChatwinDog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Roy Tomkinson comes over as pretty sentimental about aspects of his childhood. He was born into a family of boys, and surrounded by an extended family spread along the valley. He was a child in the nineteen fifties, when post-War austerity was still a feature of life in Wales. Nevertheless, discipline, love and understanding were meted out by his parents in equal measures Nina Stibbe is returning to provide London for a strong platform sabbatical after being away for his childhood adventures. Roy and his gang grew up free-ranging the valley, teaching their dogs and ferrets to catch rats, trespassing on industrial land, learning about girls, and entirely missing the growing affluence of central Britain. For them, it was idyllic, and the author makes it clear, many times, how lucky he feels to have enjoyed such a stable childhood environmenttwenty years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0862438683</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Booth|title=Eat, Pray, Eat|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=I really enjoyed She's been at Victoria'Eat, Pray, Loves smallholding in Leicestershire which isn'' by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially I thought I'd picked up a ''Me too'' variant with ''Eatt all that conducive to writing, Pray Eatas there'' and must admit to my heart sinkings always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. But no, here is a different personality with another story and writing style and after a few, doubting pages, I The other side of the decision was away. This is sealed when a story room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a family adventure to India, a hard-fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown in. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his life-view dramatically and for the bettervery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089633</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Candia McWilliamChristopher Fowler|title=What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in BlindnessWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When you know that a biography tackles alcoholism, a motherIt's early death, feelings the first of August in the middle of loneliness and worthlessness, culminating a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going blindto my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, you expect and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this is going book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to be one of two types of finish reading this book – the misery memoirand (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, or the positive dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'all ends wellwas' tale– and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. 'What There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is 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 Look for , 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 Winter: A Memoir a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in Blindness' the Caribbean and her mother is neitheran Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. It is This intersectionality plays a book which is as complex as large role in the life it relatesautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and as deepthe kind of anger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539535</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1638485216|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man 's Odyssey in a Mud HutLife and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Mathie deserves a wider audience. I can't understand why he hasn't been leapt upon by Radio 4 , Saga Magazine, the Sunday papers, the Daily Mail, Uncle Tom Cobley and all since the publication of ''Bride Price'' in January. Here is a fine new Voice who is completely his own man. His writing Corruption is sparenot department, uncomplicated and unassuminggender or race specific. Now Ian Mathie It has taken a dusty-dry civil servant and turned him into a heroeverything to do with character. Period. Desmond's first visit to Africa is the theme of the dramatic ''Man in a Mud Hut'' story. Set in the 1970's, the intrigue and suspense sort of reminded me of [[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre|The Spy who came in from the Cold]] - and it all happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190685209X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Max Pemberton|title=The Doctor Will See You Now|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion aboutBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation Agnes Bromme (the world's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha knowTranslator). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad read. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Parks|title=Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and HealingI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Self-help books are pretty polarising when you When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think about it. I mean, would you tell somebody that you were reading a self-help book if you had no idea doesn't really matter how they were going to react? On the one hand there must be people who devour these kinds rest of books one after the otherworld responds to your book. I know, searching for that mystical formula that will bring about profound inner change. At having read the other end of the scale are readers book in question, that steer well clear of self-help or anything else Lindeblad would disagree with that isn't rational and based on proper scientific research and evidencethought. Entrenched views are what makes this title an interesting proposition. A sceptic's search for health He knows (and healing which alludes to meditation? Surely at core so do I) that it matters very much more interesting than a new age guru who already believes wholeheartedly that their insights will transform YOUR life and enrich their bank balance. I want to know how the sceptic was convincedrest of the world responds to this book, not because it tells the guy who entered truth as it is, in the room wearing healing crystalsearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548887</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pauline Blackgareth_steel|title=Black by Design: A 2-tone MemoirNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the front cover of this volume of reminiscences reminds usauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, Pauline Black as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is remembered first not suitable for younger readers and foremost for fronting The Selecter, one of the few 2-Tone ska bands after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to enjoy fleeting chart success at the end of the 1970sinform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Yet It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading this reminds us that that was only the tip of the icebergand eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668790X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andre Dubus IIIDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=TownieSpeedy: A MemoirHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The book opens with Andre and his father taking a jog. Seems a normal and natural activity - what's How to write about here, you could be asking. Well, I'll tell you. By this time summarise the father no longer lives life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in the family home, the mother is struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table - and the author, Andre is too embarrassed a pithy sentence to admit to his father that he doesn't own kick off a pair review of jogging shoes. He's borrowed his sister's even although they're about two sizes too small, he's in agony seconds into the jog but is he going to own upmemoir? Nope. Bloody feet and pain are a by-product of precious time with his father. So straight awayDo you know, Ireally don'm getting the gist of the book and the relationship between father and sont think I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393064662</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Schama0008350388|title=Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Ice Cream, Obama, Churchill and My MotherWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The collection has been divided into reader-friendly sections named, for example - ''TravellingTo be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, Testing Democracyless hireable, Cooking less intelligent and Eatingultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'', to name but three. As a professor of Art History, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's also a rather chunky section on SchamaWe Need to Talk About Money's thoughts on the art world. Politics also is a centre-stage subject. Each article is headed with where it first appeared and the numerous Guardian pieces may be well-known to some. So I suppose you could say that this is second time around, for those who missed the first publication. Not a bad thing at all when the writing is as good as this, I'd say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546655</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian A Griffiths0571365884|title=DMD My Mess is a Bit of Life Art and Me: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Griffiths suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a form of muscular dystrophy which causes muscle degenerationchild. It begins in early childhood with difficulty in walking and progresses She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to cause problems with breathing worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and all the voluntary muscles. Ultimately it's fatalfar between. Men and boys – it's linked On a visit to the X chromosome so affects only males – with the disease have a life expectancy of between the late teens and mid-twenties. therapist, as an adult, Ian's in his mid-twenties now and he's written 'DMD Life: art and me' when she was completely unable to explain speak about what was wrong with her it really feels like to live with the disease. And when I say 'really feels like' I do mean was suggested that. Ian doesnshe should write it down and 't gloss over ''anythingMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety''is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907652337</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bob Marshall-AndrewsDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political HumbugA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997, rather too late to be Alzheimer's is a career politician (he was already an established QC) disease that slowly wears away your identity and with a profound distrust sense of authorityself. He had no aspirations towards officeI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he would become best known for being have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a dissidentstatue over time affected the elements. I occasionally enquired It seems as to which party held his allegiance if nature wants that final victory over you and eventually concluded that he went your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – and I did wonder if this would be just one more to add to the pilejourney in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Wheeler0008333173|title=Access All AreasHungry: Selected Writings 1990-2010A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, CanadaI'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Masterchef''. At You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the height time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed . I've often wondered about the border to woman behind the States media image and settled down to the hard life ''Hungry: A Memoir of raising dairy cattle Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and the crops needed to feed thembreak your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1591144493</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1504321383|title=Bride PriceSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='Bride Price' has proved an even more absorbing book than I anticipated from its Amazon write-upYou can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. I read it in You are not complete until you find a single sitting; the issues it raised overwhelming my thoughts for the next couple of days. In terms of its overall flavour, quality and impact value, I'd bracket it with the classic man'Walkabout' by James Vance Marshall.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852081</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bill LarkworthySakinu Ahronglong|title=Doctor Lark: The Benefits of a Medical EducationHunter School|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bill Larkworthy The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a pleasant fellow who has lead an eventful, but not world-shattering lifework of fiction. So at the outset itThat's probably worth saying that this self-deprecating tale won't light many literary firespossibly misleading. If fireworks are what you are looking for, search elsewhere. On I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the other hand, I always find ordinary people's stories of everyday life fascinatingsense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as well as providing useful background, or what used the blurb goes on to be called say 'general knowledge'recollections, about other parts of folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the worldlatter. Since my general knowledge of It feels like the Gulf States stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is more or less limited to Lawrence of Arabia and current news reports, a little padding won't go amiss. So yes, I did enjoy this readfickle thing, and I imagine the Saga age group maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will borrow read it in steady numbers from libraries (if they can find one open). It would make a good present for a man of a certain age, which is: More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906852065</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Titchmarsh1544641923|title=When I Was A Nipper|rating=4|genre=History|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. Ambassadors Do It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAfter Dinner|author=Margaret Powell|title=Below Stairs: The Bestselling Memoirs of a 1920s Kitchen MaidSandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Below Stairs'' was first published in 1968, and itIt's no exaggeration tempting to claim Margaret Powell as think that the trailblazer for the memoir genre. This book encouraged hundreds of autobiographies of common diplomatic life, is privileged and spawned a whole generation of tv programmesluxurious. In its vernacular and popularist way It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it was probably as influential as Mayhew's not ''diplomatic'London Labour and the London Poor'. Before herto do so, only famous people wrote their storiesyou know), and that without too much regard for reality. Unless they were literary writersbut the diplomatic spouse, achievements were downplayed and emotions hidden away, in the stilted style of the British stiff upper lip. Not so Margaret Powellaccompanying baggage, who became a publishing sensation when she blasted through with a robust Voice rather than a polished narrativewell, in the first-ever tale of that's an ordinary servant writing about everyday life below stairsentirely different matter. Imagine being talent-spotted from an evening class She (and invited to write your memoir: those were the days! |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535382</amazonuk>it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victoria Coren0241446732|title=For Richer, For PoorerOur House is on Fire: Confessions Scenes of a PlayerFamily and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Some things are in the bloodThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. For Victoria Coren it Malena Ernman was cards. As a child she an opera singer and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack by their grandfather. He called it Pontoon but the Svante Thunberg took on most valuable lesson was that grandfather was ''always'' of the dealer and ''always'' the winnerparenting of their two daughters. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler. Victoria was one of life's riskThen eleven-year-takers old Greta stopped eating and talking and she leant to the more adventurous side of her father's familysister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. She was unhappy at schoolIn such circumstances, preferring the company of her brotherit's straight-talking friends natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the bitchy allfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-girl atmosphere at schoolout planet''. In the intervening twenty years she's won If they were to find a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the moneyway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672930</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy Chua191280493X|title=Battle Hymn Coming of the Tiger Mother|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Amy Chua has firm beliefs about parenting. She brought up her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, using a strict set of rules – including no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no choice of extra curricular activity, no grades less than an A, and no being less than the number 1 student in any 'academic' subject. Then there's the piano and violin practice… On hearing she called herdaughter Sophia 'garbage', an acquaintance of hers burst into tears. The thought of praising one of the girls for getting a B, as many American parents do, would no doubt have a similar affect on Chua. Mother – or monster?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812673</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAge|author=Eva Petulengro|title=The Girl in the Painted Caravan: Memories of a Romany ChildhoodDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Eva Petulengro ''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was born in to take him a painted caravan in 1939further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Her Romany family had travelled in Norfolk and Lincolnshire Consistently unpublished for generations. She has had a very successful career as all that time, he remains a clairvoyant, writer shining example of horoscope columns and publisher of magazines, and her daughter is also a well known media astrologerhope over experience.. The Girl in the Painted Caravan is a memoir of her childhood and youth, up until her marriage in her 20s and the beginning of her career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519999</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Shilling190874572X|title=The Stranger in the Mirror: A Memoir of Middle AgeLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Middle-aged women disappear. They are not see on television, their lives do not appear in newspapers, Back at the legions beginning of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At leastthe century, that is what the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 I went on holiday to find the narrative Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of her contemporaries and their lives which she has been reading about and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanished-friends. She looks in the mirror and sees I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a face she does not recogniselater one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Even with a punishing regime I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of early bedThe Summer Book, no alcohol and litres that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of water, it refuses to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides to take a magnifying glass to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth Jansson's work and old agedevoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701181001</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Isherwood1908745819|title=Diaries Volume 1Surfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. 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 hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England for America in this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the company author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of poet WH Audenherself. '' This hefty volume covers his diaries from that date until August 1960, when he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthdayOlder. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. A 49-page introduction setting out Add to that my love of the background leads us into natural world, of those aspects of the entries, which poetic and lyrical that are divided into three sections – The Emigrationabout style not form, to the end and substance most of 1944; The Post-war Yearsall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to 1956; and The Late Fiftiesme eventually. After these we I am pleased to have a chronology and glossary, or to put it more accurately a section of brief biographies of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over a hundred pages altogetherfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555824</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Burnside1906852472|title=Waking Wild Child: Growing Up In Toytowna Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=After years of alcoholism For Ian Mathie fans there is good and borderline insanity, John Burnside decides to become normalbad news. This involves moving to SurreyIan has come up with the missing link in his narrative, working in an office and settling into the story of a numbing daily routine very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards became). The bad habits– well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. These memoirs chronicle As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the failure feeling that many of his bid for normality and subsequent disillusionment the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with the projecta satisfying clunk. ItSeemingly all that's a solipsistic account but now left in the writing drawer is powerful and it draws you inunpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507838</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhoda Janzen1999811402|title=Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Coming HomePainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Even although the obliging blurb It'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, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the back cover tells best results. The answer would be something along the reader lines of 'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a little about being Mennonitebusker, finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I couldnfound out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't resist looking it up in really what the dictionarybook's about. I was intrigued There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to start reading. And emblazoned across be the front cover is real passion of Hartley'No 1 In The USs life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Great praise indeed, I thought. But how would it go down across Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the pondhard way'? Time to find out .Yep - that's the one. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789031X</amazonuk>
}}
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