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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Prue Leith0241636604|title=RelishThe Trading Game: My Life on a PlateA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Prue Leith was born If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in South Africayour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the daughter of a prominent actress who pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was considered 'dangerously liberal' in her views on racefamiliar with violence, poverty and injustice. Prue There was largely unaware of no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the horrors London School of apartheid Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and had he has a privileged lifestylefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. She came He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to London in the early sixties but still retains be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an awareness of colour internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a legacy trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of her childhooda Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. What His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't come from her childhood want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was her love seventeen he took the opportunity of cooking - she drifted into catering almost accidentally but went on to set up doing work experience with a family friend who was a very successful catering company vet and then to open Leithwas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn's Restaurant t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. Her cookery school and regular food columns in national newspapers followed soon afterIf anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857384058</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Grant MorrisonEdel Rodriguez|title=SupergodsWorm: Our World in the Age of the SuperheroA Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Consider the super-hero comicWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. Borne out The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a need Communist, and not done nearly enough to create cheap and franchise-friendly content a level playing field for newspapers in Americaall. Well, itthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's grown into a billion-dollar industryfamily weren't in the happiest of places here, with Hollywood jumping on an uncle refusing to be the bandwagon of several major characters now their FX have finally caught up with good soldier the printed page. Disposable? country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro- once upon a timeCommunism skirmish, yet now collectable to such as Angola) and the tune of a million dollars or more. Frivolous? - probablyfather being watched and watched, yet and not exclusively nowliked for his successful photography business, if ever sosuccess being frowned upon. At one point here, they are just one product The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the infinitely powerful imaginary system each of us carries heat, but in our brainthis sultry island country, and at it remains the other 'ethereal, paper-thin constructs kind of heat forcing you out of unfettered imagination'.the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546671</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1035025299|title=Dust of Went to London, Took the DanakilDog|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I enjoyed all three of Ian Mathie’s previous books so it’s probably no surprise Nina Stibbe is returning to find me praising this one tooLondon for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. Already, for meShe's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, this writer has set a high bar with his pared, modest prose and authentic descriptions of life as an educated white man with unsophisticated midthere's always something smallholding happening -African tribes in as you might expect. The other side of the middle decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of the twentieth century. His everyday life in this book is Deborah Moggach) at a perilous adventure – modern travel memoirs seem banal by comparisonvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852138</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beth RaymerChristopher Fowler|title=Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling UnderworldWord Monkey|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was 's the first of August in the middle of a dream which brought Beth Raymer cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to Las Vegasswim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, but the reality rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was that she ended up waiting tables in because (a low-end diner ) I wanted to finish reading this book and living in a distinctly unsavoury motel(b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. A chance meeting brought her into contact with DinkNo spoiler alerts, the self-styled king of the citydust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was's sports betting – and she moved into what was his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very much strange about being made to laugh by a man's world - of high-stakes gambling who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily want your daughter to know. This he actually is the story of how Beth learned the trade and moved into the world of the big money where gambling regulations don't applyat that point, because he does. Being sharp was what it was all aboutHe did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555395</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melissa KiteKit De Waal|title=Real Life: One Woman's Guide to Love, Men Without Warning and Other Everyday DisastersOnly Sometimes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=We're used to thinking about career women who have As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it all: the high-flyer who goes home , “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to her husband, children but they do” Without Warning and immaculate house to plan their next holiday Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and their social life. We might not know these people - but everything seems to tell us the bonds that they're ''there''bind family. What, though, This 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 St. Kitts in the single Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman, no longer ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the first flush of youth (that's probably nineteenautobiography. 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, these days) who struggles just to keep going? What of the woman who struggles to keep the ''boiler'' going and who is tempted to kidnap the television repairman and tie him kind of anger only a child can express to the bed because she's convinced that the television will stop working the moment he goes?their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780331916</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Agatha Christie and Mathew Prichard (editor)1638485216|title=The Grand TourBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Letters A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and photographs from the British Empire expeditionLaw Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There seems to be a plethora of books about people who have moved to unusual places''Corruption is not department, gender or changed lifestyle in middle age for a variety of reasonsrace specific. This book features a London family who have moved It has everything to Cornwall, and is the third (so far) in a series about their transitiondo with character. Period. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093756</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare PeakeBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Under a Canvas Sky: Living Outside GormenghastI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=To many When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of usthe world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very name Peake on much how the cover rest of a the world responds to this book will immediately suggest , because it tells the creator truth as it is, in the early 21st century.|isbn=1526644827}}{{Frontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals 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 'Gormenghast' All Creatures Great and his familySmall'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. We have had As a TV show the occasional biography of Mervyn Peake from othersauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, plus as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the recollections of his widow Maeve, book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to join theminform and provoke thought, here is the story from another perspective altogether – that of their youngest childparticularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, daughter Clarealthough there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780333854</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roxy FreemanDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=The Little GypsySpeedy: A Life of Freedom, a Time of SecretsHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Roxy Freeman, born How to a summarise the life of freedom and open roads, shares a gypsy caravan with her parents, brother and four sisters. As Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a child she may not have gone pithy sentence to school but from an early age her skills, suited to living kick off the land, surpassed those a review of her more traditional peers. Howeverhis memoir? Do you know, her innocence is stolen from her by family friend, 'UncleI really don' Tony and her childhood becomes tainted by fear and secretst think I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849833443</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erica Heller0008350388|title=Yossarian Slept HereWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=''To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life and living that be a dark-skinned Black woman is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creatorto be seen as less desirable, Joseph Hellerless hireable, reveals how the same excitement less intelligent and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller familyultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt Whyman|title=Pig in the Middle|rating=4.5|genre=Pets|summary=I'm so pleased I read this book. ' It's only the occasional writer who grabs me 'We Need to Talk About Money'' by the short and curlies with his observation of human nature, but accomplished children's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>}}Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gillian Lynne0571365884|title=A Dancer My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Wartime: One Girl's Journey from the Blitz to Sadler's WellsAnxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=At eight years old, Gill Pyrke was driving her parents crazyGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as she couldn't sit still and was nicknamed ''wriggle-bottom''a child. Her mum took her to see She would worry about whether the monsters under the family GP and told him in great detail how annoying she bed were comfortable: it was. The doctor asked the sort of life where if he could talk she had nothing to Gill alone worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and put on some musicfar between. She started On a visit to dance around and climbed on a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to his desk. He prescribed ballet classes. She started off in a Bromley dance class where one of speak about what was wrong with her classmates it was later to be the famous ballerina Beryl Grey. This story is lovely suggested that she should write it down and funny, and has lots of elements of a dream story, yet ''My Mess is told in a very down to earth style which makes it very convincing. The same could be said Bit of the whole of Gillian Lynne's memoir of her early years, starting out on a brilliant career Life: Adventures in danceAnxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185996</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jermaine JacksonDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's EyesTattoo on my Brain|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=It is inevitable that the books we have already seen about Michael Jackson in the two years since his sudden passing will be merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet for those which comprise and are based on first-hand knowledge of his life and death, there will surely be few if any to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve Dennis3.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I saw the BBCAlzheimer's 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit' is a semi-autobiographical account disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of Winterson's childhoodself. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This bookis what makes Daniel Gibbs's title memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is equally memorable a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and unique and we learn that ithas documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''s a line Mrs Winterson said to the young Jeanette.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224093452</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=Art Spiegelman0008333173|title=MetaMAUSHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=John Bull was born in I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the mid thirties – old enough to be able to say that he was bombed in his cradle but young enough not to be directly involvedjudges on ''Masterchef''. He was one of the last cub reporters – after You know that they changed the name – and you'The Smile on the Face re going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the Pig' is the story of his time as a reporter, a National Serviceman, a husband and father in the nineteen fifties. It's a gentle, nostalgic You also ponder on how she can look back at a decade when life was differentso elegant with all that good food in front of her. There might have been more hardships – but itI's difficult to say that it was ve often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''harderHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' and this book is a reminder for those of us who were around at the time of what it was really likestunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559549</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie1504321383|title=Supper With The PresidentSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's such a pleasure to read an Ian Mathie book, so I really looked forward to 'Supper with the PresidentYou can'. No surprises, then, to find this book every bit as delightful, intriguing t be happy and informative as his othersfulfilled on your own. Ian Mathie knows exactly how to stitch up a good story; the occasional photographs - proving the stories You are not fiction – come almost as complete until you find a surprise. The books are helpfully illustrated with simple maps placing the stories in geographical context. To me, Ian Mathie is simply the best of the relatively unknown writers I have come across as a reviewer. Interestingly, the two men in my household grab and devour Ian Mathieman''s books, and I imagine anyone interested in development issues and/or Africa would welcome one or two of his titles for Christmas. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852103</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)Sakinu Ahronglong|title=Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce ChatwinHunter School|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089897</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Roy Tomkinson|title=Of Boys, Men and Mountains - Life in the Rhondda Valley|rating=35
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Roy Tomkinson comes over as pretty sentimental about aspects The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of his childhoodfiction. That's possibly misleading. He was born into a family of boys I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and surrounded by an extended family spread along autobiographical stories''. It feels like the valleylatter. He was It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child in the nineteen fifties, when post-War austerity was still a feature of life in Wales. Neverthelessas an adolescent, discipline, love as an adult are real and understanding were meted out by his parents in equal measures to provide true. But memory is a strong platform for his childhood adventures. Roy fickle thing, and his gang grew up free-ranging the valley, teaching their dogs maybe poetic licence has taken over here and ferrets to catch rats, trespassing on industrial land, learning about girls, there and entirely missing the growing affluence of central Britain. For them, maybe calling it was idyllic, fiction means that its safer and the author makes therefore more people will read it clear, many times, how lucky he feels to have enjoyed such a stable childhood environment. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0862438683</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Booth1544641923|title=Eat, Pray, EatAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When you know that a biography tackles alcoholism, a motherIt's early death, feelings of loneliness tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and worthlessnessluxurious. It might be privileged, culminating in going blind, you expect but family connections tell me that this it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to be one of two types of book – get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the misery memoirdiplomatic spouse, or the positive 'all ends accompanying baggage, well, that' tales an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindnessshe' is neither. It is a book which is as complex as the life it relates, and as deep) can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539535</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie0241446732|title=Man Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in a Mud HutCrisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We tend to remember where we were The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and how we heard about Svante Thunberg took on most of the deaths parenting of people like John F Kennedytheir two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, Elvis Presley and Princess Dianastruggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, but Iit'd add another person s natural to the list: John Smith. I remember sitting in my office and seek a colleague coming in solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to tell me. She added 'I suppose we'll have the family that dreary Gordon Brown as leader nowthey were '. We'd many angstburned-out people on a burned-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smithout planet's death is the opening entry in this, the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's Diaries. This book covers the first period of 'New Labour', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barry Miles191280493X|title=In The Seventies: Adventures in the CountercultureComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The sixties, argues Barry Miles''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, did not end in 1969. For but it was to take him, they began as a definable period of cultural history in 1963 and lasted until 1977further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. During Consistently unpublished for all that time , he worked on and with various underground and counter-cultural activities in London, among them the founding remains a shining example of hope over experience...'International Times' and of the Beatles' spoken word label Zapple.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686903</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Parks190874572X|title=Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and HealingLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Self-help books are pretty polarising when you think about it. I mean, would you tell somebody that you were reading a self-help book if you had no idea how they were going to react? On Back at the one hand there must be people who devour these kinds beginning of books one after the othercentury, searching for that mystical formula that will bring about profound inner changeI went on holiday to Nepal. At the other end I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of the scale are readers that steer well clear of self-help or anything else that isnfriends. I can't rational and based remember if it was on proper scientific research and evidence. Entrenched views are what makes this title an interesting proposition. A sceptic's search for health and healing which alludes to meditation? Surely much more interesting than that holiday or a new age guru who already believes wholeheartedly later one that their insights will transform YOUR life and enrich their bank balancePaula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I want to do know how the sceptic that it was convincedfour years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, not and that I eagerly awaited the guy who entered ''Sort Of'' translations of the room wearing healing crystalsrest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548887</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pauline Black1908745819|title=Black by Design: A 2-tone MemoirSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As 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 front cover of book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this volume of reminiscences reminds uscase, Pauline Black is remembered first and foremost for fronting I was told why. The Selecterblurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, one less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of the few 2-Tone ska bands where I am. Add to enjoy fleeting chart success at that my love of the end natural world, of those aspects of the 1970spoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. Yet reading this reminds us that that It was only the tip of the icebergwritten for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668790X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andre Dubus III1906852472|title=TownieWild Child: A MemoirGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The book opens with Andre For Ian Mathie fans there is good and his father taking a jogbad news. Seems a normal and natural activity - what's to write about here, you could be asking. Well, I'll tell you. By this time Ian has come up with the father no longer lives missing link in his narrative, the family homestory of a very unusual childhood (yes, the mother is struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table - and very years that made him the author, Andre is too embarrassed to admit to his father that amazing man he doesn't own a pair of jogging shoesbecame). HeThe bad – well it's borrowed his sister's even although they're about hardly news two sizes too smallyears later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, heit's in agony seconds into the jog but is he going to own up? Nope. Bloody feet and pain are a by-product of precious time beautifully written, with his fathermany exciting moments. So straight away, What I'm getting most enjoyed was the gist feeling that many of the book and questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the relationship between father and sondrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393064662</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Kershaw1999811402|title=No Off Switch: The AutobiographyPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'The boy Kershaw' : originally I thought that as his hero and later friend John Peel sometimes wryly referred to him on air, has had a pretty remarkable life. Heit's been – taken loosely based around a deep breath – year on an allotment it would be a concert promoter while studying politics at Leeds Universitylifestyle book, Billy Braggbut you's driver across most re not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the lines of Europe'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a presenter on BBC TV busker, finally got into medical school and successively also is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on Radios 1, 3 and 4, in a news correspondent reporting Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from Iraq''Casualty'', Haitibut that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, Angola and Rwandawhich seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, and also done time as but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a guest of Her Majestycategory for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the one. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687446</amazonuk>
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