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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=Play It AgainThe Trading Game: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleA Confession|author=Alan RusbridgerGary Stevenson

|summary=I’ve maintained for If you were to bring up an image of a long time that I’ll read anythingcity banker in your mind, if it’s wellyou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-enough written. So it stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with this fascinating memoir, even though it’s a year in the life of an amateur pianistviolence, poverty and I don’t play the piano – or indeed a note of musicinjustice. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in There was no posh public school on his professional role before I read CV - but he had been to the bookLondon School of Economics. A quick browse through the first couple of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell a clear story: it Stevenson is his stockbright -inextremely bright -trade as Editor and he has a facility with numbers which most of the Guardianus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. And the book duly held me through It was his ability at what was, essentially, a messycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, interrupted week of bedtime readingthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Born in SiberiaLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie SlaterSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I tend Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to shy away from reviewing book titlesfollow in his footsteps, but this time it seems appropriate – here itparticularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's a title that doesn't tell you life. When he was seventeen he took the half opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the storyjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. As much It hadn't - as Tamara Astafieva with so many students - been his dream since he was born a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in Siberiachildhood, and returned there several timeswe're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomesCastro, this is much more first thought of as a picture saviour of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscowcountry, has proven himself a bit of Saint PetersburgCommunist, and little elsenot done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. ThatOur narrator's not a fault – and again itfamily weren's not half t in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the storycountry demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The story here is so complex, so rich mother gets the couple jobs with detail and incidentthe party to ease some of the heat, and itself came about but in such an unusual waythis sultry island country, that any summary it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373343</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Katz1035025299|title=The Went to London, Took the Dog Nobody Loved|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=When we first meet Jon Katz he's not in Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a good place: his marriage of thirty-five sabbatical after being away for twenty years was breaking up and he was close to a nervous breakdown. He didnShe't need any more problems. He particularly s been at Victoria''didns smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't'' need a young rescue dog, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mixall that conducive to writing, whoas there'd been living wild, to contend with and to upset the fragile equilibrium of the life he lived with his animals on Bedlam Farms always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Frieda was near feral but devoted to her rescuer, Maria Wulf and it was Maria who was at the centre The other side of this conundrum. Katz was spectacularly disconnected from the world - and Maria decision was the only person to whom he seemed able to talk, but to connect with Maria he had to connect with Frieda toosealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091957443</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor PenguinsChristopher Fowler|authortitle=Gavin FrancisWord Monkey

|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=I know two books donIt't make s the first of August in the middle of a genre, but twice cool wet summer in recent years East Anglia. I have read autobiographical travelogues decided not to swim at the pool in favour of men who felt too much was going on to my beach hut. The weather closed in their lives , rain arrived, and their surroundingsI decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and took themselves off (b) I did not want to remotedo so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, isolated, extremely cold the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and inhospitable placeshis first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. One went There is something very strange about being made to the shores of Lake Baikallaugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and shared his days huntingyou know he actually is at that point, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighboursbecause he does. Gavin Francis took himself southHe 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 the edge , but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the Antarctic ice, to spend bonds that bind family. This book is a year memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a scientific doctorteenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. He wasn't able to be completely as alone as some have been Her father is from St. Kitts in the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before the week-long annual changeover of staff was throughCaribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. Francis ends up with This intersectionality plays a baker's dozen of companions, large role in a place where – apart from the iceautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, sealing things up – only two lockable doors existher class and her gender. You might think this was a Her parents loom large group of people for someone wanting to be aloneand are written with care, love, but the very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in the huge emptiness kind of the landscape is the main point of this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins…anger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009956596X</amazonuk>1472284852

''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry RedknappBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Harry: My AutobiographyI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=SportAutobiography|summary=Everybody with an interest in football knows who ''Harry'' is. The cover of When the Dalai Lama adds his book won't tell you who he iswords to your frontispiece, but if youI're not in the know m inclined to think itdoesn's Harry Redknapp - football manager and for many t really matter how the rest of us, something of a national treasurethe world responds to your book. He's I know, having read the manager who's seen it allbook in question, having started at rock bottom - a 70s Portakabin at Oxford City that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. - He knows (and risen to at core so do I) that it matters very much how the heights rest of managing Tottenham Hotspur in the Premiership. At world responds to this book, because it tells the same time he was the popular choice for the England Manager's job when Capello threw truth as it is, in the towel. It's fair to say that Harry has lived his football life to the full and anyone buying this book will get their money's worthearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091917875</amazonuk>1526644827

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Love, NinaNever Work With Animals|author=Nina StibbeGareth Steel

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When I began reading this book I wasndon't entirely sure that I liked often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it. I didn't quite know how seems to take the Nina from the titlebe appropriate. She's Stories of a twenty year old Nanny, employed by the editor of the London Review of Books and living near Regentvet's Park in North London. The book contains her letters to her sister, Victoria living at home in Leicestershire, and tell of the events and happenings in her life as a Nanny have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and then, going on, in her life as a student at Thames Polytechnic. Initially it felt like she was name dropping - Alan Bennett lives over Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the road and drops in companion volume you've been looking for dinner most days; . As a TV show the father of Will and Sam, the two boys she is nannying, is Stephen Frears; down the road lives Claire Tomalin and her partner Michael Frayn...and yet, given chance, you begin to see author would argue that she isn't awed by the notoriety of these people (indeed'All Creatures'' lacked realism, she tells her sister as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that Alan Bennett was in Coronation Street!) and actually they are just the neighbours book is not suitable for younger readers and so it is less important - after reading - I agree with him. He says that Alan Bennett (AB as he's referred written it to in the book) comes around for dinner every night since he isninform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there for fame value but rather for his own unique place in this rather crazy family life memoir!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922765</amazonuk>are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in TimeDave Letterfly Knoderer|authortitle=Penelope LivelySpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=3.54

|summary=Now aged 80, Penelope Lively, How to summarise the Booker Prize-winning author life of twenty works of fiction including ''Moon Tiger'' (1987) and ''How It All Began'' (2011), is increasingly conscious of death approaching. It may be true that, as concluded Dave Letterfly Knodererv in [[Nothing a pithy sentence to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes]], 'we cannot truly savour life without kick off a regular awareness review of extinction'his memoir? Do you know, but this memoir is less a ''memento mori'' than an agreeably scattered tour through LivelyI really don's life and timest think I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146380</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|Dave is an author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival an artist. An inspirational speaker and Love|rating=4a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah NomThe son of a Lutheran minister, was born early in the twentieth century in the village of Dai Waan in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived 's struggled with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Uncle', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nom. They'd become friends as they grew oldercontrolling father, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between the two. Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended run away to take join the boys to America to be educated. It was circus (not a wonderful opportunity metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and Ah Nom left the village painted theatre sets, and his mother not knowing hit rock bottom when he would see either againthe bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN

{{newreview|title=My Life|author=David Jason|rating=4''0.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Born 7% of English Literature GCSE students in North London in February 1940 during the early years of the Second World War, David John White once had England study a book by a brief career as an electrician. Fortunately for the world writer of entertainment and the public, he soon forsook the world of fuses and wires for that of the stage and small screen. When he joined Equity, they already had colour while only 7% study a David White on their records, and after book by a little quick thinking on the phone, he became David Jasonwoman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891407</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|title=A Piece of Danish Happiness|author=Sharmi Albrechtsen|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Sharmi Albrechtsen Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was a true Hindu-American princessfive years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. Obsessed It was her mother who came first, with shoes and handbags and designer labelsher father joining them later. The family was hard-working, she saw status principled and wealth as determined that their children would have the only route to happinessbest education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. But she wasn't happy enough, no matter how much designer gear she owned When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. And it wasn't until 1997, when she married her second husband For Otegha, education meant a Dane, and relocated scholarship to Denmark, that she began to wonder if it was something lacking a private school in herselfLondon and then a place at New College, rather than her possessions, that was at the root of her problemsOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00EAINZM8</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=The True GermanMy Mess is a Bit of Life: The Diary of a World War II Military JudgeAdventures in Anxiety|author=Werner Otto Muller-Hill and Benjamin Carter HettGeorgia Pritchett

|summary=We've had diaries of teenagers, opium addicts, drug smugglersGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, and even as a lot morechild. Some of them have been optimistic, happy things, and many not. Clearly World War II was not a place for a terribly cheerful outlook, whatever She would worry about whether the monsters under the diarist. However sometimes bed were comfortable: it was not the done thing sort of life where if she had nothing to be pessimistic, for example when you worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were in the huge German military few and were publicly denigrating the dreamt-of Nazi successfar between. Such ''corrosion of morale'' would mean you being put in front of On a visit to a three-man military tribunaltherapist, as an adult, and most probably sentenced for such treacherous behaviour. The startling thing when she was completely unable to speak about this book, however, is what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it contains much that would certainly have been deemed down and ''corrosion My Mess is a Bit of moralea Life: Adventures in Anxiety'', yet it was written by one of is the very military judges who served on those panelsresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278544</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Hospice Voices: Lessons for Living at the End of LifeDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|authortitle=Eric LindnerA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5

|summary=Alzheimer''Hospice Voices'' tells the stories s is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. 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 last days of some fascinating people while it follows author Eric Lindner through his journey elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a hospice volunteer neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and a crisis has documented his journey in his own daughter's health'A Tattoo on my Brain''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1442220597</amazonuk>1108838936

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529109116|title=Lucky Call MeRed: My Life With - And Without - My Mom, Shirley MacLaineA Shepherd's Journey|author=Sachi Parker with Frederick StroppelHannah Jackson

|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Born in Los Angeles, raised in Tokyo, and schooled across Europe, Sachi Parker had already lead an eventful life before she turned 18. Add to ''I want the mix image of a secretive father with an explosive temper and British farmer to simply be that of a Hollywood icon for a mother and you have enough stories person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to fill a bookask.''

And The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows thathe'll be a farmer. It's exactly what not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of animals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that shewanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you's donell soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1592407889</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008333173|title=Monkeys in my GardenHungry: Unbelievable but true stories A Memoir of my life in MozambiqueWanting More|author=Valerie PixleyGrace Dent|rating=3.5

|summary=Valerie Pixley and her husband OI'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Masterchef''D live in Mozambique, amidst its rapidly disappearing forests. Monkeys in my Garden tells the story 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 what life is like in the Nhamacoa Forest and time. You also ponder on how they came to be there. It opens she can look so elegant with a terrifying scene: armed bandits in their bedroom all that good food in front of her. I've often wondered about the woman behind the middle media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of the nightWanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00DUF1LXM</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=The Boy on the Wooden Box|author=Leon Leyson|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=This is the memoir of one of the youngest people on Oskar Schindlerwas what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn's famous list of Jews saved from t unkind: it was simply the Nazis during World War IIadults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It opens between was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the wars, with Leongirl (she's family living in usually fairly young) is rescued by the small Polish town of Narewkahandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. There wasn Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without't much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in the hopes of making expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a better life belief and when Leon and his siblings eventually join him, you can feel the wonder of it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a little boy new to the big citychoice''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CWEHR2G</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Wicked GamesSakinu Ahronglong|authortitle=Kelly LawrenceHunter School

|summary=Sometimes you read The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a book that work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is supposed to be "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, and immediately question or whether it isn’t a true story loosely fictionalised and with a few character names changed, so is as the author doesn’t lose face if it’s not well received. blurb goes on to say ''Wicked Gamesrecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' is no such book, because you’re told from . It feels like the latter. It feels like the outset that it’s stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real life erotic memoirand true. And But memory is a fickle thing, while the author still and maybe poetic licence has some discretion regarding how much or how little she shares, you genuinely come away feeling like you’ve just taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read a startlingly intimate description of a real person’s private lifeit. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0753541718</amazonuk>1999791282

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Cohu1544641923|title=The Wolf PitAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Up on It's tempting to think that the north Yorkshire Moors there’s a feature of the landscape known as the Wolf Pitdiplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It’s thought to It might be a medieval trap into which wolves were drivenprivileged, but as family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you 're not going to get close many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to itdo so, it’s difficult to locateyou know), marked only by a change in but the lightdiplomatic spouse, a slope of the ground. Will Cohu doesn’t concentrate on the pit but rather on nearby Bramble Carraccompanying baggage, the remote moorland cottage to which his grandparents moved in 1966well, almost on a whim and certainly with insufficient thoughtthat's an entirely different matter. George Brook was a manager at ICI in Billingham She (and Dorothy was an artist and musician. They’d been brought together by it still usually is a shared love of the arts but once installed at Bramble Carr and with little more than each other for company the marriage deteriorated into dark silence'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542358</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith Kerr0241446732|title=Judith Kerr's CreaturesOur House is on Fire: A Celebration Scenes of the Life a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Work of Judith KerrSvante Thunberg

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliable, but always impressiveThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. One Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. For decades sheIn such circumstances, it's been delighting our children (and grandchildren) but it still came as something of natural to seek a surprise solution close to discover that she would be ninety in June 2013. To celebrate thishome, Harper Collins have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but eventually, it became clear to the family that of the they were ''creaturesburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' - the characters in her books and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life. It is, though, far more than just an autobiography with If they were to find a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabiliaway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gregg Wallace191280493X|title=Life on a Plate: The AutobiographyComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan

|summary=I remember the early days of ''Masterchef'' when members of the public practiced certain dishes until they couldn't get them wrong He began writing novels and then presented them to be judged. Once it got past poetry at the point where you could be reasonably certain that there wouldn't be a major disaster with ''no'' food on the table age of twelve, but it all got rather boring and finally faded. It had was to take him a reincarnation though, largely fronted by chef John Torode and greengrocer Gregg Wallace. Gone are the days when people said ''Greengrocer?'' as though they were referring further forty-eight years to some lower life form and it's generally acknowledged realise that Wallace is a he wasn’t very good anchor (and better as he's grown in confidence) and at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he has remains a great palateshining example of hope over experience... But where did he come from?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409143910</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Neil Ansell|title=Deer Island|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Neil Ansell volunteered in the 1980s to work for an organization that provided support for the homeless. These homeless were the people other shelters would reject for various reasons (drink, drugs, etc.) but the group Neil worked for were ''This a little different to most similar charities. Due to this Neil experienced some memoir from someone you have never heard of the worst case scenarios of being down and out in London, and along the way befriended many interesting - but ultimately ill-fated people. To escape and recover from a life full of brief friendships, poverty and untimely death Neil travelled to the Isle of Jura off the West coast of Scotland. Jura came to be a special place for him and of all places in the world it was the one most in his heart. Deer Island is Neil’s account of his life in the 1980s and his discovery of Jura; it is, in effect, his love song to the island that has been his sanctuarywill feel like you have.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908213132</amazonuk>''

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kristine Barnett190874572X|title=The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius Letters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)

|summary=The tutor stands Back at the front beginning of the university classcentury, frantically scribbling equations I went on the large whiteboard in front of himholiday to Nepal. He is well respected by his students; an expert in several fields, including general relativity, string theory, quantum field theory I met a wonderful Finnish woman and biophysicswe became sort-of-friends. In fact, he recently unveiled I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a brand new theory later one that may put him in line for a Nobel PrizePaula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Oh I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and did that I forget to mention that he is just 14 years old?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145627</amazonuk>eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Dawson1908745819|title=Pigs in Clover: Or How I Accidentally Fell in Love with the Good Life|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Simon Dawson really had no intention of leading a life of self-sufficiency - he accidentally fell into the beginnings of it at a New Year's Eve party which was a little too noisy for him to be completely certain what it was he was agreeing to. But even then there was no need for it to go too far. After all, this man's heart was in London and he was an estate agent - a member of the profession whose place at the top of the opprobrium ladder was only made wobbly after a serious PR campaign on behalf of journalists and politicians. But his wife was determined that she couldn't stand being a property solicitor any longer and so they sold their flat in London and rented a property on Exmoor and Simon began a weekly commute - weekends in Devon and most of the week in London.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285019</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSurfacing |author=Barbara Arrowsmith-Young|title=The Woman who Changed Her Brain: How We Can Shape our Minds and Other Tales of Cognitive TransformationKathleen Jamie|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Imagine feeling like a stranger in your own body, unable to comprehend the world around you. Symbols, words and numbers swirl in an unintelligible mix on the page and make no sense at all. Activities that others perform with ease are a struggle for you, leading to deep feelings of frustration. This was the challenge that Barbara-Arrowsmith-Young faced daily as a result of her complex learning disabilities. Her intense feelings of despair even caused her to attempt suicide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563584</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Colin Grant|title=Bageye at the Wheel: A 1970s Childhood in Suburbia|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Growing up as one of the few black children in Luton in the 1970s, Colin Grant was in awe of his father, always known as Bageye. In this memoir of his childhood, he looks back at his own early years and the impact his feckless dad - and his friends, or spars, such as Summer Wear, Tidy Boots, Anxious and Pioneer - had on him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552396</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Malcolm Philips|title=Jobsworth: Confessions of the Man from the Council|rating=4

|summary=Local government isn’t what 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 used turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to behearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. People say In this with regretcase, but reading Malcolm Philips’ memoir you will probably be left with I was told why. The blurb speaks of the impression that this is author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a Very Good Thingbad description of where I am. Because fun as it may have been Add to be working in that my love of the council in natural world, of those aspects of the 60s poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and 70ssubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, if this entertaining account is anything book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to go by, me eventually. I am pleased to have it was also an awful shamblesfall onto my path so quickly. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909183156</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Quindlen1906852472|title=Lots of Candles, Plenty of CakeWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie

|summary=I first encountered Anna Quindlen when I read [[Life with Beau: A Tale of a Dog For Ian Mathie fans there is good and His Family by Anna Quindlen|Life bad news. Ian has come up with Beau: A Tale the missing link in his narrative, the story of a Dog and His Family]]very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). IThe bad – well it'm a sucker for non-fiction books about dogs but what struck me was s hardly news two years later – is that the book could have been triteis published posthumously. Instead As always, it was elegant's beautifully written, witty and with a real eye for detail and social nuancemany exciting moments. It What I most enjoyed was genuinely about life the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child''witha satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that'' Beau and what the family learned from him rather than - as so many such books are - what s now left in the family had done for the dog. The book struck a particular chord with me as our older dog was, we knew, on borrowed time (although her innate stubbornness kept her going for another two years) and Quindlen helped me to think about what Rosie had given usdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955903X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mac Carty1999811402|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on the Margate Sands of Time)Painting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=4.5

|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for It's very difficult to classify ''The Vagaries of SwingPainting Snails' was the BBC television series 'True Love: originally I thought that as it' which portrayed s loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a series of romantic encounters all set by lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the sea in his home town of Margatebest results. But Carty has taken The answer would be something along the original idea - about relationships between people - lines of 'try it and run with itsee'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, extending finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). 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 'love'Casualty' into ', but that isn'passiont really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, say for cricket, or (at which seems to be the other end real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the scale) as a human encounter which ends in violenceentertainment genre either. Whilst the television series might Did we have been a category for 'doing the catalyst for impossible the book there was another and probably more compelling reason. hard way'? When his friend Mike died he realised Yep - that he had no 's the one with whom to share his fund of stories about growing up in Margate, all of which had been revisited on a regular basis and usually over a pint. IIt've just read the results an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Rupert Christiansen|title=I Know You're Going Move on to be Happy: A Story of Love and Betrayal|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Kathleen Lyon, whose family were respectable and hard working but with no claim to celebrity other than a distant relationship to the [[The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham by Michael Jago|Earl of ClanmorrisNewest Biography Reviews]] married Michael Christiansen, scion of a newspaper family, in a fashionable London church in 1948. Both were talented and successful journalists and they were very much in love. ''I know you're going to be happy'', wrote a senior Fleet Street figure and Rupert Christiansen wryly points out that this was too tempting to fate. There were two children of the marriage and when Rupert was four and his sister Anna just a few months old Michael Christiansen announced to the family that a photographer from his paper would be coming to take pictures of them all that afternoon - and he then told his wife that their eleven-year marriage was over and he was leaving to live with his secretary.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721242</amazonuk>}}