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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erwin Mortier and Paul Vincent (translator)0241636604|title=Stammered SongbookThe Trading Game: A Mother's Book of HoursConfession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=A chateau If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in the countryyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. So farA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, a fine life behind youpoverty and injustice. Just 65 years There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of ageEconomics. A happy collection Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of three successful childrenus can only envy. Alzheimer'sHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. You work out It was his ability at what's the one bummer in that circumstancewas, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270213</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Lena Mukhina Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't 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 seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. 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 childhood, and we're in Cuba. The Diary revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of Lena Mukhina: A Girltaking his time away. Our narrator's Life family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country 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 mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the Siege kind of Leningradheat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035025299|title=Went to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If life as a girl of school-leaving age Nina Stibbe is hard enough, think about it when you're stuck in returning to London for a great city under a horrendous siegesabbatical after being away for twenty years. Lena MukhinaShe's diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare been at Victoria's smallholding in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular were the circumstances Leicestershire which isn't all that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what it was likeconducive to writing, courtesy of these pages. Ias there've been there and never felt the ghost of the siege in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw had lived ons always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. But a dreadful time this was. At the peak times The other side of Nazi oppression and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minute'' of the day on average. The city decision was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is sealed when a place where it can – and does here – snow in June. Without giving too much room became available (courtesy of the diet away, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having Deborah Moggach) at a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or catsvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margery Kempe and Anthony Bale (editor)Christopher Fowler|title=The Book of Margery KempeWord Monkey|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born around 1373, Margery Kempe grew up It's the first of August in the middle of a family cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of good standing - her Father serving as a mayorgoing to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and as I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a member of parliament) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. Whilst no records remain of her childhood No spoiler alerts, it the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is unlikely something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that Margery would have received any kind of formal education. She washe is dying, howeverand you know he actually is at that point, taught religious texts, which may well have set the way for the visions she would encounter later in lifebecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0199686645</amazonuk>0857529625
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Kit De Waal
|title= Without Warning and Only Sometimes
|rating= 4
|genre= Autobiography
|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. 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 Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. 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 the kind of anger only a child can express to their parents.
|isbn=1472284852
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedyBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Oscar & LucyI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=With When the film about Alan TuringDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn'The Imitation Game'' getting rave reviews and award nominations rightt really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, left that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and centreat core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the sterling work done by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII truth as it is quite high , in our minds. But Enigma wasn't the only code broken and Turing wasn't the only one doing secret but heroic workearly 21st century. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095646968X</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Millergareth_steel|title=The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My LifeNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Andy Miller and his wife both worked and they had I don't often begin my reviews with a three-year-old sonwarning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Despite Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the fact that Miller was an editor companion volume you've been looking for . As a London publisher he felt TV show the author would argue that he'd 'lostAll Creatures'' reading from his lifelacked realism, as do other similar programmes. He seemed to acquire a lot of books, but making time Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading them was an entirely different matter- I agree with him. With the help of his wife He says that he developed a 'list of betterment' - initially a limited number of great books which he determined s written it to read inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but eventually it became fifty great books doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and two not so great, which he was going to master over the space of a year. He was re-integrating books into everyday lifeeating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00QJV7OAI</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane HawkingDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Travelling to InfinitySpeedy: The True Story Behind the Theory of EverythingHurled Through Havoc|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Travelling How to Infinity maps summarise the tapestry life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a rich and complex lifepithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Marsh0571365884|title=Do No Harm: Stories My Mess is a Bit of Life, Death and Brain Surgery: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=We've all heard Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the phrase 'bed were comfortable: it's not brain surgery' was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but what is it really like such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to operate on someone's brain in the frightening knowledge that a small sliptherapist, a slight error can have the most devastating consequences for the patientas an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with death probably not being the worst? Henry Marsh her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Fellow Bit of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley/St Georgea Life: Adventures in Anxiety's. If anyone knows what it's like then Henry Marsh is the man result - or so we are given to tell youbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178022592X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer KlinecDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in IranTattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Jennifer Klinec Alzheimer's is the daughter a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of Hungarian immigrant parents who ran an automotive factory in southwest Ontario. She learned early on to be self-sufficient, even enrolling herself in boarding schools in Switzerland and Dublin. After graduation she moved to LondonI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, made a pile as an investment banker, have many. Your memories and opened her own cookery school. At age 31, though, she decided to travel to personality worn away like a statue over time affected the Iranian city of Yazd to learn Persian disheselements. She met Vahid, 25, a military veteran with an engineering background, in a park It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and he introduced her to his mother for cooking lessonsyour dignity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844088235</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marion Coutts|title=The Iceberg: A Memoir|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This is what makes Daniel Gibbs'Something has happenedmemoir so admirable. A piece of news. We have had Daniel Gibbs is a diagnosis that has the status of an event. The news makes a rupture neurologist who was diagnosed with what went before.' With these plain, unsentimental words Coutts begins her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of her husband Tom Lubbock's decline Alzheimers and death from a brain tumour. Shortlisted for the Costa Biography award and longlisted for the has documented his journey in ''GuardianA Tattoo on my Brain'' First Book Award, it was also a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782393501</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|isbn=0008333173|title=Hungry: A Tour Memoir of Bones: Facing Fear and Looking for LifeWanting More|author=Denise IngeGrace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=American-born Dr Denise Inge was an expert I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on seventeenth-century mystic poet Thomas Traherne, mother to two daughters, and wife ''Masterchef''. You know that you're going to get an Anglican clergyman. Her husband's appointment as Bishop honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of Worcester saw them move to a townhouse adjacent to Worcester Cathedral – and attached to a charnel housethe time. Whatever to do You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with a basement full all that good food in front of bones? An even more pressing question was what to do with her fear . I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of the death they represented, especially when Inge was diagnosed with inoperable sarcoma late Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in the writing processequal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472913078</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Diana CooperLouisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Though she is perhaps little remembered these days except as the mother of writer ''You can't be happy and historian John Julius Norwich, Lady Diana Cooper was one of the towering figures in society life between the wars and for much of the period before her death in 1986fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009957859X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's BodyguardSakinu Ahronglong|authortitle=Rochus MischHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am proud to declare an interest not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all things Holocaustup, one of or whether it is as the key areas of which was blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the last days of Hitler – latter. It feels like the Downfallstories he tells about his experiences as a child, if you likeas an adolescent, way before youtube satiristsas an adult are real and true. So this book, from the man who for some unspecified years was the last eye-witness to have been in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of the Nazi regime, was always going to be But memory is a great read. It remained that even after the foreword dismissed its own bookfickle thing, pointing out differences and maybe poetic licence has taken over here to the canon of thought about the timings etc of April/May 1945, and declaring the author somewhat naïve in not being so aware, circumspect there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and authoritative about the major points of WWIItherefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848327498</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Diary of a Mad Diva|author=Joan Rivers|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=The late Joan Rivers was, without a doubt, a character. Actress, comedian, writer, director, presenter, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue and no holds barred persona. This was the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425269027</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1544641923|title=Life on AirAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=David AttenboroughSandra Aragona|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was one of It's tempting to think that the generation who grew up when David Attenborough was a giant among presenters of wildlife programmes on television, diplomatic life is privileged and anything with his name attached was a must-watchluxurious. At the timeIt might be privileged, I had no idea but family connections tell me that he was also one of it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the pivotal characters in diplomatic spouse, the development of broadcastingaccompanying baggage, well, having been controller of BBC2 and director of programming for BBC TV for several yearsthat's an entirely different matter. These days, he She (and it still usually is probably best remembered for writing and presenting the nine ‘Life’ series, a comprehensive survey of all life 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on the planet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908524</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=The Last EscaperOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Peter TunstallMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=''The Last Escaper'' opens differently to many Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the great escape biographies that were released soon after the war as it is told some 70 years laterparenting of their two daughters. Peter Tunstall was an RAF pilot who was shot down Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and spent many her sister, Beata, then nine years as a Prisoner Of War across occupied Europeold, including in Colditzstruggled with what was happening. He lived through the warIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but also lived through many decades of peaceeventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. Will these years of the relative quiet life lesson the tales of bravery and dare doing of the war? Of course not!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071564923X</amazonuk>If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=191280493X|title=The AnimalsComing of Age|author=Christopher Isherwood and Don BachardyDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Christopher Isherwood is a writer whose work was often (in fact nearly always) biographical, ''He began writing novels and one who was always very open about his personal life. Interest in poetry at the life age of Isherwood seems twelve, but it was to have been rife recently, with take him a film about Isherwood and Bachardy released in 2008, an adaptation of Isherwood's book 'A Single Man' released in 2009further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, and he remains a BBC adaptation of 'Christopher and his Kind' released in 2011, as well as the seemingly countless revivals shining example of hope over experience...'Cabaret'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700827</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=190874572X|title=Me After YouLetters from Tove|author=Lucie BrownleeTove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=People die all Back at the time. I’m not trying beginning of the century, I went on holiday to be crude, they just doNepal. It’s the circle I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of life, or some less Disney-fied sentimentfriends. And I can't remember if everyone whose partner it was on that holiday or parent died wrote a book about it, well, to say later one that would be less than good would be a severe understatement. For a book on such a theme Paula told me I really had to be worth reading, it has to have a pull, a twist, something to make you look twiceread Tove Jansson. In Lucie’s case it’s the fact I do know that her husband Mark it was only 37 four years old when he died. And not only later thatI finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, he died during a bit and that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Talk about going out with a bangJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555832</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ellie Laks1908745819|title=My Gentle Barn: where animals heal and children learn to hopeSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As Sometimes when people suggest that you read a child Ellie Laks was abusedcertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but not only did she suffer at rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the hands of her abuserbook. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, she also had to endure parental indifference to what I was happening to hertold why. Her only relief came through animals - and even then she had to cope when The blurb speaks of the animals were taken from herauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. '' As an adult she discovered that she had Older. Less tethered. That's not a real talent for healing animals - and that they helped her to heal toobad description of where I am. In a brilliant leap Add to that my love of intuition she realised that if the animals could help her to heal they could do natural world, of those aspects of the same poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. others and I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so the Gentle Barn was born - a place where animals were brought as a place of safety and where disadvantaged children and special needs groups could use as therapyquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584883</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Any Other Mouth1906852472|author=Anneliese Mackintosh|ratingtitle=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=With a title like ''Any Other Mouth'', you know from the outset that this is, shall we say, a rather niche book. It’s not all about orifices, though. Partially autobiographical, this is the messy, ludicrous, wildly entertaining story of a girl who’s just a little bit different. Ok, make that Wild Child: Growing Up a lot different.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754575</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=My Outdoor LifeNomad|author=Ray MearsIan Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sometimes, a seemingly insignificant incident in one's youth can have far-reaching For Ian Mathie fans there is good and profound consequencesbad news. Life is punctuated Ian has come up with pivotal moments that can completely alter the missing link in his narrative, the story of a course of events. Ray Mears recalls such an incident when aged sixvery unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he opened an encyclopaedia and saw a picture of cavemen for the first timebecame). A few months The bad – well it's hardly news two years later, – is that the same volume was sitting on the edge his deskbook is published posthumously. As always, when suddenlyit's beautifully written, it started to slide. Mears reached out to grab itwith many exciting moments.What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk.Seemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444778218</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Rakoff1999811402|title=My Salinger YearPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joanna Rakoff was twenty three when she took 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 job as assistant lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to a literary agent in New Yorkplant when and where for the best results. SheThe answer would be something along the lines of 'd not long left graduate school (try it and her 'college boyfriendsee') and her dream was to become a poet. The job was for experience Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and for income is now an A&E consultant (part- her parents were somewhat dismissive of the position, pointing time). I found out that it was there's an awful lot more to what used to be called goes on in a secretary - Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but there was that isn't really what the book's about. There's a bonus lot about rock & roll, which Rakoff had not anticipatedseems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, or even appreciated when she first heard of but itdidn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. The agency might be stuck in Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the past hard way'? Yep - with Dictaphones and typewriters rather than computers - but its main client was J D Salingerthat's the one. Rakoff knew the name - obviously - but she had never read one of his booksIt's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408830175</amazonuk>
}}
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