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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Davison0241636604|title=The Dark ThreadsTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Like any other teenage girl If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the 60spin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, Jean Davison spent her days playing recordswhere he was familiar with violence, hanging out in coffee shops with girlfriends poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and undertaking her first fumbles he has a facility with boysnumbers which most of us can only envy. She He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was brighthis ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a talented and eager writer full of dreams about the futuretrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906373590</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Kershaw1529395224|title=No Off SwitchLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The AutobiographySecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn'The boy Kershawt want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father' as his hero s life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and later friend John Peel sometimes wryly referred to was convinced this was the job for him on air. Before long, has had a pretty remarkable lifehe was at Liverpool University. HeIt hadn's t - as with so many students - been – taken his dream since he was a deep breath – a concert promoter while studying politics at Leeds Universitychild. If anything, Billy Bragghe's driver across most of Europe, a presenter on BBC TV and successively also on Radios 1, 3 and 4, a news correspondent reporting from Iraq, Haiti, Angola and Rwanda, and also done time as d wanted to be a guest of Her Majestyprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687446</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Natalie TaylorEdel Rodriguez|title=Signs of LifeWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=34|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Natalie Taylor was just twenty four years oldWe're in childhood, and five months pregnant, when her husband died we're in a tragic accidentCuba. This memoir takes us from The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the day she found out he was dead through country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to her son's first birthdaycreate a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. NatalieOur narrator's situation is horribly sad. I canfamily weren't even begin to imagine what I would have done in her place. The record the happiest of her grieving process is very raw and honest. Based upon her journals that she kept through this time her pain leaps off places here, an uncle refusing to be the page and makes you feel sick inside for good soldier the horror she's facing. I liked that she doesn't seem to country demanded (especially as he would probably be advocating a correct way shipped off to grieve. She simply states how she feltsome minor pro-Communism skirmish, how she reacted at each momentsuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, be that calmly and quietly or with ragingnot liked for his successful photography business, screaming tearssuccess being frowned upon. Luckily she had an extremely supportive family and a good group The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of friends and the heat, but in this sultry island country, it is interesting - if rather disturbing - to follow her progress as she deals with her life without her husband.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444724673</amazonuk>1474616720
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Schama1035025299|title=Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Ice Cream, Obama, Churchill and My Mother|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=The collection has been divided into reader-friendly sections named, for example - ''Travelling, Testing Democracy, Cooking and Eating'', to name but three. As a professor of Art History, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's also a rather chunky section on Schama's thoughts on the art world. Politics also is a centre-stage subject. Each article is headed with where it first appeared and the numerous Guardian pieces may be well-known Went to some. So I suppose you could say that this is second time aroundLondon, for those who missed the first publication. Not a bad thing at all when Took the writing is as good as this, I'd say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546655</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Barbara Sinatra|title=Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank SinatraNina Stibbe|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Barbara Blakeley, born in 1926, was married firstly Nina Stibbe is returning to Robert Oliver, an executive, with whom she had London for a son, and secondly to Zeppo Marxsabbatical after being away for twenty years. But it was the already thrice-married and thriceShe's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening -divorced Francis Albert Sinatra, whom she had idolized as a singer for a long time, with whom she would make her most enduring marriage, and vice versayou might expect. They tied The other side of the knot in 1976, and stayed together until his death in 1998decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937248</amazonuk>
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 {{newreview|author=Anna Burley|title=Bipolar Parent|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Anna Burley keeps telling herself that she is a responsible adult now and works on the idea that most people would see her as a normal, well-grounded person. What people ''don't'' see is the story of her childhood. She wrote it down to get rid of it, to get it out her system and rid herself of those pockets of pain which live under her skin. She's decided that she's not going to run from it all any longer. ''Bipolar Parent'' is the story of her childhood and the parent who had such an influence in making her into what she is today.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1456775332</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian A GriffithsChristopher Fowler|title=DMD Life Art and MeWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Griffiths suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - It's the first of August in the middle of a form cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of muscular dystrophy which causes muscle degenerationgoing to my beach hut. It begins The weather closed in early childhood with difficulty in walking , rain arrived, and progresses I decided not to cause problems with breathing and all the voluntary musclesdo that either. Ultimately When I finished reading this book, I realised it's fatal. Men was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and boys – it's linked (b) I did not want to the X chromosome do so affects only males – with the disease have a life expectancy of between the late teens and mid-twentiesanywhere near my shack. Ian's in his mid-twenties now and heNo spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 's written was'DMD Life: art and me' to explain what it really feels like to live with the diseasehis first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. And when I say 'really feels like' I do mean There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at thatpoint, because he does. Ian doesn't gloss over ''anything''He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907652337</amazonuk>0857529625
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bob Marshall-AndrewsKit De Waal|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political HumbugWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, rather too late your mum and dad/ They may not mean to be , 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 career politician (he was already 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 established QC) Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and with marrying a profound distrust of authorityblack man. He had no aspirations towards office, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he would become best known for being This intersectionality plays a dissidentlarge role in the autobiography. I occasionally enquired as Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to which party held his allegiance her race, her class and eventually concluded that he went her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – care, love, and I did wonder if this would be just one more to add the kind of anger only a child can express to the piletheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>1472284852
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen1638485216|title=Out Of AfricaBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening yearsCorruption is not department, gender or race specific. It wasnhas everything to do with character. Period.'t just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Sara Wheeler|title=Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=This is a great book to acquire if your general knowledge of historical adventurers is as haphazard as mine. Somewhere along the line, I'd missed out on Scott and Shackleton, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps from such a reliable informant. One brisk section, for example, managed to encapsulate both Antarticamore body just wouldn't matter's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during a wintry gale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090712</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Betty Lussier|title=Intrepid Woman: Betty LussierThe 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 Secret War, 1942-1945|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Betty Lussier death was born in Alberta, Canadaan exception. At the height The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed backlash against the border to the States and settled down to the hard life of raising dairy cattle police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the crops needed to feed themChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1591144493</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Bride PriceI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'Bride Pricem inclined to think it doesn' has proved an even more absorbing t really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book than I anticipated from its Amazon write-up. I know, having read it the book in a single sitting; the issues question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it raised overwhelming my thoughts for matters very much how the next couple rest of days. In terms of its overall flavourthe world responds to this book, quality and impact valuebecause it tells the truth as it is, I'd bracket it with in the classic 'Walkabout' by James Vance Marshallearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906852081</amazonuk>1526644827
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Isaiah Berlingareth_steel|title=Enlightening: Letters 1946 - 1960Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Isaiah Berlin wrote in tribute I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to the memory be appropriate. Stories of Dorothy de Rothschild of her personality, a vet'…overwhelming charm, great dignity, a very lively sense of humour, pleasure in the oddities of s life, an unconquerable vitality have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a kind of eternal youth and an eager responsiveness to all TV show the author would argue that passed…' Reading this second volume of letters'All Creatures'' lacked realism, now available in paperback, covering Berlinas do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's most creative periodwritten it to inform and provoke thought, these same characteristics might be aptly applied to Sir Isaiah himselfparticularly amongst aspiring vets. HoweverIt deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, as this most self-aware of intellectuals recognised, his loquacity although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and compulsive socialising were driven by a persistent need to escape a sense of unreality, an inner voideating. In these letters he writes, 'my quest for gaiety is a perpetual defence against the extreme sense of the abyss by which I have been affected ever since I can remember myself…'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138348</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bill LarkworthyDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Doctor LarkSpeedy: The Benefits of a Medical EducationHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bill Larkworthy is a pleasant fellow who has lead an eventful, but not world-shattering life. So at the outset it's probably worth saying that this self-deprecating tale won't light many literary fires. If fireworks are what you are looking for, search elsewhere. On How to summarise the other hand, I always find ordinary people's stories of everyday life fascinating, as well as providing useful background, or what used to be called 'general knowledge', about other parts of the world. Since my general knowledge of the Gulf States is more or less limited Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to Lawrence kick off a review of Arabia and current news reportshis memoir? Do you know, a little padding wonI really don't go amiss. So yes, I did enjoy this read, and think I imagine the Saga age group will borrow it in steady numbers from libraries (if they can find one open). It would make a good present for a man of a certain age, which is:|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852065</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Titchmarsh
|title=When I Was A Nipper
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|Dave is an author=Margaret Powell|title=Below Stairs: and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The Bestselling Memoirs son of a 1920s Kitchen Maid|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Below Stairs'' was first published in 1968Lutheran minister, and ithe's no exaggeration struggled with a controlling father, run away to claim Margaret Powell as the trailblazer for join the memoir genre. This book encouraged hundreds of autobiographies of common life, and spawned circus (not a whole generation of tv programmes. In its vernacular and popularist waymetaphor), it was probably as influential as Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor'. Before hertrained horses, only famous people wrote their storiespainted caravans, designed and that without too much regard for reality. Unless they were literary writerspainted theatre sets, achievements were downplayed and emotions hidden away, in the stilted style of the British stiff upper lip. Not so Margaret Powell, who became a publishing sensation hit rock bottom when she blasted through with a robust Voice rather than a polished narrative, in the first-ever tale of an ordinary servant writing about everyday life below stairsbottle took over. Imagine being talent-spotted from an evening class and invited to write your memoir: those were the days! |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330535382</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
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{{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
{{newreview|author=Victoria Coren|title=For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a Player|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Some things are in the blood. For Victoria Coren it was cards. As book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack book by their grandfathera woman. He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was ''always'' the dealer and ''always'' the winner. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler. Victoria was one of life's risk-takers and she leant to the more adventurous side of her fatherThe Bookseller's family. She was unhappy at school, preferring the company of her brother's straight-talking friends to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at school. In the intervening twenty years she's won a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672930</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021
{{newreview|author=Amy Chua|title=Battle Hymn of Otegha Uwagba came to the Tiger Mother|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Amy Chua has firm beliefs about parentingUK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. She brought up It was her two daughtersmother who came first, Sophia and Lulu, using a strict set of rules – including no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no choice of extra curricular activity, no grades less than an Awith her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and no being less than determined that their children would have the number 1 student in any 'academic' subjectbest education possible. Then there's the piano and violin practice… On hearing she called herdaughter Sophia 'garbage', an acquaintance There was always a painful awareness of hers burst money although this did not translate into tearsa shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. The thought of praising one of When Otegha was ten the girls for getting family acquired a Bcar. For Otegha, as many American parents doeducation meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, would no doubt have a similar affect on ChuaOxford. Mother – or monster?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812673</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eva Petulengro0571365884|title=The Girl My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in the Painted Caravan: Memories of a Romany ChildhoodAnxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Eva Petulengro was born in Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a painted caravan in 1939child. Her Romany family She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had travelled in Norfolk nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and Lincolnshire for generationsfar between. She has had On a very successful career as visit to a clairvoyanttherapist, writer of horoscope columns and publisher of magazinesas an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and her daughter ''My Mess is also a well known media astrologer. The Girl Bit of a Life: Adventures in the Painted Caravan Anxiety'' is a memoir of her childhood and youth, up until her marriage in her 20s and the beginning of her careerresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519999</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry Leslie SmithDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=1923: A MemoirTattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Harry Leslie Smith was born in 1923. If youAlzheimer're wondering about the title – s is a disease that's the explanation – slowly wears away your identity and although it's when Harry began his life it's not where his story began. He takes us back some years before to his father's family with its roots in mining and a sideline in running a pub which was to make them comfortable if not wealthysense of self. Harry's father was middle-aged when he got involved with LillianI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, a teenage girlas have many. Unsurprisingly his family were not impressed or welcoming when the pair married because Your memories and personality worn away like a child was on statue over time affected the wayelements. Albert Smith expected It seems as if nature wants that he would inherit the pub when his father died, but it passed to his uncle final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so began admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a life of disappointment for Albert neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and Lillianhas documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1450254136</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{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.''
{{newreview|author=Keith Richards|title=Life|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Nearly forty years ago, Keith Richards The stereotypical farmer was considered probably born on the next most likely rockland where ''his'n'roll star family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to succumb what he really wants to drugsdo: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. The man has defied all Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the odds in staying aliveWirral: 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 continuing she was well on her way to do what he has been doing for almost half achieving this when her life changed on a centuryfamily holiday to the Lake District. In the processShe saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, he has earned farmer' lacked the sometimes grudgingkudos of her original intention, sometimes unqualified respect of those who would once never given him she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the time determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of dayher, she set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297854399</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Shilling0008333173|title=The Stranger in the MirrorHungry: A Memoir of Middle AgeWanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Middle-aged women disappearI'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Masterchef''. They are not see on television, their lives do not appear in newspapers, the legions of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At least, You know that is what the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 you're going to find get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the narrative of her contemporaries and their lives which time. You also ponder on how she has been reading about and living in parallel can look so elegant with since leaving university has vanished. She looks all that good food in the mirror and sees a face she does not recognisefront of her. Even with a punishing regime of early bed, no alcohol I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and litres ''Hungry: A Memoir of water, it refuses to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides to take Wanting More'' is a magnifying glass to this particular moment stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in time, this journey between youth and old ageequal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701181001</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1504321383
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.
{{newreview|author=Christopher Isherwood|title=Diaries Volume 1|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for America in the company of poet WH Audenher. This hefty volume covers his diaries from It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that date until August 1960, when he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthdaythey can live happily ever after. A 49-page introduction setting out the background leads us into the entries, which Few girls are divided into three sections – The Emigration, lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the end of 1944; The Post-war Years, to 1956; expectation that they will marry and The Late Fiftieshave children. After these we have It was a chronology belief and glossary, or to put it more accurately would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a section of brief biographies of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over belief is a hundred pages altogetherchoice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555824</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BurnsideSakinu Ahronglong|title=Waking Up In ToytownHunter School|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=After years The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of alcoholism and borderline insanityfiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, John Burnside decides or whether it is as the blurb goes on to become normal. This involves moving to Surreysay ''recollections, working in an office folklore and settling into a numbing daily routine he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards bad habitsautobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. These memoirs chronicle It feels like the failure of stories he tells about his bid for normality experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and subsequent disillusionment with the projecttrue. It's But memory is a solipsistic account but the writing is powerful fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it draws you in. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099507838</amazonuk>1999791282
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhoda Janzen1544641923|title=Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Coming HomeAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Even although It's tempting to think that the obliging blurb on the back cover tells the reader a little about being Mennonitediplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, I couldn't resist looking but family connections tell me that it up in the dictionaryis far from luxurious. I was intrigued Now you're not going to start reading. And emblazoned across the front cover is get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'No 1 In The US'. Great praise indeedto do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, I thoughtthat's an entirely different matter. But how would She (and it go down across the pond? Time to find out ..still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789031X</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt0241446732|title=The Memory ChaletOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In 2008 the historian Tony Judt The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative disorder that eventually results in complete paralysis for the sufferer. Unable to jot down ideas as they came to him, Judt had to rely an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on his memory to hold them until he had most of the chance to dictate his words to somebody elseparenting of their two daughters. His memory Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, which was already goodBeata, became exceptional. The progress of the disorder left Judt unable to movethen nine years old, but no mental deterioration or lack of sensation occurred, which he describes as a mixed blessingstruggled with what was happening. He had to endure whole nights lying in the same position In such circumstances, unable it's natural to roll over or even seek a solution close to scratch an itchhome, a prisoner in his own body. To preserve his sanity during these tortuous nights he focussed on events from his own pastbut eventually, linking then with other events and ideas it had never occurred became clear to him the family that they were connected''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. It was during these reveries that the essays in The Memory Chalet If they were not only conceived, but also developed in to find a way to live happily again their entiretysolution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020966</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Leon Davis191280493X|title=Running Scared: For 22 Years He Was a Fugitive - The Corrupt Cop Busted by GodComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Robert Davis was ''He began writing novels and poetry at the eldest age of nine children all living with their grandmother in New Orleans – on welfare. His grandmother was a good, honest woman and Davis loved and respected hertwelve, but money it was so tight to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he resorted to thieving to bring some extra food in wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for the family. He knew all that she would be deeply upset about ittime, but hunger is hungerhe remains a shining example of hope over experience. In your heart you can't blame him and it seems that all is coming good when Davis becomes a respected police officer in the mid nineteen-seventies. He's living with a good, decent woman and looks set to have a good career. Great, you think, sometimes life ''is'' fair and it works out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854249932</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Denis O'Connor
|title=Paw Tracks at Owl Cottage
|rating=3.5
|genre=Pets
|summary='Paw Tracks at Owl Cottage' is the story of four pedigree Maine Coon cats which the author and his wife acquired after moving back to a cottage where they had previously lived. This is the sequel to a volume called 'Paw Tracks in the Moonlight', which I have not read, and which features their first cat Toby Jug. Apparently, on his demise, they had sold the cottage; but now, a little more advanced in years, they buy it again, and do extensive renovations before deciding that it's ready for another cat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849016402</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Gervase Phinn|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's books, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had 'This a real flavour memoir from someone you have never heard of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just the setting, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many years, - but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculouswill feel like you have. Here he collates stories from his other books, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicky Haslam190874572X|title=Redeeming FeaturesLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=35
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nicholas HaslamBack at the beginning of the century, interior designer, columnist, reviewer, the man whom I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was said would attend on that holiday or a lighted candlelater one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, let alone a party, socialite and name dropper - this is your lifethat I 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954623X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gok Wan1908745819|title=Through Thick and ThinSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Famous for his sensitivity and understanding with womenSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, encouraging they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them and enabling them to accept themselvesat their word, and their bodiesor not, as but rarely do we ask them why they arethought so, Gok Wanunless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's autobiography sadly tells a very different story with regards rare experience. People who are sensitive to his own body acceptancehearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. Having gained weight throughout his childhoodThe blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, getting up less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to twenty one stone as a teenagerthat my love of the natural world, he loathed his body of those aspects of the poetic and ended up starving himselflyrical that are about style not form, becoming anorexic in a desperate effort to be thin andsubstance most of all, thereforeabout connection. Of course, successfulthis book had my name on it. Perhaps this is where his empathy comes from? It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. That when he stands a woman in front of a wall of mirrors in her underwear, he actually truly understands what I am pleased to have it is to loathe your own bodyfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091938392</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Wynn1906852472|title=Two Sons in a War Zone: AfghanistanWild Child: The True Story of Growing Up a Father's ConflictNomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's almost a nightly occurrence – that For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news item which contains . Ian has come up with the words '… has been killed missing link in Afghanistan' and we think his narrative, the story of a young lifevery unusual childhood (yes, or young lives cut tragically shortthe very years that made him the amazing man he became). TheyThe bad – well it're fresh-faced young men or women at what should have been s hardly news two years later – is that the beginning of their adult life and now they are no morebook is published posthumously. You feel for them and their familiesAs always, but what about the families who have people they love out in Afghanistanit's beautifully written, who live each day with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the worry feeling that many of the knock will be coming to their door? Stephen Wynn has two sons who have done tours of duty questions in Afghanistan and who Ian Mathie's later books are likely to do so againanswered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that'Two Sons s now left in a War Zone' the drawer is his story of how he copes with the unrelenting pressureunpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570244</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Don Mullan1999811402|title=The Boy Who Wanted to FlyPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There is 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 Foreward by both Pele and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Names lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to make most of us sit up plant when and noticewhere for the best results. The title is certainly quirky answer would be something along the lines of 'try it and Mullan is probably hoping that prospective readers will be saying to themselves, whatsee's this all about then. Good startThen I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, I thoughtbecame a busker, finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). Then I realised found out that there's an awful lot of football more to what goes on in this a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't really what the book's about. Even although itThere's a slimlot about rock & roll, sliver which seems to be the real passion of a bookHartley's life, therebut it didn's no getting away from t actually fit into the subject matterentertainment genre either. Football. I donDid we have a category for 't doing the impossible the hard way'do? Yep - that' footballs the one. So, I counted to ten, put on what I hoped was a good reviewerIt's face and started to read ..an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907756019</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Megan Rix|title=The Puppy That Came For Christmas and Stayed Forever|rating=4|genre=Pets|summary=Megan Rix and husband Ian took Move on two massive challenges at the same time. Their failure to conceive a child became something of an issue with Megan being, as she herself said 'north of forty'. Time was passing quickly and it looked as though IVF was the only option if they were to have the long-for child. It's time-consuming and traumatic. At the same time the couple became involved with a charity which provides helper dogs for people with disabilities. Puppies come to a family for six months to do their basic training and then move on. And that was how Emma, a soft, sweet-natured, adorable puppy came into their lives. Predictably, they fell in love with her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rachel Johnson|title=A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as Editor|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Along with most of my contemporaries I've never read 'The Lady' except once when looking for an au pair job in my student days, and that, it turns out, is the problem. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed in June 2009 the average age of the readership was 75, the circulation was dropping and the magazine was haemorrhaging money. The Budworth family, proprietors of 'The Lady' since it was founded 125 years ago, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn the magazine's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editor.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Biography Reviews]]