132,585
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot0241636604|title=Dotter of Her Father's EyesThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='To live forever or die If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in the attemptyour mind, you' was re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the essential glory in life pin-stripe suit and living that his background is at the heart East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]Economics. This autobiography of the daughter Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his creatorability at what was, Joseph Helleressentially, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller familya card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The harebrained unpredictability Eventually, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verveturned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Whyman1529395224|title=Pig in Letting the Cat Out of the MiddleBag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=PetsAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I'm so pleased I read this bookSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. ItHis 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 only life. When he was seventeen he took the occasional writer opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who grabs me by was a vet and was convinced this was the short and curlies job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his observation of human naturedream since he was a child. If anything, but accomplished childrenhe's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as welld wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Cockburn and Henry CockburnEdel Rodriguez|title=Henry's DemonsWorm: Living with Schizophrenia. a Father and Son's StoryA Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=In February 2002 Patrick Cockburn was We're in Kabulchildhood, reporting to and we're in Cuba. The Independent on the fall revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the Talibancountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. While he was there he called Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his wife Jan at home time away. Our narrator's family weren't in Englandthe happiest of places here, and was shocked an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to learn that their 20some minor pro-year-old elder son Henry had been rescued by fishermen after coming close to death while swimmingCommunism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, fully clothedand not liked for his successful photography business, in the icy waters of the Newhaven estuarysuccess being frowned upon. The police had decided that he was a danger mother gets the couple jobs with the party to himselfease some of the heat, and he was now but in a mental hospital.this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847377033</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Lammy1035025299|title=Out of the Ashes: Britain After the Riots|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Just about everyone in the country was shocked as pictures of the 2011 riots (which began in Tottenham and spread Went to other major cities in the UK) unfolded on our television screens. Everyone, that is, except David LammyLondon, MP for Took the area. He might not have known when it would happen or what would trigger the riot, but a year before, he said that it would happen. This wasn't a lucky guess: Lammy was born in Tottenham and brought up on the Broadwater Farm Estate as one of five children raised by his single-parent mother and he knows what's happening on the ground.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652674</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Gillian Lynne|title=A Dancer in Wartime: One Girl's Journey from the Blitz to Sadler's WellsNina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=At eight Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years old, Gill Pyrke was driving her parents crazy. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as she couldnthere't sit still and was nicknamed ''wriggles always something smallholding happening -bottom''as you might expect. Her mum took her to see The other side of the family GP and told him in great detail how annoying she decision was. The doctor asked if he could talk to Gill alone and put on some music. She started to dance around and climbed on to his desk. He prescribed ballet classes. She started off in sealed when a Bromley dance class where one of her classmates was later to be the famous ballerina Beryl Grey. This story is lovely and funny, and has lots of elements room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a dream story, yet is told in a very down to earth style which makes it very convincing. The same could be said of the whole of Gillian Lynne's memoir of her early years, starting out on a brilliant career in dancereasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185996</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I 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 (b) I saw did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the BBCdust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 's was'Oranges Are Not The – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=0857529625}}{{Frontpage|author= Kit De Waal|title= Without Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Fruit' a semi-autobiographical account Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of Winterson's childhoodparenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book's title is equally memorable 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 unique her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and we learn that it's marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a line Mrs Winterson said 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 young Jeanettekind of anger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224093452</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angie Beasley1638485216|title=The Frog PrincessBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=35
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I expected a tabloid expose of the beauty queen industry, or a spirited defence against feminist ethical attacks of the past few years from one of its successful 'victims'. Best of allCorruption is not department, I enjoy an ordinary person telling an authentic emotional tale, whatever their circumstances gender or personal history. Sadly I'm afraid that this book fell rather short on these attractionsrace specific. At first I felt that Angie Beasley deserved a lot more editorial help in developing her manuscriptIt has everything to do with character. Then I realised that the story was ghost written, which explains the lack of authentic voice fairly neatlyPeriod.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718158318</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Supper With The PresidentI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's such a pleasure When the Dalai Lama adds his words to read an Ian Mathie bookyour frontispiece, so I really looked forward 'm inclined to think it doesn'Supper with t really matter how the rest of the President'world responds to your book. No surprises I know, then, to find this having read the book every bit as delightfulin question, intriguing and informative as his othersthat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. Ian Mathie He knows exactly (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to stitch up a good story; this book, because it tells the occasional photographs - proving truth as it is, in the stories are not fiction – come almost as early 21st century.|isbn=1526644827}}{{Frontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a surprise. The books are helpfully illustrated warning but with simple maps placing the stories in geographical context''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. To me, Ian Mathie Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is simply definitely not the best of companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the relatively unknown writers I have come across author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as a reviewerdo other similar programmes. Interestingly, Gareth Steel says that the two men in my household grab book is not suitable for younger readers and devour Ian Mathie- after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's bookswritten it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and I imagine anyone interested in development distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and/or Africa would welcome one or two of his titles for Christmaseating. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852103</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samuel Beckett, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Lois More Overbeck, George Craig and Dan GunnDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=The Letters of Samuel BeckettSpeedy: Volume 2, 1941-1956Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Despite How to summarise the titlelife of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, Volume 2 I really begins in 1945don't think I can. Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. During the warThe son of a Lutheran minister, Beckett was working he's struggled with the French Resistancea controlling father, and had to go into hiding. In order run away to keep join the picture reasonably complete, there is circus (not a chronology of the war yearsmetaphor), and the introduction includes a lettercard sent to James Joyce in February 1941trained horses, a pre-printed postcard presenting prefabricated phrases which the sender could strike out as appropriate. During the war only the mildest of family news could be sent through the mailpainted caravans, designed and even this was subject to censorship. Joyce never received the cardpainted theatre sets, as he died and hit rock bottom when the day after it was writtenbottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521867940</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
{{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=Michael Booth0571365884|title=Eat, Pray, EatMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=I really enjoyed ''EatGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, Pray, Love'' by Elizabeth Gilberteven as a child. Initially I thought I'd picked up a ''Me too'' variant with ''Eat, Pray Eat'' She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and must admit to my heart sinkingfar between. But no, here is On a different personality with another story and writing style and after visit to a fewtherapist, doubting pagesas an adult, I when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was away. This suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a story Bit of a family adventure to India, a hard-fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown Life: Adventures in. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his lifeAnxiety'' is the result -view dramatically and for the betteror so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089633</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Candia McWilliamDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in BlindnessTattoo on my Brain|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When you know that a biography tackles alcoholism, a motherAlzheimer's early death, feelings is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of loneliness and worthlessness, culminating in going blind, you expect that self. I have been directly affected by this is going to be one of two types of book – the misery memoircruel disease, or as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the positive 'all ends well' taleelements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs'What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness' is neithermemoir so admirable. It Daniel Gibbs is a book which is as complex as the life it relates, neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and as deephas documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539535</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.''
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 that he'll be a farmer. It's 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 she wanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Mathie0008333173|title=Man in a Mud HutHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Mathie deserves a wider audience. I can't understand why he hasn't been leapt upon by Radio 4 , Saga Magazine, the Sunday papers, the Daily Mail, Uncle Tom Cobley and all since m always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the publication of judges on ''Bride PriceMasterchef'' in January. Here is a You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine new Voice who is completely his own mandining most of the time. His writing is spare, uncomplicated and unassuming You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her. Now Ian Mathie has taken a dusty-dry civil servant and turned him into a hero. DesmondI's first visit to Africa is ve often wondered about the theme of woman behind the dramatic media image and ''Man in a Mud HutHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' story. Set in the 1970's, the intrigue is a stunning read which will make you laugh and suspense sort of reminded me of [[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre|The Spy who came break your heart in from the Cold]] - and it all happenedequal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190685209X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1504321383|title=A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=We tend to remember where we were and how we heard about the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person to the list: John Smith. I remember sitting in my office and a colleague coming in to tell me. She added 'I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader nowYou can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. WeYou are not complete until you find a man'd many angst-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smith's death is the opening entry in this, the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's Diaries. This book covers the first period of 'New Labour', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mikey WalshSakinu Ahronglong|title=Gypsy Boy on the RunHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was surprised The flyleaf to find this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That'Gypsy Boy s possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on the Runto say ' is Mikey Walsh's second recollections, folklore and autobiographical bookstories''. It feels like the latter. The book stands alone It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is a very satisfying readfickle thing,and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there isn't really any feeling and maybe calling it fiction means that vast chunks of his life have been left out – although presumably his first book 'Gypsy Boy', has its safer and therefore more detail on Mikey's childhood as a travelling Romany Gipsypeople will read it. More people should. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444720201</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lydia Ola Taiwo1544641923|title=A Broken Childhood: A True Story of AbuseAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born It's tempting to a Nigerian couple in London in 1964 and spent think that the first five years of her diplomatic life in a foster home in Brightonis privileged and luxurious. Here she was lovedIt might be privileged, looked after and lived her life in a genuinely good but familyconnections tell me that it is far from luxurious. This wasn Now you't an unusual arrangement as re not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it allowed 's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the biological parents to earn money without worrying about childcare – and Ola was happydiplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. It was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her She (and it still usually is a 'homeshe' for the weekend – a weekend which would stretch into seven years of abuse and neglect) can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Max Pemberton0241446732|title=The Doctor Will See You NowOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opinion about, opera singer and this Svante Thunberg took on most of course includes those the parenting of us who work for said organisation (the world's 3rd largest employertheir two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctorthen nine years old, though despite struggled with what you might assume from the titlewas happening. In such circumstances, not it's natural to seek a GP solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a hospital medicburned-out planet''. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of If they were to find a hospital, plus the odd excursion way to live happily again their solution would need to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad readbe radical. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Parks191280493X|title=Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and HealingComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Self-help books are pretty polarising when you think about ''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it. I mean, would you tell somebody that you were reading was to take him a selffurther forty-help book if you had no idea how they were going eight years to react? On the one hand there must be people who devour these kinds of books one after the other, searching for that mystical formula realise that will bring about profound inner changehe wasn’t very good at either. At the other end of the scale are readers Consistently unpublished for all that steer well clear time, he remains a shining example of self-help or anything else that isn't rational and based on proper scientific research and evidencehope over experience.. Entrenched views are what makes this title an interesting proposition. A sceptic's search for health and healing which alludes to meditation? Surely much more interesting than ' ''This a new age guru who already believes wholeheartedly that their insights memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will transform YOUR life and enrich their bank balancefeel like you have. I want to know how the sceptic was convinced, not the guy who entered the room wearing healing crystals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548887</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pauline Black190874572X|title=Black by Design: A 2-tone MemoirLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As Back at the front cover beginning of this volume of reminiscences reminds usthe century, Pauline Black is remembered first I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and foremost for fronting The Selecter, one we became sort-of the few 2-Tone ska bands friends. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to enjoy fleeting chart success at the end of the 1970sread Tove Jansson. Yet reading this reminds us I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that was only I eagerly awaited the tip ''Sort Of'' translations of the icebergrest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668790X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andre Dubus III1908745819|title=Townie: A MemoirSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book opens with Andre and his father taking a jog. Seems a normal and natural activity - whatThat's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to write about herehearing a book calling your name, you could be askingrarely get it wrong. WellIn this case, I'll tell youwas told why. By this time the father no longer lives in the family home, the mother is struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table - and The blurb speaks of the authorconsidering ''an older, Andre is too embarrassed to admit to his father that he doesn't own a pair less tethered sense of jogging shoesherself. He's borrowed his sister's even although they're about two sizes too small, he Older. Less tethered. That's in agony seconds into the jog but is he going to own up? Nope. Bloody feet and pain are not a by-product bad description of precious time with his fatherwhere I am. So straight awayAdd to that my love of the natural world, I'm getting the gist of those aspects of the book poetic and the relationship between father lyrical that are about style not form, and sonsubstance 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. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393064662</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Kershaw1906852472|title=No Off SwitchWild Child: The AutobiographyGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='The boy Kershaw' as For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his hero and later friend John Peel sometimes wryly referred to him on airnarrative, has had the story of a pretty remarkable lifevery unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). HeThe bad – well it's been hardly news two years later – taken a deep breath – a concert promoter while studying politics at Leeds Universityis that the book is published posthumously. As always, Billy Braggit's driver across beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of Europe, the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with 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 a guest of Her Majestysatisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687446</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natalie Taylor1999811402|title=Signs of LifePainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Natalie Taylor was just twenty four years oldIt's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and five months pregnant, when her husband died in a tragic accidentwhere for the best results. This memoir takes us from The answer would be something along the day she found out he was dead through to her sonlines of 'try it and see's first birthday. Natalie's situation 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 is horribly sadnow an A&E consultant (part-time). I canfound out that there't even begin s an awful lot more to imagine what I would have done goes on in her place. The record of her grieving process is very raw and honest. Based upon her journals a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that she kept through this time her pain leaps off isn't really what the page and makes you feel sick inside for the horror shebook's facingabout. I liked that she doesnThere't seem s a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be advocating the real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a correct category for 'doing the impossible the hard way to grieve. '? She simply states how she felt, how she reacted at each moment, be Yep - that calmly and quietly or with raging, screaming tears's the one. Luckily she had It's an extremely supportive family and a good group of friends and it is interesting - if rather disturbing - to follow her progress as she deals with her life without her husbandautobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724673</amazonuk>
}}
Move on to [[Newest Biography Reviews]]