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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ ==Autobiography==<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dana FowleyAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=How Could She?The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of ''We were born from the samebody. She was raped by her motherI's partner and taken ve never really wanted to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of thosethink about this.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Val Doonican1036916375|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete AutobiographyJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the 1960s, if Harold Wilson was the personification ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of politics memories and reflections from the Beatles years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the collective icon family history of youth culturea sea-going family, Val Doonican was similarly at with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the very apex of light entertainmentwhat-might-have-been. He may no longer have such a high profile – but heIt's outlasted them both. Over four decades he has refused a book to bow settle into and allow your mind to passing fads and fashionsroam across your childhood memories, remained true to himselfthink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, and in despite the process he has never really put blitz that was a foot wrongconstant factor in McArdle's early years. As he says towards the end, I'When you find out what it is you do best, d never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and what the public wants from you, then stick with it, and do it as well as you can.' With could appear after the possible exception of his contemporary and longall-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult to think of another person in showbiz who comes across as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'clear was sounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aeronwy Thomas Annie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=My Father's Places: A portrait of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughterThe Possession|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Aeronwy Thomas was six years old when she and her family came to settle after Ernaux opens with a nomadic existence at Laugharnedisclaimer, on warning readers that what follows is more or less a confession: ''I have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the Welsh coast, in 1949book was published''. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on Towards the end of the BBCbook, and while he continued to travel to London regularly for she claims that the purpose title (as well as somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to carouse with friends a brief period of time in his old haunts)her life, labelled and documented here as ''The Possession'', somewhere off in which she felt herself in the throes of an all-encompassing and seductive jealousy targeted at the beaten track was new partner of W, a man she has since separated from after a more suitable working environmentsix-year long affair.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>1804271497
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PalinMary McCarthy|title=Diaries 1969-1979: The Python YearsMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''Never meet your heroes,amateur architect'' goes , obsessively digging into the past to piece together the old adagebroken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''Never read their diariesburning interest in the past'' might be equally sage adviceto her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. That's probably why I didn't tackle Michael PalinThis memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's collected daily journals until nowIrish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Along Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero different kind of my teenage yearsupbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much of the twentieth century, with an author's view of change 'King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and peoplefeminist manifesto, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced which can be seen as a lotcall to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Civil Wars Originally written in French, the neighbouring Spain; the growth book is a collection of his country - essays in which still left it Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as western Europe's pooresta woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhoodThough these discussions are intertwined, in their placement within the country and in Lisbonbook can feel somewhat disjointed, and provides a subtle and gentle memoirreflection of their original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>191309734X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Peel and Sheila RavenscroftJoan Didion|title=Margrave The Year of the MarshesMagical Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=John Peel was without doubt one This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the most important disc jockeys of all timegrief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home to join Radio London and then become one of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his Books that shed light on taboo topics like death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) are such a beautiful and his readiness necessary resource to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to hearhelp people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and I always enjoyed reading his columns in the music weeklies delusion and later Radio Times. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the endmakes them utterly normal, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come lends them a human face to mind), and thought his build-'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a while. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical onewear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>0007216858
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brand1787333175|title=Look Back in HungerYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=3.5|genre=EntertainmentPopular Science|summary=Born in Hastings in May 1957, I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after leaving Brunel University with a degree in social sciencesenjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, Jo Brand unsuccessfully applied for a research job with Channel 4 on a series about racismglorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, then worked for a time as a psychiatric nurse at humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the South London Bethlem same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and Maudsley Hospitalthe work of a psychiatrist. But I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the lure of showbiz proved too strong, laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and stardom in stand-up comedy soon beckonedunderstanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355237</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anita Thompson (Editor)0241636604|title=Ancient Gonzo WisdomThe Trading Game: Interviews with Hunter S ThompsonA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' first graced the shelves. His gonzo style, putting himself at the centre If you were to bring up an image of the storya city banker in your mind, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event he is describing. If thatyou's the case then what is re unlikely to be learned from a selection think of interviews with someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the main man himself then? The answer pin-stripe suit and his background is plenty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Keith Floyd|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The Autobiography|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I grew up the East End, where he was familiar with television cookery programmes violence, poverty and still have some recipes in my childish handwriting, which begin ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…'' as I battled to copy what injustice. There was no posh public school on the screen before we retuned his CV - but he had been to the presenterLondon School of Economics. Programmes stagnated as the cook spoke to camera Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and lectured the viewer on how to make sponge cake or he has a fish dishfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Then we were shocked awakeHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. There It was his ability at what was a man, quite good-looking in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of wayessentially, who cooked on the deck of a trawler or wherever the whim took card game which got him, always glass in hand and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman about how he was doing his joban internship with Citibank. Like himEventually, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floyd, or Floydy to millionsthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Johnson 1529395224|title=Rockers and RollersLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: An Automotive Autobiography The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down as one of the luckiest men in showbizSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. He had His father was a brief moment of glory GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the early 70s as vocalist strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with Geordie, a Tyneside version of Slade, family friend who had three Top 40 hits was a vet and then fell on hard timeswas convinced this was the job for him. After going back to the day jobBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a chance call invited him to go and audition for AC/DC, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly diedchild. Three decades laterIf anything, not only have the group held on he'd wanted to their loyal fanbase, but one of their albums, according to an online source, is second only to Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' in terms of global salesbe a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155424</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan Hill Edel Rodriguez|title=Howards End is on the LandingWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Esteemed authorWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, Susan Hill challenges herself to and Castro, first thought of as a year saviour of not buying booksthe country, has proven himself a Communist, and re-reading some of her vast collection: not done nearly enough to create a terribly original idealevel playing field for all. Well, but an intriguing one nonethelessthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Most avid readers will no doubt have made similar vows at some point in their lives (I know I have…) Early Our narrator's family weren't in the memoirhappiest of places here, Ms Hill does admit that for professional purposes she will continue an uncle refusing to review books sent be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to her some minor pro- but buying/obtaining Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for pleasurehis successful photography business, is success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to be out ease some of bounds. In the course of guiding us through her vast and eclectic collectionheat, scattered throughout her homebut in this sultry island country, she also sets herself it remains the task kind of choosing her top 40 books - and comes up with a very erudite selection.heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682657</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Keenan1035025299|title=I'll Tell Me Ma: A Childhood MemoirWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Keenan memorably told the story of his Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years as a hostage in Beirut in ''An Evil Cradling''. Now he turns to his childhood. Anyone who had an urban upbringing in the 1950She's will find themselves saying been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn'I remember t all that!conducive to writing, as there'' at intervals throughout this books always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Senior Service cigarettes, Pontefract cakes, the rag and bone man, the Lone Ranger, family photographs kept in an old biscuit tin, Dad polishing everyone's shoes, The other side of the realisation that there decision was sealed when a wider world beyond the city streets…These are some room became available (courtesy of the things that brought back my own memories – what can you find?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224062166</amazonuk>Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan BennettChristopher Fowler|title=A Life Like Other People'sWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was his mother's illness which triggered Alan Bennett's excursions into his family backgroundthe 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 bout of depression hadn't cleared as the family had hoped weather closed in, rain arrived, and admission I decided not to hospital was the next step in the treatmentdo that either. Asked if there had been anything like When I finished reading this beforebook, Bennett said I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did notwant to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, failing to notice the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his father's hand gently touch first chapter tells us about his kneeterminal diagnosis. The son was educated 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 Oxford and had even been seen on the televisionthat point, because he does. He did the talking rather than the father, reluctant butcher and a man not given to putting himself forward.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{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.''
''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elliott J Gorn Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneI May Be Wrong|rating=45|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but When the early part of Dalai Lama adds his adult life was words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted think it doesn't really matter how the rest of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upthe world responds to your book. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonmentI know, whilst having read the man book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentencethat thought. It's easy He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to see where Dillinger's contempt for this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the law was spawnedearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia gareth_steel|title=Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia FamilyNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Joaquin I don'Jackt often begin my reviews with a warning but with ' Garcia worked for the FBI. That might sound rather glamorous but Jack had a special claim 'Never Work With Animals'' it seems to famebe appropriate. He was one Stories of those rare people who always worked undercover – not just for hours or days at a time vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but sometimes ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for years. In As a TV show the author would argue that ''Making Jack FalconeAll Creatures'' he tells lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the story of how book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he came 's written it to infiltrate the Mafia in New York inform and was responsible for a string of arrests which crippled the organised crime familiesprovoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. If that It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't sound impressive enoughlack sensitivity, then just consider that Jack Garcia was a Cuban-born American although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and he went undercover as an Italian amongst Italianseating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393942</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Mangan Dave Letterfly Knoderer|title=My Family and Other DisastersSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Not living in How to summarise the UK means that we don't have British newspapers. Even when we lived life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in Englanda pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, we never bought ''The Guardian'', so I had never actually heard of Lucy Mangan before being sent this book. Thatreally don's probably not a bad thing, since t think I began the book - a collection of her Guardian columns - without any preconceptionscan.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852651244</amazonuk>}}
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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
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Wadham 0571365884|title=The Secret My Mess is a Bit of Life of France: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Lynn Barber comes from the ''lowerGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, unremembered, orders on both sides''even as a child. There is no ancestral home or village – just parents who were determined that she should work hard and make something of herself. Well, they She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were – until Simon proposed and comfortable: it was explained the sort of life where if she had nothing to her that Oxford didn't really matter, that being married to a good man worry about she would be more importantbecome anxious but such occasions were few and far between. Simon was much older – older in fact than he would admit On a visit to – and he picked Lynn up (quite literally) at a bus stop therapist, as an adult, when she was just sixteen. Surprisingly completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her parents were unworried by this and threw them together, despite the fact it was suggested that Simon, who was in the property business, had some strange friends. In the nineteen fifties she should write it wasndown and 't every sixteen year old girl who had 'My Mess is a Bit of a passing acquaintance with Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the evil slum landlord, Peter Rachmanresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039558</amazonuk>
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joe Queenan made good despite Alzheimer's is a deprived disease that slowly wears away your identity and neglected childhoodsense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. His world was Your memories and personality worn away like a far cry from statue over time affected the middle class background of most aspiring writers of his generationelements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. He grew up in Philadelphia, born to parents This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so immersed in their own problems that they made little attempt to love or care for their four childrenadmirable. Practically the only way his father provided Daniel Gibbs is a role model neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in his love of reading. Otherwise, he was an alcoholic, frequently beating his young children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330458272</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Carr|title=The Night of the Gun|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography |summary=When you decide to take drugs for the first time, according to most, it's rarely a class 'ATattoo on my Brain' variety - usually it's kids messing around with cannabis. This is how David Carr began his love affair with illicit substances, clearly not even for one second imagining what it would eventually do to him and everyone around him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847396283</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cylin Busby and John Busby1529109116|title=The Year We DisappearedCall Me Red: A Father-Daughter MemoirShepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and Finance Lifestyle|summary=''When my dad dies, his body will go to the Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston'', ''though I suspect they are mostly interested in his head... His was in an interesting case - want the lower half image of his jaw'' ''was removed when he was shot a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the head with a shotgunnation. His tongue was torn in half, his teeth and gums blown'' ' I don'away, leaving a bit of bone t think that was once his chin connected with dangling flesh at the front of his faceis too much to ask.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802015</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Coleen Nolan0008333173|title=Upfront and PersonalHungry: The AutobiographyA Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a child, I was a huge fan 'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the Nolan Sisters. When judges on ''IMasterchef'm in the Mood for Dancing'. You know that you' hit re going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the charts time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in 1979, front of her. I was ten years old. Bernie was my favourite Nolan at 've often wondered about the woman behind the time media image and in recent years, I have enjoyed watching her acting in shows like ''The BillHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More''is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283070889</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick Wakeman1504321383|title=Grumpy Old Rock StarSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Rick Wakeman wrote and published a more conventional autobiography, ''Say Yes!'You can' in 1985, t be happy and it has so far never been updatedfulfilled on your own. This, written with the aid of ghost-writer Martin Roach, takes You are not complete until you find a totally different approach, being a selection of episodes from his sixty years in more or less random order. In theory it might seem rather disjointed, but in practice it works brilliantlyman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090056</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma CharlesSakinu Ahronglong|title=How Could He Do It?Hunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge of thinking The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mum, dad, two daughters, three dogs, it is a rabbit and a couple work of guinea pigsfiction. That's possibly misleading. Sprinkle I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for the girlssense that Ahronglong made it all up, a nice car in or whether it is as the drive of the nice houseblurb goes on to say ''recollections, good clothes folklore and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life was goingautobiographical stories''. Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin, gave her a note, couched in graphic terms, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for It feels like the past five yearslatter.In moments It feels like the family's life fell apart. Gone were all the certaintiesstories he tells about his experiences as a child, the hopes and the expectations. In came the policeas an adolescent, Social Services as an adult are real and Child Protection Officers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jacqueline Walker|title=Pilgrim State|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was intrigued and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir of her childhood in Jamaica and London in the 1960'strue. This But memory is a book inevitably compared with Andrea Levy's ''Small Island''. It follows similar groundfickle thing, but the main difference and great strength, is 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's the real narrative of mother and daughter. As a girl I was familiar with areas of London where Jackie Walker lived and heard some members of my family denigrate Caribbean immigrants. From this memoir, I've garnered much about the lived experience of my less advantaged contemporariesMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Taylor1544641923|title=The ParishAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ours are hard times for humanity - for a number of reasons. Firstly, we donIt't talk s tempting to each other muchthink that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. Second It might be privileged, we donbut family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you't care about each other much - or at least enough re not going to outwardly show get many ambassadors telling you what it. We would rather walk a mile when 's really like (it's raining cats and dogs than knock on a neighboursnot ''diplomatic' door asking for a cup of sugar. Maybe that's just meto do so, you know), but look around you - pregnant women struggle to get a seat on the traindiplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, 12-year olds get accidentally shot in a supermarket lanewell, and itthat's an entirely different matter. acceptable to throw She (and it still usually is a tantrum over wrong hair colour'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863223974</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Worth0241446732|title=Farewell To The East End|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I am interested in social history and, as a mother, the job Our House is on Fire: Scenes of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell to the East End'' is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was Family and a midwife and nurse, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House Planet in the East End of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Amy Dickinson|title=The Mighty Queens of FreevilleMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=If you're a reader of ''The Chicago Tribune'' then Amy Dickinson will be a familiar name; for those of us on the other side of the pond (and not the one at Chicago's back door) it's a name that's vaguely familiar but not one which you can readily placeErnman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Amy Malena Ernman was the replacement for Ann Landers, probably the an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most influential American woman of the late twentieth century and the most widely read agony aunt parenting of her age with an estimated ninety million readerstheir two daughters. SoThen eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was it about Amy Dickinson which propelled her into a job which must have been a dream and a nightmare combined? happening. In such circumstances, it''The Mighty Queens of Freeville'' we meet Amys natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, her daughter Emily and it became clear to the women of Amy's family who that they were their support.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340962607</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ruth Maier, Jamie Bulloch (Translator) and Jan Erik Vold (Editor)|title=Ruth Maier's Diary: A Young Girl's Life Under Nazism|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was looking forward to reading Ruth Maier's Diary as I am interested in the history surrounding World War Two and its victims and survivors. I am especially fascinated by social history and how the lives of ordinary burned-out people were affected by events beyond therir control. Ruth was born in 1920 and died on arrival in Auschwitz in 1942, aged only twentya burned-twoout planet''. She was born in Austria and lived there with her parents and sister, Judith. But in 1939, life there was becoming much harder for Jews, so Judith was sent If they were to find a way to England and Ruth live happily again their solution would need to Norway, where she lived with the Strom family in Lillestrombe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552141</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rania Al-Baz191280493X|title=Disfigured: A Saudi Woman's Story Coming of Triumph over ViolenceAge|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Throughout her life Rania Al-Baz has been an unusual woman. She was married off by her father when she was still ''He began writing novels and poetry at school to a man she hardly knew and was the only married pupilage of twelve, forced to conform to the Saudi Arabian traditions of putting her husband first in all things but still expected it was to keep up with her school work. Pregnancy forced her take him a further forty-eight years to give up on her schooling but the marriage failed and Rania returned to her fatherrealise that he wasn’t very good at either. It might have been expected Consistently unpublished for all that she would fade quietly into the hometime, but in he remains a most unusual step she became the smiling face on a Saudi television programmeshining example of hope over experience.. No woman had ever been a news anchor before and it was only to be expected that there would be plenty of men wanting to marry her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844370755</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emmanuel Jal190874572X|title=War Child: A Boy Soldier's StoryLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emmanuel JalBack at the beginning of the century, internationally successful rap artist, spent his childhood as I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a solider in his native Sudanwonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. He has written his story in order I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to help those children who are still fighting, and those who have managed to get awayread Tove Jansson. There are a number of books about the Sudan by western aid workers and journalists, who I do, know that it was four years later that I am surefinally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, write fluently and passionately about the horror of Darfur. This is the first book that I have read which tells eagerly awaited the story ''Sort Of'' translations of war from the point rest of view of a small boy carrying an AK-47, a gun taller than he is himselfJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700050</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1908745819|title=A View from the FoothillsSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Chris MullinSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''s diaries cover the period from July 1999 to May 2005 during which time he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environmentthis one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, Transport and the Regionsbut rarely do we ask them why they thought so, for unless it turns out that we didn't like the Department for International Development and after book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a period on the back benches also at the Foreign Officebook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. As he saysIn this case, there will be no shortage I was told why. The blurb speaks of memoirs from those who have occupied the Olympian Heightsauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. In A View from the Foothills he offers '' Older. Less tethered. That's not a refreshingly different perspective – bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of a man at the lowest levels natural world, of those aspects of government who's party to what's happening further up the hillside poetic and down lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on the plainsit. 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>1846682231</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosalind Penfold1906852472|title=DragonslippersWild Child: This is What an Abusive Relationship Looks LikeGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary=SoFor Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of a five star book where we can predict very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the entire plot, and at times foretell just what people in amazing man he became). The bad – well it say. It's a damning indictment of things that hardly news two years later – is that the book is even possiblepublished posthumously. This book lives by its subtitle – As always, it''this is what an abusive relationship looks like''. Rosalind meets a man who seems nigh-on perfect – they seem to fall in love with eases beautifully written, and she gets on very well with his four children from an earlier marriagemany exciting moments. Then odd occurrences start to happen – he declares her work getting What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in his way, he possibly drinks a bit too much, he sees flirting Ian Mathie's later books are answered in her shop-talk ''Wild Child'' with other mena satisfying clunk. And things escalate and escalate, and – you know every stage. She suffers a guilt trip, before suffering physical violence, discovering affairs, getting back with him, then finding Seemingly all that's now left in the right kind of helpdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007216882</amazonuk>
}}