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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ ==Autobiography==<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leslie KentonAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Love Affair: The Memoir of a Forbidden Father-daughter RelationshipOther Girl|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=For some years, I had been aware of Leslie Kenton's books on healthy living, and also of Stan Kenton's work as a jazz bandleader, though We were born from the same body. I had 've never made the connection until now. This family memoir reveals all really wanted to think about the famous father and later-to-be-famous daughter, and it is a disturbing talethis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091910536</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Drabble1036916375|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Imagine the scene: ''Just a major publishing house receives the latest pitch for a book. Its basis Liverpool Lad '' is a history collection of memories and reflections from the jigsawyears Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, interwoven with such as the family history of a highly personal memoir of an ever so slightly irascible maiden aunt sea-going family, with whom the author partook in docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the delights of puzzlingwhat-might-have-been. Two words save this pitch from oblivion: Margaret Drabble. Faced with the same dilemma in It's a bookshopbook to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, the reader would be wise to follow think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the publisherblitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's hunch early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and buy this book could appear after the all- it is a gentle delight from start to finishclear was sounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice TaylorAnnie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=To School Through The FieldsPossession|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=To School Through the Fields Ernaux opens with a disclaimer, warning readers that what follows is the memoir of more or less a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in the 1940s (though confession: ''I have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the book never mentions was published''. Towards the date end of when it is set). Taylor makes it clear at the beginning book, she claims that she is writing the title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a nostalgic look back at the era brief period of time in her childhoodlife, before labelled and documented here as ''The Possession'', in which she felt herself in the 'changing winds throes of time' an all-encompassing and then presents a series seductive jealousy targeted at the new partner of anecdotes about her parentsW, her family and some of the other characters who lived in her villagea man she has since separated from after a six-year long affair.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>1804271497
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil DanielsMary McCarthy|title=Phil Daniels: Class ActorMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If we were asked Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to nominate piece together the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the last twenty years or sopast'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high on who died in the list1918 flu epidemic. Born This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Islington in 1958 Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and raised in Kings CrossAunt Margaret. Later, he was she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a graduate different kind of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970supbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicole DryburghVirginie Despentes|title=Talk to the HandKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=TeensAutobiography |summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See ItKing Kong Theory''is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which she wrote can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at eighteenits core. Originally written in French, and which detailed her battles with cancer and the loss book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her sight. We loved experiences as a woman through the warts-and-all picture complex prism of her varied life that she gave us then, : from rape to sex work and so we were really pleased to see that she's written a second bookpornography. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Mathie|title=The Man of Passage|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the only white child amongst book can feel somewhat disjointed, a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre reflection of his life for decades to cometheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>191309734X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carole White and Sian WilliamsJoan Didion|title=Struggle or StarveThe Year of Magical Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Struggle or Starve This book is a collection Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of autobiographical writings about girls' and womenthe grief she endured following her husband's lives in South Wales between the warssudden death. This is Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up beautiful and necessary resource to encourage Welsh women writershelp people feel less alone. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and grew up in real poverty delusion and economic insecuritymakes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>0007216858
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit 1787333175|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=In early 2005, a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman You Don't Have to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day be Mad to day life in Baghdad, and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections there. May's detailed and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Bee, and a friendship develops between the two women. They tell each other about their work, relationships and family lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWork Here|author=Chinua Achebe|title=The Education of a British-Protected Child|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gabriel Weston|title=Direct RedBenji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary=Few people have the ability I was tempted to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that youread 're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargon. Gabriel Weston is one such – and 'You Don'Direct Redt Have to be Mad to Work Here'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours. Sheafter enjoying Adam Kay's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>}} first book {{newreviewamazonurl|authorisbn=Dana Fowley1509858636|title=How Could She?|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=From This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the age workings of five Dana Fowley was subjected the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of Mad...'' promised the same. She was raped by her mother's partner elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and taken to the homes work of her grandparents where she was abused by them and othersa psychiatrist. At other times she I did wonder whether it was forced to go acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn laughter is directed at a blind eye? It was neither of those. Her mother was situation rather than a willing participant in the abuse person and organised much of itis always delivered with empathy and understanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Val Doonican0241636604|title=My Story, My LifeThe Trading Game: Val Doonican - The Complete AutobiographyA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the 1960sIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, if Harold Wilson was the personification you're unlikely to think of politics someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the Beatles pin-stripe suit and his background is the collective icon of youth cultureEast End, Val Doonican where he was similarly at the very apex of light entertainmentfamiliar with violence, poverty and injustice. He may There was no longer have such a high profile – posh public school on his CV - but he's outlasted them bothhad been to the London School of Economics. Over four decades he has refused to bow to passing fads and fashions, remained true to himself, Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and in the process he has never really put a foot wrongfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. As he says towards the end, 'When you find out He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what it is you do bestwas, and what the public wants from youessentially, then stick a card game which got him an internship with it, and do it as well as you canCitibank.' With the possible exception of his contemporary and long-time professional and personal friend Rolf HarrisEventually, it's difficult to think of another person in showbiz who comes across this turned into permanent employment as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aeronwy Thomas 1529395224|title=My Father's PlacesLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: A portrait The Secret Life of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughtera Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Aeronwy Thomas Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was six years old when she a GP and her family came Rowlands didn't want to settle after a nomadic existence at Laugharnefollow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on -call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the Welsh coast, in 1949job for him. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on the BBCBefore long, and while he continued to travel to London regularly for the purpose (was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as well as to carouse with friends in so many students - been his old haunts)dream since he was a child. If anything, somewhere off the beaten track was he'd wanted to be a more suitable working environmentprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PalinEdel Rodriguez|title=Diaries 1969-1979Worm: The Python YearsA Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we'Never meet your heroesre in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro,'' goes first thought of as a saviour of the old adagecountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. That Our narrator's probably why I didnfamily weren't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with in the rest happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the Monty Python team, country demanded (especially as he was without doubt a hero of my teenage years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shirley Williams|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Who could resist a title like that? And is this would probably be shipped off to some lesserminor pro-known Shirley WilliamsCommunism skirmish, recalling a life spent in libraries? such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The answer mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the latter is no. Shirley Catlin, as she was bornheat, tells us but in the early pages of this memoir that during her childhood her father encouraged her to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea housesultry island country, right up to the ceiling. It was a secret between it remains the two kind of them, as her mother, Testament heat forcing you out of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken arms.the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago 1035025299|title=Small MemoriesWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Having Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been born in 1922 and lived through so much of the twentieth century, with an authorat Victoria's view of change and people, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lot. Civil Wars smallholding in the neighbouring Spain; the growth of his country - Leicestershire which still left it isn't all that conducive to writing, as western Europethere's poorestalways something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhood, in The other side of the country and in Lisbon, and provides decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a subtle and gentle memoirvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' the first graced of August in the shelvesmiddle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. His gonzo style, putting himself I decided not to swim at the centre 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 did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the story, should tell readers as much dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about the person doing the writing as the event he is describinghis terminal diagnosis. If that's the case then what There is something very strange about being made to be learned from laugh by a selection of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is plentyat that point, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith FloydKit De Waal|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The AutobiographyWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I grew As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up with television cookery programmes , your mum and still have some recipes in my childish handwritingdad/ They may not mean to, which begin ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…'' as I battled to copy what was but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the screen before we retuned to bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the presenterauthor’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Programmes stagnated as Kitts in the cook spoke to camera Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and lectured the viewer on how to make sponge cake or marrying a fish dish. Then we were shocked awakeblack man. There was This intersectionality plays a man, quite good-looking large role in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of way, who cooked on the deck of a trawler or wherever the whim took himautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, always glass in hand her class and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman about how he was doing his jobher gender. Like himHer parents loom large and are written with care, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floydlove, or Floydy and the kind of anger only a child can express to millionstheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Johnson 1638485216|title=Rockers Black, White, and RollersGray All Over: An Automotive Autobiography A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down as one of the luckiest men in showbiz''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. He had a brief moment of glory in the early 70s as vocalist It has everything to do with Geordie, a Tyneside version of Slade, who had three Top 40 hits and then fell on hard timescharacter. After going back to the day job, a chance call invited him to go and audition for AC/DC, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly diedPeriod. Three decades later, not only have the group held on 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 sales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155424</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan BennettBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=A Life Like Other People'sI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=It was When the Dalai Lama adds his motherwords to your frontispiece, I's illness which triggered Alan Bennettm inclined to think it doesn's excursions into his family background. The bout t really matter how the rest of depression hadn't cleared as the family had hoped and admission world responds to hospital was the next step in the treatmentyour book. Asked if there had been anything like this beforeI know, Bennett said nothaving read the book in question, failing to notice his father's hand gently touch his kneethat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. The son was educated He knows (and at Oxford and had even been seen on core so do I) that it matters very much how the television. He did rest of the talking rather than world responds to this book, because it tells the fathertruth as it is, reluctant butcher and a man not given to putting himself forwardin the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn gareth_steel|title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAnimals and Wildlife|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but the early part of his adult life was with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted appropriate. Stories of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upvet's life 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. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to As a lengthy term of imprisonmentTV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, whilst as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the man book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. ItHe says that he's easy written it to see where Dillingerinform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn's contempt for the law was spawnedt lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia Dave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Making Jack FalconeSpeedy: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia FamilyHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia worked for How to summarise the FBI. That might sound rather glamorous but Jack had a special claim to fame. He was one life of those rare people who always worked undercover – not just for hours or days at Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a time but sometimes for years. In ''Making Jack Falcone'' he tells the story of how he came pithy sentence to infiltrate the Mafia in New York and was responsible for kick off a string review of arrests which crippled the organised crime families. If that doesnhis memoir? Do you know, I really don't sound impressive enough, then just consider that Jack Garcia was a Cuban-born American and he went undercover as an Italian amongst Italiansthink I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393942</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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vicky Jaggers0571365884|title=SilencedMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Vicky Jaggers had Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a dreadful childhoodchild. One sister She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was in a home following an accident which made her violent and her elder brother, David, was obviously her mother's favourite. He was very intelligent, but disliking any the sort of work his abilities life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were directed towards getting what he wanted without making any effortfew and far between. The family moved house regularly On a visit to a therapist, as Vicky's father looked for work and schooling soon became an option which wasn't always chosen. adult, Sexually mature at the age of nine and looking much older than her years when she took was completely unable to spending much of speak about what was wrong with her time in the pubs her parents ran and it was whilst her parents were serving in the bar suggested that David raped her – on three successive nights – when she was only twelve. Her pregnancy wasnshould write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety''t evident for six monthsis the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976772</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth Merry and Steve Emecz Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Enabled: One Disabled Woman's Incredible Story of Tackling Her Disability in Pursuit of a Lifelong DreamA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ruth Merry has never been Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your common-or-garden young ladyidentity and sense of self. Born with no ability to move her legsI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and more, due to personality worn away like a condition called arthrogryposis, she still became an avid equestrian, downhill skier, competitive swimmer, fund-raiser statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and moreyour dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. At the beginning of this book Daniel Gibbs is a flippant comment inspires another, future dream - that of going down neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in a four-man bobsleigh''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312322</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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynn Barber 0008333173|title=An EducationHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Lynn Barber comes from I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''lower, unremembered, orders on both sidesMasterchef''. There is no ancestral home or village – just parents who were determined You know that she should work hard and make something you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of herselfthe time. Well, they were – until Simon proposed and it was explained to her that Oxford didn't really matter, You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that being married to a good man would be more important. Simon was much older – older food in fact than he would admit to – and he picked Lynn up (quite literally) at a bus stop when she was just sixteenfront of her. Surprisingly her parents were unworried by this and threw them together, despite I've often wondered about the fact that Simon, who was in woman behind the property business, had some strange friends. In the nineteen fifties it wasnmedia image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More''t every sixteen year old girl who had is a passing acquaintance with the evil slum landlord, Peter Rachmanstunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039558</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stan Cattermole 1504321383|title=Bete de JourSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''SomethingYou can's just come in that might appeal to you'', said Sue from The Bookbag, having just taken delivery of ''Bête de Jour''. Pleased to t be thought of, I never mustered the courage to ask whether this thought was motivated by a previous liking for bloke lit, or by the book's subtitle: ''The Intimate Adventures of an Ugly Man''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007312741</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Queenan|title=Closing Time|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Joe Queenan made good despite a deprived happy and neglected childhood. His world was a far cry from the middle class background of most aspiring writers of his generation. He grew up in Philadelphia, born to parents so immersed in their fulfilled on your own problems that they made little attempt to love or care for their four children. Practically the only way his father provided You are not complete until you find a role model was in his love of reading. Otherwise, he was an alcoholic, frequently beating his young childrenman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330458272</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cylin Busby and John BusbySakinu Ahronglong|title=The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter MemoirHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and Finance Autobiography|summary=The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That''When my dad diess possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, his body will go or whether it is as the blurb goes on to the Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital in Bostonsay ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''though I suspect they are mostly interested in his head. It feels like the latter.. His was in an interesting case - It feels like the lower half of stories he tells about his jaw'' ''was removed when he was shot in the head with experiences as a shotgunchild, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. His tongue was torn in half But memory is a fickle thing, his teeth and gums blown'' ''away, leaving a bit of bone maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that was once his chin connected with dangling flesh at the front of his faceits safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.''|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408802015</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ronan Smith 1544641923|title=Lord of the Rams: The Greatest Story Never ToldAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=3.54|genre=Autobiography |summary=When you read It''Lord of s tempting to think that the Rams'' you could diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be forgiven for thinking privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're hearing about someone with a split personality. Our author, Ronan Smith, is a true gentleman and a real delight when not going to get many ambassadors telling youwhat it're exchanging pleasantries. Hes really like (it's good to his mother and not just because he doesn't get home that often. Then we have the subject of his autobiography – ''Rambodiplomatic''to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, ''Lord of the Rams'' oraccompanying baggage, more usuallywell, simply ''the Rams'that's an entirely different matter. You'll find She (and it unnerving that the author speaks of his other self in the third person - and thatstill usually is a 's before we get to the strange nicknames which people acquire, the fact that thereshe's nothing which ) can't be made into a joke and the drinking…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425164846</amazonuk>tell us exactly what goes on.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Coleen Nolan0241446732|title=Upfront Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Personal: The Autobiographya Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=As a child, I The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was a huge fan an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the Nolan Sistersparenting of their two daughters. When ''I'm in the Mood for Dancing'' hit the charts in 1979 Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, I was ten then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. Bernie was my favourite Nolan at In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the time and in recent years, I have enjoyed watching her acting in shows like family that they were ''The Billburned-out people on a burned-out planet''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283070889</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick Wakeman191280493X|title=Grumpy Old Rock StarComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Rick Wakeman wrote and published a more conventional autobiography, ''Say Yes!'' in 1985, He began writing novels and it has so far never been updated. This, written with poetry at the aid age of ghost-writer Martin Roachtwelve, takes but it was to take him a totally different approachfurther forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, being he remains a selection shining example of episodes hope over experience...'' ''This a memoir from his sixty years in more or less random order. In theory it might seem rather disjointed, someone you have never heard of - but in practice it works brilliantlywill feel like you have.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090056</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Belle de Jour190874572X|title=The Intimate Adventures of a London Call GirlLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Following Back at the recent success with ITV2's highlybeginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-publicised TV version of Belle de Jour-friends. I can's online blog, starring Billie Piper, t remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I do know that it comes as no surprise was four years later that sales for her 2005 bookI finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the ''The Intimate Adventures of a London Call GirlSort Of'', sky-rocketed. After all, who doesn't want to hear all translations of the profound details rest of working in the London sex trade?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753819236</amazonuk>Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Charles1908745819|title=How Could He Do It?Surfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emma Charles was Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on the edge of thinking that she and her family were doing quite wellit''. They were an ordinary family – mumMostly we take them at their word, dador not, two daughters, three dogsbut rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a rabbit and rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a couple of guinea pigsbook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. Sprinkle in The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an Open University course for Mumolder, private schooling for less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the girlsnatural world, a nice car in the drive of those aspects of the nice house, good clothes and fun holidays – poetic and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way lyrical that life was going. Then her fifteen year old daughterare about style not form, Tamsinand substance most of all, gave her a noteabout connection. Of course, couched in graphic terms, saying that her father this book had been sexually abusing her my name on it. It was written for the past five yearsme.In moments the family's life fell apartIt would have found its way to me eventually. Gone were all the certainties, the hopes and the expectations. In came the police, Social Services and Child Protection OfficersI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Walker1906852472|title=Pilgrim StateWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was intrigued For Ian Mathie fans there is good and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of her a very unusual childhood in Jamaica and London in (yes, the very years that made him the 1960amazing man he became). The bad – well it's. This hardly news two years later – is a that the book inevitably compared is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with Andrea Levymany exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Small IslandWild Child''with a satisfying clunk. It follows similar ground, but the main difference and great strength, is Seemingly all that it's now left in 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 contemporariesdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>
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