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<!-- Thion'o -->{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D|title=Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy|rating=5[[image:Thiongo_Birth.jpg|leftgenre=Autobiography|linksummary=https://wwwI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions.amazon It's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University.coIn fact, he was one of the founders of the department.uk/gp/product/1784701300?ie}}{{Frontpage|author=UTF8&tagAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=thebookbag-21&linkCodeThe Other Girl|rating=as2&camp4|genre=1634&creativeAutobiography|summary=6738&creativeASIN=1784701300]]''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''

===[[Birth of a Dream Weaver: A writerErnaux's awakening by Ngugi wa Thiong'o]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] The true story of Kenya's foremost author in his own words. Ngugi wa Thiong'o work is the most important writer that you've (or at the always very leastcandid and her tone transparent, I've) never heard of. In this volume of his autobiographical series we follow Ngugi as he ventures to University in Uganda and starts writing professionally. Ngugi tells the story of British colonialism at the end of the Empire as clearly as his own tale – making but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most important books on the market today. [[Birth of a Dream Weaver: A writerintimate accounts I's awakening by Ngugi wa Thiong'o|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Omeiza -->[[image:Omeiza_Parentingve read.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524682853?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524682853]] ===[[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up Ernaux writes in Nigeria and came direct address to Britain to study for her A levels when she was 18. Her parents used their savings to give her sister, however, this opportunity and called it an investment in letter will never reach her future. Now a qualified pharmacistWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, married and with a child of her ownfew months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, Tabitha looks back at her childhood and reflects on 2 years before the way her mother and father raised her. And she gives their parenting top marksauthor was even born. [[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Micheal -->[[image:Micheal_Revelation.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524666866?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524666866]] ===[[Revelation Ch:25 - A Letter To The Churches From The 24th Elder large and instant void created by Edward K Micheal]]=== [[image:1.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Spirituality and Religion|Spirituality and Religion]] Edward K Michael has taken the brave step jarring concept of laying out his spiritual journey for all writing to see. It is a deeply personal book and hean imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's honest enough - genuine enough - to wonder if he would have taken a different path if he had known then what he knows nowprocess of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, but he's generous enough too to hope an absence that people will find comfort in the supernatural manifestations he she has seenalways felt but often denied. Before you begin reading you will need to accept that the book seems to have been written without editorial intervention: you are hearing the real man speak and what you will read is very close to stream of consciousness. [[Revelation Ch:25 - A Letter To The Churches From The 24th Elder by Edward K Micheal|Full Review]]isbn=1804271845<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- McGowan -->|isbn=1036916375[[image:McGowan_Art.jpg|lefttitle=Just a Liverpool Lad|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786071827?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786071827]]Peter McArdle ===[[The Art of Failing: Notes from the Underdog by Anthony McGowan]]==|rating=4 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] I had not come across Anthony McGowansummary=''Just a Liverpool Lad ''s work before reading this book, as he mainly writes for Young Adults. I can imagine his books to be engaging is a collection of memories and humorous reflections from the clever way he constructs sentencesyears Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, and such as the ironic subtlety family history of a sea-going family, with which he uses descriptive detailsthe docks dominating lives. [[The Art of Failing: Notes from Other stories blend seamlessly into the Underdog by Anthony McGowan|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> <!what-might- Smith have-->[[image:Smith_Dontbeen.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147212345X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147212345X]] ===[[Don It't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call s a book to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics settle into and Society|Politics and Society]]allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]  Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms is part autobiography and part rallying call for society to tackle the systemicthink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, endemic and debilitating inequality faced by despite the people of the United Kingdom, particularly blitz that was a constant factor in the NorthMcArdle's early years. Through reflecting on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith has painted a frank I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and uncompromising picture of could appear after the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had to endure due to the poverty faced by his family contrasted with the, shamefully still, grim and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cuts, austerity and political turmoilall-clear was sounded. [[Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith|Full Review]]<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Bristow -->|author=Annie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)[[image:Bristow China.jpg|left|linktitle=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910985902?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1910985902]]The Possession ===[[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow]]==|rating=5 [[image:Xstar.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]summary=Ernaux opens with a disclaimer, [[warning readers that what follows is more or less a confession:Category:Travel|Travel]] Having worked for nine years in Bejing ''I have always wanted to write as a journalist for if I would be gone when the BBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese historybook was published''. Having been learning Towards the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - end of the language teacherbook, born in she claims that the early fifties, offered Bristow title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a compelling picture brief period of time in her life , labelled and documented here as ''The Possession'', in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time which she felt herself in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal throes of an all- yet also paints encompassing and seductive jealousy targeted at the new partner of W, a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations. [[China in Drag: Travels with man she has since separated from after a Crosssix-dresser by Michael Bristowyear long affair. |Full Review]]<br>isbn=1804271497}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger MooreMary McCarthy|title=A Bientot...Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

|summary=The news of Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one broken mosaic of those people you knew would go on for everher life. There was just one small glimmer of light She attributes her ''burning interest in the sadness past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second- hand memories from her parents, who died in the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the finished manuscript harsh guardianship of his book, ''À bientôt…'her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to his publishers. Just live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight awaydifferent kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782438610</amazonuk>1804271659

{{newreview <!-- remove 10/9 -->Frontpage|author=Stuart BurrellVirginie Despentes|title=Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World RecordsKing Kong Theory

|summary=The first of Stuart BurrellThis book is Joan Didion's world records, well, heartbreaking autobiographical account of the first two, actually, as hegrief she endured following her husband's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accidentsudden death. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late Books that shed light on the people who were to have been the main attraction got taboo topics like death are such a better offer beautiful and Burrell is not a man necessary resource to let help people downfeel less alone. What could be done to bring people in Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales delusion and cake bakesmakes them utterly normal, but Burrell had made lends them a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002 he went for the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Needhuman face to wear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>154712251X</amazonuk>0007216858

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elena Lappin1787333175|title=What Language Do I Dream In?You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse

|summary=Speaking many languages fluently seems close If you were to bring up an image of a superpower city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the 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 Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of uscan only envy. Elena Lappin's memoir is about how she came He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at home what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in five or more languageshis footsteps, and what effect this has particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on her identityhis father's life. Her When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family's history friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the emigrations that led to her learning job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many languages are caught up with European events. As students - been his dream since he was a child she moved from Russia to Czechoslovakia and from there to Germany. Elena was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad If anything, he'd wanted to learn French and English toobe a professional footballer. Then she chose university }}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in Israel childhood, and learnt Hebrewwe're in Cuba. So just The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the rest country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of us might pick up bits his were kind of furniture or books from our various homes, Elena picked up a language every taking his timeaway. A clever member Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an intellectual householduncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, with parents who were translators and writersnot liked for his successful photography business, there never seems success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to have been great effort involved ease some of the heat, but in acquiring languagesthis sultry island country, it just happened.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844085783</amazonuk>1474616720

{{newreview <!-- remove 1/9 -->Frontpage|authorisbn=Parrain Thorance1035025299|title=The French Cashew TreeWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=The place Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't given a nameall that conducive to writing, but we can work out that itas there's in always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the Caribbean and itdecision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Fowler|title=Word Monkey|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary= It's here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his parentsthe 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, brother and sister until he was eight years oldI decided not to do that either. It When I finished reading this book, I realised it was then that his mother died suddenly 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 family dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was broken up: ' – and his brother and sister went to live with an aunt and Parrain stayed with first chapter tells us about his father - but an aunt and uncle moved into the family hometerminal diagnosis. The aunt - his father's sister - was fineThere is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, but Parrain and her husband never got onyou know he actually is at that point, because he does. The easy, generous days of childhood, sitting under the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted againHe did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524681458</amazonuk>0857529625

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Hunter DaviesKit De Waal|title=A Life in the Day: Memories of Sixties London, Lots of Writing, The Beatles Without Warning and my Beloved WifeOnly Sometimes|rating= 54

|summary= Although I knew 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 name Hunter Davies before I picked this bonds that bind family. This book up, I was unaware just how pivotal is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a figure lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Swinging Sixties Hunter Davies really wasCaribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. Take him, Harold Wilson and This intersectionality plays a certain musical quartet from Liverpool out of large role in the decadeautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and you are left written with a bit care, love, and the kind of anger only a vacuumchild can express to their parents. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471161293</amazonuk>1472284852

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Roald Dahl1638485216|title= WarBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating= 5|genre= Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=In war''Corruption is not department, are we at our heroic best gender or our cowardly worst? Featuring 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 autobiographical stories from Roald Dahlworld. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's time as neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a fighter pilot in backlash against the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict police - and strife, Dahl reveals not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the human side of our most inhumane activityChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia BlackburnBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John CraskeI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=John Craske was a fishermanWhen the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, from a family I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of fishermen, who became too ill the world responds to go to seayour book. He was born in Sheringham on I know, having read the north Norfolk coast book in 1881 and question, that Lindeblad would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill healthdisagree with that thought. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years He knows (and at a time and he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit core so do I) that his work had to be done on it matters very much how the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures rest of the sea. Then he moved on world responds to embroiderythis book, producing wonderful pictures of because it tells the Norfolk coast - andtruth as it is, most famously, of in the evacuation at Dunkirkearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>1526644827

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Elkingareth_steel|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and LondonNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel

|genre=History Animals and Wildlife|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: theyI don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''re places where you canNever Work With Animals't or shouldn't it seems to be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking appropriate. Stories of everything from a vet's life have proved popular since 'Madame Bovary'All Creatures Great and Small'' but ' to 'Never Work With Animals'Revolutionary Road'is definitely not the companion volume you')ve been looking for. When she imagines to herself what As a TV show the female version of author would argue that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneurAll Creatures''lacked realism, might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the worldbook is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'streetwalker' applied to themt lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Saqib NoorDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Surgery on the Shoulders of GiantsSpeedy: Letters from a doctor abroadHurled Through Havoc

|summary=The letters begin much in How to summarise the fashion life of any young man away from home, perhaps Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a quite exciting countrypithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, writing back to family I really don't think I can.  Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and friends to tell them a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of his experiencesa Lutheran minister, the sights he's seen struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the people hebottle took over.|isbn=B0965V3LLN}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''s metTo 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... '' It's just a little different in 'We Need to Talk About Money''Surgery on the Shoulders of Giantsby Otegha Uwagba '' though: Saqib Noor is 0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a junior doctor, training to be an orthopaedic surgeon and over book by a period writer of ten years he visited six countries, not as colour while only 7% study a book by a tourist but to give medical assistancewoman. '' They're countries which Noor describes as 'The Bookseller'fourth world'' - third world 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with added disaster her father joining them later. The family was hard- working, principled and determined that their need is desperatechildren would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1521173192</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johnny Ringwood0571365884|title=Cargoes & CapersMy Mess is a Bit of Life: The life and times of a London Docklands manAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett

|summary=Johnny Ringwood Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was born in 1936, just three years before the start sort of the second world warlife where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as he saysan adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''slap bang next to the Royal Victoria dockMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety''. His education was somewhat limited, not least because it was regularly interrupted by is the Luftwaffe. You might therefore be surprised at what he has managed result - or so we are given to achieve in the intervening eighty years. I certainly wasbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1544833555</amazonuk>

<!-- Grindrod -->[[imageThe 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:Grindrod Outskirtsshe'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.jpg}}{{Frontpage|leftisbn=0008333173|linktitle=httpsHungry://wwwA Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Masterchef''. You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the time.amazon You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her.co I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.uk/gp/product/1473625025?ie}}{{Frontpage|isbn=UTF8&tag1504321383|title=thebookbag-21&linkCodeSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=as2&campLouisa Pateman|rating=1634&creative4.5|genre=6738&creativeASINAutobiography|summary=1473625025]]''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.

This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sakinu Ahronglong|title=Hunter School|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. 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 fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.|isbn=1999791282}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1544641923|title=[[Outskirts by John Grindrod]]Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.}}

[[image:4star.jpg{{Frontpage|isbn=191280493X|title=Coming of Age|linkauthor=Category:{{{Danny Ryan|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife=4|genre=Autobiography|Animals summary=''He began writing novels and Wildlife]]poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]he remains a shining example of hope over experience...''

''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have.''}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Wilbourne190874572X|title=Shepherd of Another FlockLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)

|summary=[[:Category:David Wilbourne|David Wilbourne's]] CV looks like Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a career path for people who are hardwonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-humouredfriends. Banker, teacher of Ancient Greek, vicar, bishop…none of these are jobs normally connected in our minds with I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a jovial twinkle. Yet in David's case we'd be totally wrong later one that Paula told me I really had to assumeread Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The current Bishop of Llandaff takes us by Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the hand to show us episodes from his life as vicar ''Sort Of'' translations of the character-packed Yorkshire parish rest of Helmsley proving that tears of sorrow are equally shared with tears of laughterJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283072709</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie Nelson1908745819|title=The Red Parts: Autobiography of a TrialSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45

|summary=Maggie Nelson is 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. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of four volumes herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of poetry and five wide-ranging works where I am. Add to that my love of nonfiction that delve into the nature natural world, of violence those aspects of the poetic and sexuality. From what I'd heard lyrical that are about her writingstyle not form, I knew to expect an important and unconventional thinker with a distinctivesubstance most of all, lyrical styleabout connection. Now Vintage is making some of her backlistOf course, including this book (originally published in 2007) and the uncategorisable ''Bluets'', available had my name on it. It was written for the first time in the UKme. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784705799</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Marsh1906852472|title=AdmissionsWild Child: A Life in Brain SurgeryGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=4.5

|summary=ItFor Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's more than hardly news two years since I read [[Do No Harm: Stories of Lifelater – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh|Do No Harm: Stories of Lifeit's beautifully written, Death and Brain Surgery]] but the memories have stayed with memany exciting moments. What I had thought then most enjoyed was the feeling that a book about brain surgery might sound as though I was taking my pleasures too sadly, but many of the book was superb - and very easy reading and when I heard about questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''AdmissionsWild Child'' I decided to treat myself to an audio download, particularly as Henry Marsh was narratingwith a satisfying clunk. I knew Seemingly all that my expectations were unreasonably high, but how did 's now left in the book do?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474603866</amazonuk>drawer is unpublishable.