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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.''

Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=The Possession|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ernaux opens with a disclaimer, 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 book was published''. Towards the end of the book, she claims that the title (somewhat enigmatic at first) bares witness to a brief period of time in her life, labelled and documented here as ''The Possession'', in which she felt herself in the throes of an all-encompassing and seductive jealousy targeted at the new partner of W, a man she has since separated from after a six-year long affair. |isbn=1804271497}}{{Frontpage|author=Mary McCarthy|title=Memories of a Catholic Girlhood|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=[[Birth Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a Dream Weaverdifferent kind of upbringing.|isbn=1804271659}}{{Frontpage|author=Virginie Despentes|title=King Kong Theory|rating=4|genre=Autobiography |summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.|isbn=191309734X}}{{Frontpage|author=Joan Didion|title=The Year of Magical Thinking|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.|isbn=0007216858}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the 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 us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at 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 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 job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A writerCuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the 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 his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's awakening family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle 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, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035025299|title=Went to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=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 all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision 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 the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=0857529625}}{{Frontpage|author= Kit De Waal|title= Without Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only 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 Ngugi wa Thiongand 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'o]]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.''

[[image:5star''One more body just wouldn't matter''.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]

The true story murder of KenyaGeorge 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 foremost author in his own wordsdeath was an exception. Ngugi wa Thiong The image of Chauvin kneeling on George'o s neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the most important writer that youprotests 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''ve tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{Frontpage|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (or at Translator)|title=I May Be Wrong|rating=5|genre= Autobiography|summary= When the very leastDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I've) never heard m inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest ofthe world responds to your book. In this volume of his autobiographical series we follow Ngugi as he ventures to University I know, having read the book in Uganda question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and starts writing professionally. Ngugi tells the story of British colonialism at core so do I) that it matters very much how the end rest of the Empire as clearly as his own tale – making world responds to this one of book, because it tells the most important books on truth as it is, in the market todayearly 21st century. [[Birth |isbn=1526644827}}{{Frontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a Dream Weaver: A writervet'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. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's awakening by Ngugi wa Thiongwritten it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'ot lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.}}{{Frontpage|Full Review]]author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer<br>|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.

Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's 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 bottle took over.|isbn=B0965V3LLN}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=[[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza]]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

[[image:4star''0.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up in Nigeria and Otegha Uwagba came to Britain to study for her A levels the UK from Kenya when she was 18five years old. Her parents used their savings to give her this opportunity sisters were seven and called it an investment in nine. It was her future. Now a qualified pharmacistmother who came first, married and with a child of her ownfather joining them later. The family was hard-working, Tabitha looks back at her childhood principled and reflects on determined that their children would have the way her mother and father raised herbest education possible. And she gives their parenting top marks There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. [[Parenting through When Otegha was ten the Eyes of family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza|Full Review]]place at New College, Oxford.<br>}}

<!{{Frontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result -- Micheal -->or so we are given to believe.}}{{Frontpage|author=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=A Tattoo on my Brain[[image:Micheal_Revelation|rating=3.jpg5|leftgenre=Autobiography|linksummary=https://wwwAlzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity.amazonThis is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable.coDaniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.uk/gp/product/1524666866?ie|isbn=1108838936}}{{Frontpage|isbn=UTF8&tag1529109116|title=thebookbag-21&linkCodeCall Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey|author=as2&campHannah Jackson|rating=1634&creative4.5|genre=6738&creativeASINLifestyle|summary=1524666866]]''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.''

===[[Revelation Ch:25 - A Letter To The Churches From The 24th Elder 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 stereotypical farmer was probably born on the brave step of laying out land where ''his spiritual journey '' family have farmed for all to seegenerations. It is a deeply personal book and he He's honest enough - genuine enough - probably grown up without giving much thought as to wonder if what he would have taken a different path if he had known then what really wants to do: he knows now, but that he'll be a farmer. It's generous enough too to hope that people will find comfort in not always the supernatural manifestations he has seencase though. 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 Hannah Jackson was born 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]]<br> <!-- McGowan -->[[image:McGowan_Art.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786071827?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786071827]] ===[[The Art of Failing: Notes from brought up on the Underdog by Anthony McGowan]]=== [[imageWirral:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] I she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had not come across Anthony McGowan's work before reading this book, as he mainly writes for Young Adults. I can imagine his books to be engaging and humorous from the clever way he constructs sentences, and the ironic subtlety with which he uses descriptive details. [[The Art a deep love of Failing: Notes from the Underdog by Anthony McGowan|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> <!-- Smith -->[[image:Smith_Dontanimals.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 Her original intention was that she would become 't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]Dr Jackson, [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]  Donwhale scientist't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms is part autobiography and part rallying call for society she was well on her way to tackle the systemic, endemic and debilitating inequality faced by the people of the United Kingdom, particularly in the North. Through reflecting achieving this when her life changed on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith has painted a frank and uncompromising picture of the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had to endure due family holiday to the poverty faced by his family contrasted with the, shamefully still, grim Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cuts, austerity and political turmoil. [[Donalthough 't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Bristow -->[[image:Bristow China.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910985902?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1910985902]] ===[[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]Hannah Jackson, [[:Category:Travel|Travel]] Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for farmer' lacked the BBCkudos of her original intention, author Michael Bristow decided she knew that she wanted to write about Chinese historybe a shepherd. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - With the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to determination that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It you'll soon becomes clear that the tale told here realise is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait an essential part of one of the world's most intriguing nationsher, she set about achieving her ambition. [[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow|Full Review]]<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Moore -->|isbn=0008333173[[image:Moore Bientot.jpg|left|linktitle=httpsHungry://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782438610?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASINA Memoir of Wanting More|author=1782438610]]Grace Dent ===[[A Bientot... by Roger Moore]]==|rating=5 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Entertainment|Entertainment]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] The news summary=I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go judges on for ever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, ''À bientôt…Masterchef'', to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn You know that you't even bother re going to look as though I could resist reading it straight away. [[A Bientot... by Roger Moore|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Burrell -->[[image:Burrell_12.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/154712251X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=154712251X]] ===[[Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Sport|Sport]] The first get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accidenttime. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late You also ponder on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people how she can look so elegant with all that good food in and raise some money? Most front of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into ither. On 3 November 2002 he went for I've often wondered about the woman behind the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record media image and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Need. [[Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Lappin -->[[image'Hungry:Lappin_Dream.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1844085783?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1844085783]] ===[[What Language Do I Dream In? by Elena Lappin]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] Speaking many languages fluently seems close to a superpower to most A Memoir of us. Elena LappinWanting More''s memoir is about how she came to be at home in five or more languages, and what effect this has on her identity. Her family's history and the emigrations that led to her learning so many languages are caught up with European events. As a child she moved from Russia to Czechoslovakia stunning read which will make you laugh and from there to Germany. Elena was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad to learn French and English too. Then she chose university break your heart in Israel and learnt Hebrewequal measures. So just as the rest of us might pick up bits of furniture or books from our various homes, Elena picked up a language every time. A clever member of an intellectual household, with parents who were translators and writers, there never seems to have been great effort involved in acquiring languages, it just happened. [[What Language Do I Dream In? by Elena Lappin|Full Review]]<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Thorance -->[[image:Thorance_French.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524681458?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524681458]]1504321383 ===[[The French Cashew Tree by Parrain Thorance]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|linktitle=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] The place isn't given a nameSingle, but we can work out that it's in the Caribbean and it's here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his parentsAgain, brother and sister until he was eight years old. It was then that his mother died suddenly and the family was broken up: his brother and sister went to live with an aunt and Parrain stayed with his father - but an aunt and uncle moved into the family home. The aunt - his father's sister - was fineAgain, but Parrain and her husband never got on. The easy, generous days of childhood, sitting under the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted again. [[The French Cashew Tree by Parrain ThoranceAgain|Full Review]]author=Louisa Pateman<br> <!-- Davies -->[[image:Davies Life.jpg|left|linkrating=https://www4.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1471161293?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1471161293]]5|genre===[[A Life in the Day: Memories of Sixties London, Lots of Writing, The Beatles and my Beloved Wife by Hunter Davies]]===Autobiography [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] Although I knew the name Hunter Davies before I picked this book up, I was unaware just how pivotal a figure of the Swinging Sixties Hunter Davies really was''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. Take him, Harold Wilson and a certain musical quartet from Liverpool out of the decade, and You are not complete until you are left with find a bit of a vacuum. [[A Life in the Day: Memories of Sixties London, Lots of Writing, The Beatles and my Beloved Wife by Hunter Davies|Full Review]]<br><!-- Dahl -->[[image:Dahl_Warman''.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405933194?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1405933194]]

===[[War by Roald Dahl]]=== [[image:5starThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl It wasn's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity. [[War by Roald Dahl|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Blackburn -->[[image:Blackburn_Threads.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099582198?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0099582198]] ===[[Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske by Julia Blackburn]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]], [[t unkind:Category:Art|Art]] John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. He it was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in simply the Norwich hospital adults in 1943 after a her life which could have been defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years at a time and he was on occasions described advising her as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to what they thought would be done on the available surfaces in his homebest for her. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors It was reinforced by all carried his wonderful pictures of those fairy tales where the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk. [[Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by Julia Blackburn|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author=Lauren Elkin|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London|rating=4|genre=History |summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: handsome prince who then marries her so that they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries live happily ever after. Few girls are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame Bovary'' lucky enough to be brought up ''Revolutionary Roadwithout'')the expectation that they will marry and have children. When she imagines to herself what the female version of It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneura belief is a choice'', might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered the world's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Saqib NoorSakinu Ahronglong|title=Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroadHunter School|rating=4.5

|summary=The letters begin much in the fashion of any young man away from home, perhaps in flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a quite exciting country, writing back to family and friends to tell them work of his experiences, the sights he's seen and the people hefiction. That's metpossibly misleading. It's just a little different 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 ''Surgery on the Shoulders of Giantsrecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' though: Saqib Noor is . It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a junior doctorchild, training to be as an adolescent, as an orthopaedic surgeon adult are real and over true. But memory is a period of ten years he visited six countriesfickle thing, not as a tourist but to give medical assistanceand 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. They're countries which Noor describes as ''fourth world'' - third world with added disaster - and their need is desperateMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1521173192</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johnny Ringwood1544641923|title=Cargoes & Capers: The life and times of a London Docklands manAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Johnny Ringwood was born in 1936It'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), just three years before but the start of diplomatic spouse, the second world waraccompanying baggage, as he sayswell, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'slap bang next to the Royal Victoria dock'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. His education Malena Ernman was somewhat limitedan 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, not least because it Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was regularly interrupted by the Luftwaffehappening. You might therefore be surprised at what he has managed In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to achieve in the intervening eighty yearsfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. I certainly wasIf they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1544833555</amazonuk>

<!-- Grindrod -->{{Frontpage[[image:Grindrod Outskirts.jpg|leftisbn=191280493X|linktitle=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473625025?ieComing of Age|author=UTF8&tagDanny Ryan|rating=thebookbag-21&linkCode4|genre=as2&campAutobiography|summary=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473625025]]''He began writing novels and 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, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...''

[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] ''Outskirts'' is an interesting take on This a phenomenon memoir from someone you have never heard of the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of countryside surrounding inner city housing estates. John Grindrod grew up on the edge of one such estate in the 1960's and '70's, as he puts it, ''I grew up on the last road in London- but will feel like you have.'' Grindrod explores the introduction of the green belt, and the various fights and developments it has gone through over the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions. Within this topic, he has somehow managed to wind around his personal memories of childhood, producing a memoir with a lot of heart. [[Outskirts by John Grindrod|Full Review]]<br>}}{{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.