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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ ==Autobiography==<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter BeaumontB0GCB1MQ7D|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=Peter Beaumont is I 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 Foreign Affairs editor at The Observertrue story. He joined It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the paper in 1989 telling is so perfect that you'll go back and has spent much of reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the intervening time dealing with pleasure the kind of words give. 'foreign affairs' that is better described as Why My Mother Went Away'war reporting'is one of those rare exceptions. It'The Secret Life s the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War' is , would become a distillation Professor of his years in the fieldPsychology at Dundee University. It is a book ill-served by both its title and its coverIn fact, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto he was one of the bookshelves founders of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrappedthe department.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)
|title=The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge1036916375|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for the Guardian newspaper, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of his journalism. Who Are We? is partly a memoir memories and partly a thoughtful reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and incisive exploration of around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the politics and political impact family history of identitya sea-going family, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality in various countries around with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the worldwhat-might-have-been. He sets out It's a book to explore 'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized settle into and allow your mind to accentuate our universal humanity as opposed roam across your childhood memories, to separating us off into variousthink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, antagonistic camps?despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>d never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael JacksonAnnie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator)|title=MoonwalkThe Possession|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Michael Jackson's autobiography, based on tape-recorded conversations Ernaux opens with his editor Shaye Erehearta 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 first published in 1988''. This new edition has an introduction by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records and his original mentor, and an afterword by Areheart about how Towards the book was written. The main part end of the book is a straight reprint of , she claims that the original, with no updating title (somewhat enigmatic at all. Intriguingly, although Gordy's four pages refer first) bares witness to is protégé a brief period of time in the past tenseher life, calling him labelled and documented here as ''the greatest entertainer that ever livedThe Possession', Areheart's writing, in which she felt herself in the throes of an all-encompassing and also seductive jealousy targeted at the covernew partner of W, refer to him in the present. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely deatha man she has since separated from after a six-year long affair.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099547953</amazonuk>1804271497
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Captain William WellsMary McCarthy|title=A Sailor's TalesMemories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Captain William Wells was born in New Zealand where his father ran a successful carpentry businessMary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', but his heart wasn't in following his father obsessively digging into the family firm or in most past to piece together the broken mosaic of the lessons at schoolher life. He was an enthusiastic sportsman but what enthralled him most were She attributes her ''burning interest in the ships sailing out of Wellington harbourpast'' to her orphanhood, which he could see as she lacked any second-hand memories from his bedroom window. Without his her parents' knowledge he applied for a scholarship which allowed six boys each year to travel to the UK and undertake their basic nautical training. Billy Wells, who previously had only got 2% died in his English exam (his name was spelled correctly) had the second highest score 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the country harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and was soon on his way Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to Englandlive with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095629040X</amazonuk>1804271659
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt MacAllesterVirginie Despentes|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyAutobiography |summary=Matt MacAllester ''King Kong Theory'' is a Pulitzerhard-prize winning journalisthitting memoir and feminist manifesto, used which can be seen as a call to covering the horrors of war, but nothing prepared him arms for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anne. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of women in a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by griefphallocentric society broken at its core. This might not sound unusualOriginally written in French, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about the book is a quarter collection of a century, trapped essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her own private world of madness. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always at experiences as a woman through the centre complex prism of family her varied life : from rape to sex work and with pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the help book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of Elizabeth David, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cookedtheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>191309734X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Olga Alexandrovna, Paul Kulikovsky, Sue Woolmans and Karen Roth-NichollsJoan Didion|title=25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs Year of Grand Duchess Olga AlexandrovnaMagical Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882, youngest child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and thus sister This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas IIgrief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Her first marriage Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to Prince Peter Oldenburg, who was probably gay, ended in an amicable divorcehelp people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and in 1916 she married Colonel Nicholas Kulikovsky. They escaped from Russia after the revolution, delusion and settled in Denmark for nearly thirty years until, feeling threatened by Stalin’s regimemakes them utterly normal, they moved lends them a human face to Canada. She outlived him by two years, dying in 1960wear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906775168</amazonuk>0007216858
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Stewart1787333175|title=Three Ways You Don't Have to be Mad to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist AfloatWork Here|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary=Books about sailing fall into two sorts: those written by authors who know what they are talking about, (though sometimes they donI was tempted to read ''t convey it too well) and those who donYou Don't have a clue, but like Have to be Mad to think they do. Well, Chris Stewart may have started the Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book with a light and frothy touch as a novice sailor, but he ends up with the credentials of an Ancient Mariner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003842</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewamazonurl|authorisbn=Michael Wolff1509858636|title=The Man Who Owns This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the News: Inside workings of the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch|rating=3.5|genre=Politics NHS, humour and Society|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdochautobiography. Over four decades he's built News International into a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in the UK media is such that he's courted by politicians and has what many believe You Don't Have to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizenMad. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil MacFarquhar|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''What are promised the chances of change in the Middle East?'' is the question central same elements but moved from physical problems to this book. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length mental illness and breadth of the Islamic stronghold work of the Middle East, a psychiatrist. I feel inclined did wonder whether it was acceptable to believe his in-depth assessment. In descriptive and reasoned terms, he identifies conservative forces which predominate be looking for humour in this setting but the region, primarily the religious laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernization. This discussion of attempts to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or the media, it is strengthened in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations always delivered with particular reference to their readiness empathy and motivation for changeunderstanding. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett0241636604|title=The Reluctant TommyTrading Game: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ronald Skirth was one If you were to bring up an image of many young Englishmen a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of nineteen caught up in the First World Warsomeone like Gary Stevenson. He joined A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916East End, where he was promoted to Corporalfamiliar with violence, poverty and sent to the western frontinjustice. Like most of There was no posh public school on his contemporaries, when CV - but he went he was an unquestioning servant had been to the London School of King Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and country, fighting for what he believed was righthas a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. On the battlefields of Flanders, one day he came across the body of Hans, a German soldier the same age, if not youngerHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. The dead man's hand It was clutching a photograph of his girlfriendability at what was, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ellaessentially, Skirth's own sweethearta card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Like two of his friends who had just been killedEventually, Hans had died this turned into permanent employment as a result of the stupidity of otherstrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Lynch1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The C-WordSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=In the beginning Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was the word, closely followed by the internet. The two combined a GP and Rowlands didn't want to form the wonder that is bloggingfollow in his footsteps, and particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took off and people wanted the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a more concrete vet and permanent record, books quickly followedwas convinced this was the job for him. Perhaps that's not ''exactly'' how the quote goes Before long, but it's close enough. Breast cancer he was at twenty eight is not just scary and unusualLiverpool University. For journalist Lisa, it It hadn's downright inconvenientt - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. But, when a stage three tumour bulges out of her boob, she decides to document her subsequent fight against the big C (or, as she affectionately calls it If anything, he''The Bullshit'') online for all d wanted to see. The [http://alrighttit.blogspot.com/ blog] was a success, it garnered some famous fans ([[:Category:Stephen Fry|Stephen Fry]], among others) and be a book offer followed. This is the resultprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ngugi wa Thiong'oEdel Rodriguez|title=Dreams in a Time of WarWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The interest in revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the lives of unfortunate children country, has created the publishing phenomenon nicknamed 'misery memoirs'proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Happily for readers Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of Ngugi wa Thiongtaking his time away. Our narrator's family weren'o’s Dreams t in a Time of War memories the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the author’s often difficult childhood are presented country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as a tale of triumph Angola) and the father being watched and empowerment rather than anger watched, and self-pitynot 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553776</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase Phinn1035025299|title=Road Went to London, Took the Dales: The Story of a Yorkshire LadDog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a teacher currently anticipating (I wonsabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't say looking forward all that conducive to!) an OFSTED inspection, school inspectors aren't generally my favourite people. I'll make an exception for Gervase Phinn, thoughwriting, as hethere's entertained me for many hours with his previous books on his time in the Dales doing always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the job. I decision was expecting his memoirs sealed when a room became available (courtesy of his childhood to be equally entertaining – and feel slightly letdown, if I'm honestDeborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718149114</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pattie Boyd and Penny JunorChristopher Fowler|title=Wonderful Today: The Autobiography of Pattie BoydWord Monkey|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Pattie Boyd will always be remembered for one unique, extraordinary claim to fame. She became It's the wife first of arguably August in the two most famous and revered rock guitarists middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the erapool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, George Harrison and Eric ClaptonI 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 thus inspired three of their compositions which became three of (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the agedust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 's seminal love songs, namely 'Somethingwas'– 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, 'Layla'and you know he actually is at that point, and 'Wonderful Tonight'because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755316436</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean BaggottKit De Waal|title=The Girl on the Wall: One Life's Rich TapestryWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Jean Baggott is now seventy two 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 in the final year of her history degree at Warwick Universitybonds that bind family. After almost This book is a lifetime of bending her life to memoir focussing on the needs author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of other people she has decided that now Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the time to look after herself – Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the eleven year old girl whose picture hangs on her wallautobiography. She plans Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to achieve what that girl would want 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 achieve and from this she's found great fulfilmenttheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848311265</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Abby Lee1638485216|title=Girl With a One Track MindBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Exposed: Further Revelations of a Sex Blogger A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Abby Lee ''Corruption is back not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with a brand new book thatcharacter. Period.'s sure to bring her readers closer to her than they've ever been before.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret DrabbleBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws I May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Imagine When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the scene: a major publishing house receives rest of the latest pitch for a world responds to your book. Its basis is a history of I know, having read the jigsawbook in question, interwoven that Lindeblad would disagree with a highly personal memoir of an ever that thought. He knows (and at core so slightly irascible maiden aunt with whom do I) that it matters very much how the author partook in the delights rest of puzzling. Two words save this pitch from oblivion: Margaret Drabble. Faced with the same dilemma in a bookshop, the reader would be wise world responds to follow the publisher's hunch and buy this book - , because it tells the truth as it is a gentle delight from start to finish, in the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Taylorgareth_steel|title=To School Through The FieldsNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=3.54|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=To School Through the Fields I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the memoir of companion volume you've been looking for. As a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in TV show the 1940s (though author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book never mentions the date of when it is set)not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. Taylor makes He says that he's written it clear at the beginning that she is writing a nostalgic look back at the era of her childhoodto inform and provoke thought, before the particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'changing winds of time' and then presents a series of anecdotes about her parentst lack sensitivity, her family although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and some of the other characters who lived in her villageeating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil DanielsDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Phil DanielsSpeedy: Class ActorHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If we were asked How to nominate summarise the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over the last twenty years or so, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high on the list. Born life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in Islington in 1958 and raised in Kings Cross, he was a graduate pithy sentence to kick off a review of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970shis memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit 0008350388|title=Talking We Need to Talk About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely FriendshipMoney|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In early 2005, ''To be a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi dark-skinned Black woman is to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day to day life in Baghdadbe seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections thereultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts. 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>}}'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dana Fowley0571365884|title=How Could She?My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the sameGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was raped by her mother's partner and taken to the homes sort of her grandparents life where if she had nothing to worry about she was abused by them would become anxious but such occasions were few and othersfar between. At other times On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was forced completely unable to go to the homes of other men where she speak about what was raped and abused. Did wrong with her mother not know what it was going on? Did suggested that she turn should write it down and ''My Mess is a blind eye? It was neither Bit of those. Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse and organised much of it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Val Doonican|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete Autobiography|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=In the 1960s, if Harold Wilson was the personification of politics and the Beatles the collective icon of youth culture, Val Doonican was similarly at the very apex of light entertainment. He may no longer have such a high profile – but heAdventures in Anxiety's outlasted them both. Over four decades he has refused to bow to passing fads and fashions, remained true to himself, and in the process he has never really put a foot wrong. As he says towards the end, 'When you find out what it is you do best, and what the public wants from you, then stick with it, and do it as well as you can.' With the possible exception of his contemporary and longresult -time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult or so we are given to think of another person in showbiz who comes across as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aeronwy Thomas Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=My Father's Places: A portrait of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughterTattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Aeronwy Thomas was six years old when she Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and her family came to settle after a nomadic existence at Laugharnesense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, on the Welsh coast, in 1949as have many. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on the BBC, Your memories and while he continued to travel to London regularly for personality worn away like a statue over time affected the purpose (elements. It seems as well as to carouse if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with friends Alzheimers and has documented his journey in his old haunts), somewhere off the beaten track was a more suitable working environment''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Palin1529109116|title=Diaries 1969-1979Call Me Red: The Python Years|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Never meet your heroes,'' goes the old adage. ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice. ThatA Shepherd's probably why I didn't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero of my teenage years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewJourney|author=Shirley Williams|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley WilliamsHannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Who could resist ''I want the image of a title like British farmer to simply be that? And of a person who is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent proudly employed in libraries? feeding the nation. The answer I don't think that is too much to the latter is noask.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago 0008333173|title=Small MemoriesHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the twentieth century, with judges on ''Masterchef''. You know that you're going to get an author's view honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of change and people, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lotthe time. Civil Wars You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in the neighbouring Spain; the growth front of his country - which still left it as western Europe's pooresther. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhood, in I've often wondered about the woman behind the country media image and in Lisbon, and provides ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a subtle stunning read which will make you laugh and gentle memoirbreak your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=1504321383|title=John Peel Single, Again, and Again, and Sheila RavenscroftAgain|titleauthor=Margrave of the MarshesLouisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=John Peel was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home to join Radio London and then become one of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn''You can't always enjoy it myself) be happy and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns in the music weeklies and later Radio Timesfulfilled on your own. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the end, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), and thought his build-You are not complete until you find a man'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a while. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita Thompson (Editor)Sakinu Ahronglong|title=Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S ThompsonSchool
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompsona work of fiction. That's seminal work 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 ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegasrecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' first graced . It feels like the shelveslatter. His gonzo style, putting himself at It feels like the centre of the storystories he tells about his experiences as a child, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing an adolescent, as the event he is describingan adult are real and true. If that's the case then what But memory is to be learned from a selection of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer is plentyfickle 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Floyd1544641923|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The AutobiographyAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I grew up with television cookery programmes It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and still have some recipes in my childish handwritingluxurious. It might be privileged, which begin but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it'4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…s really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' as I battled to copy what was on do so, you know), but the screen before we retuned to diplomatic spouse, the presenteraccompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. Programmes stagnated as the cook spoke to camera She (and lectured the viewer on how to make sponge cake or it still usually is a fish dish. Then we were shocked awake. There was a man, quite good-looking in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of way, who cooked 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on the deck of a trawler or wherever the whim took him, always glass in hand and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman about how he was doing his job. Like him, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floyd, or Floydy to millions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Johnson 0241446732|title=Rockers Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography Svante Thunberg|rating=3.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down as one of the luckiest men in showbizThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. He had a brief moment Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of glory in the early 70s as vocalist with Geordie, a Tyneside version parenting of Slade, who had three Top 40 hits and then fell on hard timestheir two daughters. After going back to the day jobThen eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, a chance call invited him to go and audition for AC/DCthen nine years old, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly diedstruggled with what was happening. Three decades laterIn such circumstances, not only have the group held on it's natural to seek a solution close to their loyal fanbasehome, but one of their albumseventually, according it became clear to an online source, is second only to Michael Jacksonthe family that they were 's 'burned-out people on a burned-out planet'Thriller'' in terms of global sales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155424</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=Susan Hill 191280493X|title=Howards End is on the LandingComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Esteemed author, Susan Hill challenges herself to a year of not buying books, ''He began writing novels and re-reading some poetry at the age of her vast collection: not a terribly original ideatwelve, but an intriguing one nonetheless. Most avid readers will no doubt have made similar vows at some point in their lives (I know I have…) Early in the memoir, Ms Hill does admit that for professional purposes she will continue it was to review books sent take him a further forty-eight years to her - but buying/obtaining realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for pleasureall that time, is to be out he remains a shining example of boundshope over experience. In the course ..'' ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of guiding us through her vast and eclectic collection, scattered throughout her home, she also sets herself the task of choosing her top 40 books - and comes up with a very erudite selectionbut will feel like you have.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682657</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Keenan190874572X|title=I'll Tell Me Ma: A Childhood MemoirLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Keenan memorably told Back at the story beginning of his years as the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a hostage in Beirut in ''An Evil Cradling'wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Now he turns to his childhood. Anyone who had I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an urban upbringing in English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the 1950's will find themselves saying ''I remember that!Sort Of'' at intervals throughout this book. Senior Service cigarettes, Pontefract cakes, translations of the rag and bone man, the Lone Ranger, family photographs kept in an old biscuit tin, Dad polishing everyonerest of Jansson's shoes, the realisation that there was a wider world beyond the city streets…These are some of the things that brought back work and devoured them as soon as I could get my own memories – what can you find?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224062166</amazonuk>hands on them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Bennett1908745819|title=A Life Like Other People'sSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was his motherSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it's illness which triggered Alan Bennett's excursions into his family background. The bout of depression hadnMostly 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 cleared as like the family had hoped and admission book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hospital hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the next step in the treatmentauthor considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. '' Asked if there had been anything like this before, Bennett said not, failing to notice his fatherOlder. Less tethered. That's hand gently touch his kneenot a bad description of where I am. The son was educated at Oxford Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had even been seen my name on the televisionit. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. He did the talking rather than the father, reluctant butcher and a man not given I am pleased to putting himself forwardhave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 1906852472|title=Dillinger's Wild RideChild: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=John Dillinger was born For Ian Mathie fans there is good and brought bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but his narrative, the early part story of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he was convicted of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upbecame). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but What I most enjoyed was sentenced to a lengthy term the feeling that many of imprisonment, whilst the man questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentencesatisfying clunk. ItSeemingly all that's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for now left in the law was spawneddrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
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