Newest Autobiography Reviews

Review of The Other Girl by Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator) Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Just a Liverpool Lad by Peter McArdle Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of The Possession by Annie Ernaux and Anna Moschovakis (translator) Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy Autobiography 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 different kind of upbringing. Full Review

Review of King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse Popular Science I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book 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. Full Review

Review of The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet by Sion Rowlands Animals and Wildlife 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. Full Review

Review of Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez Graphic Novels 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 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… Full Review

Review of Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal Autobiography As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the kind of anger only a child can express to their parents. Full Review

Review of Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement by Frederick Reynolds Autobiography Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period. One more body just wouldn't matter. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were all tarred by the Chauvin brush. Full Review

Review of I May Be Wrong by Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator) Autobiography When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century. Full Review

Review of Never Work With Animals by Gareth Steel Animals and Wildlife 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 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 written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating. Full Review

Review of Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc by Dave Letterfly Knoderer Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba Politics and Society 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 0.7% 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 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 her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children 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. Full Review

Review of My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett Autobiography 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 - or so we are given to believe. Full Review

Review of A Tattoo on my Brain by Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker Autobiography Alzheimer'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. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in A Tattoo on my Brain. Full Review

Review of Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey by Hannah Jackson Lifestyle 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. The 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: she'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. Full Review

Review of Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More by Grace Dent Autobiography 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. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her. 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. Full Review

Review of Single, Again, and Again, and Again by Louisa Pateman Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Hunter School by Sakinu Ahronglong Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Ambassadors Do It After Dinner by Sandra Aragona Autobiography 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. Full Review

Review of Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg Politics and Society 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. Full Review

Review of Coming of Age by Danny Ryan Autobiography 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... This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have. Full Review

Review of Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator) Autobiography Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a 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. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the Sort Of translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them. Full Review

Review of Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie Autobiography 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 herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. 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 my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly. Full Review

Review of Wild Child: Growing Up a Nomad by Ian Mathie Autobiography For 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 hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in Wild Child with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable. Full Review

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