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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil MacFarquhar0241636604|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''What are the chances of change in the Middle East?'' is the question central to this book. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length and breadth of the Islamic stronghold of the Middle East, I feel inclined to believe his in-depth assessment. In descriptive and reasoned terms, he identifies conservative forces which predominate in the region, primarily the religious and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernization. This discussion of attempts to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or the media, is strengthened in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations with particular reference to their readiness and motivation for change. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTrading Game: A Confession|author=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World WarGary 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>
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 {{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
}}
 {{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.
For those who missed the media spectacle that surrounded her first book, 'Girl With a 'One Track Mindmore body just wouldn' followed twelve months in the life of t matter'Abby Lee', a film runner who became an internet sensation after starting a blog in 2004 detailing her sexual exploits and thoughts. The book became an immediate success with men and women alike and earned Abby a couple of thousand more hits on her blog ever day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509691</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Leslie Kenton|title=Love Affair: The Memoir murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a Forbidden Fatherforty-four-daughter Relationship|rating=4year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=For some years, I had been aware We rarely see pictures of Leslie Kentona murder taking place but Floyd's books death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on healthy living, and also of Stan KentonGeorge's work as a jazz bandleader, though neck is not one which I had never made 'll ever forget and the connection until nowprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. This family memoir reveals all about There was a backlash against the famous father and later-topolice -be-famous daughter, and it is a disturbing talenot just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091910536</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice TaylorBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=The VillageI May Be Wrong|rating=35|genre=Autobiography|summary=Two other authorsWhen the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, [[:Category:Miss Read|Miss Read]] and [[:Category:Rebecca Shaw|Rebecca Shaw]]I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, have already purloined having read the village for their ownbook in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I so wish ) that it matters very much how the rest of the publishers had chosen a more distinctive title for world responds to this reprint. It's book, because it tells the Irishness of truth as it is, in the memoir that will attract English readersearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224202</amazonuk>1526644827
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Drabblegareth_steel|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Imagine the scene: I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a major publishing house receives vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the latest pitch companion volume you've been looking for a book. Its basis is As a history of TV show the jigsawauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, interwoven with a highly personal memoir of an ever so slightly irascible maiden aunt as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with whom the author partook in the delights of puzzlinghim. Two words save this pitch from oblivion: Margaret DrabbleHe says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Faced It deals with the same dilemma in a bookshopsome uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, the reader although there are occasions when you would be wise to follow the publisher's hunch best choosing between reading and buy this book - it is a gentle delight from start to finisheating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice TaylorDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=To School Speedy: Hurled Through The Fields|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=To School Through the Fields is the memoir of a farmer’s daughter who grew up in rural County Cork in the 1940s (though the book never mentions the date of when it is set). Taylor makes it clear at the beginning that she is writing a nostalgic look back at the era of her childhood, before the 'changing winds of time' and then presents a series of anecdotes about her parents, her family and some of the other characters who lived in her village.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phil Daniels|title=Phil Daniels: Class ActorHavoc
|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 in Islington in 1958 and raised life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in Kings Cross, he was a graduate of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicole Dryburgh|title=Talk pithy sentence to the Hand|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See It'', which she wrote at eighteen, and which detailed her battles with cancer and the loss of her sight. We loved the warts-and-all picture kick off a review of her life that she gave us thenhis memoir? Do you know, and so we were I really pleased to see that shedon's written a second bookt think I can. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Ian Mathie
|title=The Man of Passage
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|Dave is an author=Carole White and Sian Williams|title=Struggle or Starve|rating=4an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Struggle or Starve is And a collection recovering alcoholic. The son of autobiographical writings about girls' and womena Lutheran minister, he's lives in South Wales between the wars. This is struggled with a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honnocontrolling father, an independent publisher set up run away to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of join the contributors in this book came from miners' families circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and grew up in real poverty painted theatre sets, and economic insecurityhit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
 {{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
{{newreview|author=Chinua Achebe|title=The Education ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a British-Protected Child|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is by a collection writer of autobiographical essays colour while only 7% study a book by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958a woman. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>}}' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
{{newreview|author=Gabriel Weston|title=Direct Red|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Few people have the ability Otegha Uwagba came to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the readerUK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargonher father joining them later. Gabriel Weston is one such – The family was hard-working, principled and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hoursdetermined that their children would have the best education possible. She's There was always a surgeon and we're pulled painful awareness of money although this did not translate into the intricacies a shortage of her world without anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the need family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to don mask a private school in London and gownthen a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>
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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 with friends in his old haunts), somewhere off the beaten track was a more suitable working environmentif nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Palin|title=Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary='This is what makes Daniel Gibbs'Never meet your heroes,'' goes the old adagememoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice. ThatA Tattoo on my Brain'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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>1108838936
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Williams1529109116|title=Climbing the BookshelvesCall Me Red: The Autobiography of Shirley WilliamsA Shepherd's Journey|author=Hannah 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.''
Shirley Catlin, 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 she 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, tells us in and brought up on the early pages Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of this memoir animals. Her original intention was that during she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her childhood her father encouraged way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea house, right up to the ceilingLake District. It was She saw a secret between lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the two kudos of them, as her motheroriginal intention, Testament she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of Youth Author Vera Brittainher, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken armsshe set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>
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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>}}
{{newreview|author=Jo Brand|title=Look Back in Hunger|rating=3This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Born It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in Hastings in May 1957, after leaving Brunel University with a degree in social sciences, Jo Brand unsuccessfully applied her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for a research job with Channel 4 on a series about racism, 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 worked for a time as a psychiatric nurse at marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the South London Bethlem expectation that they will marry and Maudsley Hospitalhave children. But the lure of showbiz proved too strong, It was a belief and stardom in stand-up comedy soon beckonedit would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355237</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 Thompson's seminal a work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' first graced the shelves. His gonzo style, putting himself at the centre of the story, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event he is describingfiction. If thatThat's the case then what possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is to be learned from a selection of interviews with "fiction" in the main man himself then? The answer is plenty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Keith Floyd|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The Autobiography|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I grew sense that Ahronglong made it all up with television cookery programmes and still have some recipes in my childish handwriting, which begin or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' as I battled to copy what was on the screen before we retuned to the presenter. Programmes stagnated as the cook spoke to camera and lectured It feels like the viewer on how to make sponge cake or a fish dishlatter. Then we were shocked awake. There was a man, quite good-looking in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of way, who cooked on It feels like the deck of a trawler or wherever the whim took him, always glass in hand and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman stories he tells about how he was doing his job. Like himexperiences as a child, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floydas an adolescent, or Floydy to millions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian Johnson |title=Rockers as an adult are real and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography |rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down as one of the luckiest men in showbiztrue. He had But memory is a brief moment of glory in the early 70s as vocalist with Geordiefickle thing, a Tyneside version of Slade, who had three Top 40 hits and then fell on hard times. After going back to the day job, a chance call invited him to go maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and audition for AC/DC, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly diedtherefore more people will read it. Three decades later, not only have the group held on to their loyal fanbase, but one of their albums, according to an online source, is second only to Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' in terms of global salesMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155424</amazonuk>1999791282
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan Hill 1544641923|title=Howards End is on the LandingAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Esteemed author, Susan Hill challenges herself It's tempting to a year of not buying books, think that the diplomatic life is privileged and re-reading luxurious. some of her vast collection: not a terribly original ideaIt might be privileged, but an intriguing one nonethelessfamily connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Most avid readers will no doubt have made similar vows at some point in their lives Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (I it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know I have…) Early in the memoir, Ms Hill does admit that for professional purposes she will continue to review books sent to her - but buying/obtaining for pleasurethe diplomatic spouse, is to be out of bounds. In the course of guiding us through her vast and eclectic collectionaccompanying baggage, scattered throughout her homewell, she also sets herself the task of choosing her top 40 books - that's an entirely different matter. She (and comes up with it still usually is a very erudite selection'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682657</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Keenan0241446732|title=I'll Tell Me MaOur House is on Fire: A Childhood Memoir|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Keenan memorably told the story Scenes of his years as a hostage in Beirut in ''An Evil Cradling''. Now he turns to his childhood. Anyone who had an urban upbringing in the 1950's will find themselves saying ''I remember that!'' at intervals throughout this book. Senior Service cigarettes, Pontefract cakes, the rag Family and bone man, the Lone Ranger, family photographs kept a Planet in an old biscuit tin, Dad polishing everyone's shoes, the realisation that there was a wider world beyond the city streets…These are some of the things that brought back my own memories – what can you find?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224062166</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Alan Bennett|title=A Life Like Other People'sMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It was his mother's illness which triggered Alan Bennett's excursions into his The Ernman / Thunberg family backgroundseemed perfectly normal. The bout Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of depression hadn't cleared as the family had hoped parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and admission to hospital her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was the next step in the treatmenthappening. Asked if there had been anything like this beforeIn such circumstances, Bennett said notit's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, failing it became clear to notice his fatherthe family that they were 's hand gently touch his knee. The son was educated at Oxford and had even been seen 'burned-out people on the televisiona burned-out planet''. He did the talking rather than the father, reluctant butcher and If they were to find a man not given way to putting himself forwardlive happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn 191280493X|title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One|rating=4|genre=History|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most but the early part of his adult life was to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted of an attack on a man in a botched hold-up. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to a lengthy term Coming of imprisonment, whilst the man with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. It's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAge|author=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia |title=Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia FamilyDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia worked for He began writing novels and poetry at the FBI. That might sound rather glamorous age of twelve, but Jack had it was to take him a special claim further forty-eight years to famerealise that he wasn’t very good at either. He was one of those rare people who always worked undercover – not just Consistently unpublished for hours or days at a all that time but sometimes for years. In ''Making Jack Falcone'' , he tells the story of how he came to infiltrate the Mafia in New York and was responsible for remains a string shining example of arrests which crippled the organised crime familieshope over experience... If that doesn't sound impressive enough, then just consider that Jack Garcia was a Cuban-born American and he went undercover as an Italian amongst Italians.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393942</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview
|author=Lucy Mangan
|title=My Family and Other Disasters
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Not living in the UK means that we don't have British newspapers. Even when we lived in England, we never bought ''The Guardian'', so I had never actually heard of Lucy Mangan before being sent this book. That's probably not a bad thing, since I began the book - a collection of her Guardian columns - without any preconceptions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852651244</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Buzz Aldrin|title=Magnificent Desolation|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=It seems the first thing one does when one lands on the moon is go through all but the final steps in the process of flying straight back up - just in case. The first thing one does when one steps down on to the moon is to make sure you can step back up into your lunar module - just in case there's 'This a panic somewhere. The first thing one does when land back on earth memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you would think - would be to have the same urgency to get back up and out there, but life has a habit of getting in the way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804026</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernard P Morgan 190874572X|title=Memories of the Rare Old Times: Through The Eyes of a DublinerLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=25
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This is Back at the story beginning of Bernard Morganthe century, one of nine children growing up in Dublin in the 50sI went on holiday to Nepal. As I met a boy Bernard tells us about his love wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of football and boxing-friends. He played truant from school, preferring I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to smoke cigarettes instead and, as he got older, he hung around in gangs with his brothers and friendsread Tove Jansson. We hear I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of the wars they hadThe Summer Book, and how that I eagerly awaited the Irish stick by one another. Finally we see him go to England where he tries to find work, sleeping rough and living on nothing. Along the way we meet ''Sort Of'' translations of the street people rest of Dublin and above all BernardJansson's familywork and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312454</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vicky Jaggers1908745819|title=SilencedSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Vicky Jaggers had Sometimes when people suggest that you read a dreadful childhoodcertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. One sister was in a home following an accident which made her violent and her elder brotherMostly we take them at their word, Davidor not, was obviously her motherbut rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's favouritea rare experience. He People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was very intelligenttold why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, but disliking any sort less tethered sense of work his abilities were directed towards getting what he wanted without making any effortherself. The family moved house regularly as Vicky'' Older. Less tethered. That's father looked for work and schooling soon became an option which wasn't always chosennot a bad description of where I am. Sexually mature at Add to that my love of the age natural world, of nine and looking much older than her years she took to spending much those aspects of her time in the pubs her parents ran poetic and it was whilst her parents were serving in the bar lyrical that David raped her – are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on three successive nights – when she it. It was only twelvewritten for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. Her pregnancy wasn't evident for six monthsI am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976772</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Merry and Steve Emecz 1906852472|title=EnabledWild Child: One Disabled Woman's Incredible Story of Tackling Her Disability in Pursuit of a Lifelong Dream|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ruth Merry has never been your common-or-garden young lady. Born with no ability to move her legs, and more, due to a condition called arthrogryposis, she still became an avid equestrian, downhill skier, competitive swimmer, fund-raiser and more. At the beginning of this book a flippant comment inspires another, future dream - that of going down in a four-man bobsleigh.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lucy Wadham |title=The Secret Life of France|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=I'm rather at Growing Up a loss to describe this book for you, and I'm still uncertain how to categorise it. It's part personal memoir and part analytical. Whether you regard this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is down, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNomad|author=Lynn Barber |title=An EducationIan Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Lynn Barber comes from For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the ''lowermissing link in his narrative, unrememberedthe story of a very unusual childhood (yes, orders on both sidesthe very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it''. There s hardly news two years later – is no ancestral home or village – just parents who were determined that she should work hard and make something of herselfthe book is published posthumously. WellAs always, they were – until Simon proposed and it was explained to her that Oxford didn't really matters beautifully written, that being married to a good man would be more importantwith many exciting moments. Simon What I most enjoyed was much older – older the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in fact than he would admit to – and he picked Lynn up (quite literally) at ''Wild Child'' with a bus stop when she was just sixteensatisfying clunk. Surprisingly her parents were unworried by this and threw them together, despite the fact Seemingly all that Simon, who was 's now left in the property business, had some strange friends. In the nineteen fifties it wasn't every sixteen year old girl who had a passing acquaintance with the evil slum landlord, Peter Rachmandrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039558</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stan Cattermole 1999811402|title=Bete de JourPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'Something': originally I thought that as it's just come in loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the lines of 'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that might appeal there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ', said Sue from The Bookbag, having just taken delivery of 'Casualty'Bête de Jour', but that isn't really what the book's about. Pleased There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be thought the real passion ofHartley's life, I never mustered but it didn't actually fit into the courage to ask whether this thought was motivated by entertainment genre either. Did we have a previous liking category for bloke lit, or by 'doing the impossible the bookhard way'? Yep - that's subtitle: the one. It''The Intimate Adventures of s an Ugly Man''autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007312741</amazonuk>
}}
 
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