Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=Life on AirThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=David AttenboroughGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was one If you were to bring up an image of the generation who grew up when David Attenborough was a giant among presenters city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of wildlife programmes on television, someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and anything with his name attached background is the East End, where he was a must-watchfamiliar with violence, poverty and injustice. At the time, I had There was no idea that posh public school on his CV - but he was also one of had been to the pivotal characters in the development London School of broadcasting, having been controller of BBC2 Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and director he has a facility with numbers which most of programming for BBC TV for several yearsus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. These daysIt was his ability at what was, he is probably best remembered for writing and presenting the nine ‘Life’ seriesessentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a comprehensive survey of all life on the planettrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908524</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Last EscaperSecret Life of a Vet|author=Peter TunstallSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=HistoryAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''The Last Escaper'' opens differently t want to many of follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the great escape biographies strain that were released soon after the war as it is told some 70 years laterbeing on-call put on his father's life. Peter Tunstall When he was an RAF pilot seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was shot down a vet and spent was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many years as students - been his dream since he was a Prisoner Of War across occupied Europe, including in Colditzchild. He lived through the warIf anything, but also lived through many decades of peacehe'd wanted to be a professional footballer. Will these years of the relative quiet life lesson the tales of bravery and dare doing of the war? Of course not!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071564923X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The AnimalsEdel Rodriguez|authortitle=Christopher Isherwood and Don BachardyWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Christopher Isherwood is a writer whose work was often (We're in fact nearly always) biographicalchildhood, and one who was always very open about his personal lifewe're in Cuba. Interest in The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the life of Isherwood seems to have been rife recentlycountry, with has proven himself a film about Isherwood Communist, and Bachardy released in 2008not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, an adaptation those hours-long speeches of his were kind of Isherwoodtaking his time away. Our narrator's book 'A Single Manfamily weren' released t in 2009the 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 a BBC adaptation of 'Christopher watched, and not liked for his Kind' released successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in 2011this sultry island country, as well as it remains the seemingly countless revivals kind of heat forcing you out of 'Cabaret'.the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784700827</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick Stein1035025299|title=Under a Mackerel SkyWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Rick Stein was born if not Nina Stibbe is returning to wealth then certainly to privilegeLondon for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. He was raised on an Oxfordshire farm and spent holidays She's been at the familyVictoria's home smallholding in Cornwall. His parents were gregarious and intelligent and he was one of five children who led the sort of open-air life Leicestershire which isn't all that country children did in those days before we worried about stranger danger. He enjoyed school and loved Cornwallconducive to writing, where he gained a reputation as he got older for giving riotous parties in a barn on the Cornish propertythere's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. It was idyllic - until The other side of the day that his father (who was bi-polar) committed suicide. Stein's reaction to this decision was to head to the Australian outback where he worked in sealed when a variety room became available (courtesy of jobs (some more palatable than othersDeborah Moggach) and finally came back to England, via America and Mexicoat a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091949912</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Me After YouChristopher Fowler|authortitle=Lucie BrownleeWord Monkey|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=People die all It's the timefirst of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I’m I decided not trying to be crude, they just do. It’s swim at the circle pool in favour of life, or some less Disney-fied sentimentgoing to my beach hut. And if everyone whose partner or parent died wrote a book about it The weather closed in, wellrain arrived, and I decided not to say do that would be less than good would be a severe understatementeither. For a When I finished reading this book on such , I realised it was because (a theme ) I wanted to be worth finish reading, it has this book and (b) I did not want to have a pull, a twistdo 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 make laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you look twice. In Lucie’s case it’s the fact that her husband Mark was only 37 years old when he died. And not only is dying, and you know he actually is at thatpoint, because he died during a bit of nudge, nudge, wink, winkdoes. Talk about going out with a bang He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0753555832</amazonuk>0857529625
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ellie LaksKit De Waal|title=My Gentle Barn: where animals heal Without Warning and children learn to hopeOnly Sometimes|rating=4|genre= Autobiography|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St.Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by 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.|isbn=1472284852}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1638485216|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a child Ellie Laks was abused, but ''Corruption is not only did she suffer at the hands of her abuserdepartment, she also had to endure parental indifference to what was happening to hergender or race specific. Her only relief came through animals - and even then she had It has everything to cope when the animals were taken from her. As an adult she discovered that she had a real talent for healing animals - and that they helped her to heal toodo with character. In a brilliant leap of intuition she realised that if the animals could help her to heal they could do the same for others and so the Gentle Barn was born - a place where animals were brought as a place of safety and where disadvantaged children and special needs groups could use as therapyPeriod.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584883</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|title=Any Other Mouth|author=Anneliese Mackintosh|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=With a title like ''Any Other MouthOne more body just wouldn't matter'', you know from the outset that this is, shall we say, a rather niche book. It’s not all about orifices, though. Partially autobiographical, this is the messy, ludicrous, wildly entertaining story of a girl who’s just a little bit different. Ok, make that a lot different.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754575</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|title=My Outdoor Life|author=Ray Mears|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=SometimesThe murder of George Floyd, a seemingly insignificant incident in one's youth can have farforty-reaching and profound consequences. Life is punctuated with pivotal moments that can completely alter a course of events. Ray Mears recalls such an incident when aged six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, he opened an encyclopaedia and saw a picture forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of cavemen for Minneapolis sent shock waves around the first timeworld. A few months later, the same volume We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was sitting an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the edge his desk, when suddenly, it started to slide. Mears reached out to grab it.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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444778218</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna RakoffBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=My Salinger YearI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Joanna Rakoff was twenty three when she took a job as assistant When the Dalai Lama adds his words to a literary agent in New York. Sheyour frontispiece, I'd not long left graduate school (and her m inclined to think it doesn'college boyfriend') and her dream was t really matter how the rest of the world responds to become a poetyour book. The job was for experience and for income - her parents were somewhat dismissive of I know, having read the positionbook in question, pointing out that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it was what used matters very much how the rest of the world responds to be called a secretary - but there was a bonus which Rakoff had not anticipatedthis book, or even appreciated when she first heard of because it tells the truth as it. The agency might be stuck is, in the past - with Dictaphones and typewriters rather than computers - but its main client was J D Salinger. Rakoff knew the name - obviously - but she had never read one of his booksearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408830175</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynne Martingareth_steel|title=Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the WorldNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=TravelAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Lynne 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 Tim Martin had known each other decades ago Small'' but when we meet them they''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've only been married looking for . As a short time. There's just one thing though - they're not ready to settle down, despite TV show the fact author would argue that they're what might be called 'upper middle agedAll Creatures''lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Their roots are in Gareth Steel says that the US book is not suitable for younger readers and - both have adult children there and the Martins have a house in California after reading - but they want I agree with him. He says that he's written it to travel inform and not just as touristsprovoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. They want to see the world as the locals see it It deals with some uncomfortable and to experience what distressing issues but itdoesn's like to live t lack sensitivity, although there. Lynne describes them as not being wealthy, but they decide to sell their home, invest the money are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and become 'home-free'eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00J0CRNKE</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave RobertsLetterfly Knoderer|title=Sad MenSpeedy: A MemoirHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Before he was twenty How to summarise the life of Dave Roberts had had Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a lot review of jobs - far too many to list - but he his memoir? Do you know, I really wanted to work in advertising don't think I can.  Dave is an author and specifically for Saatchi an artist. An inspirational speaker and Saatchia professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, whom he saw as the ''best'' advertising agency and given their predominance in the early years of the eighties it's hard struggled with a controlling father, run away to argue with his judgement. The only problem was that jobs with join the agency were hard to come by circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and Dave eventually accepted that he would have to start rather lower down the ladder with the intention of working his way up to the top. And that rung at the hit rock bottom of when the ladder was a job with an agency in Leedsbottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593071301</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
{{newreview|title=A Woman's Story|author=Annie Ernaux|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=After spending two years in an old people's home, Annie Ernaux's mother finally succumbs to Alzheimer's Disease0. It has been a terrifyingly protracted end, and one that has spawned feelings 7% of absolute helplessness English Literature GCSE students in her daughter, who watched as her mother's life crumbled before an 'imagination' that bore 'no relation to reality'. Yet Ernaux's distress is also fuelled England study a book by the realisation that she'll 'never hear the sound a writer of her [mother's] voice again', and colour while only 7% study a book by the fact that the fraying bond between the present and the past has finally been a woman.'severed'. Impulsively, Ernaux decides to recreate that past, hoping to 'bring her [mother back] into the world' through a piece of writing. In short, she is The Bookseller'incapable of doing anything else'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373440</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021
{{newreview|title=Call Otegha Uwagba came to the Vet: FarmersUK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, Dramas and Disasters - My First Year as a Country Vet|author=Anna Birch|rating=4with her father joining them later.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Newly The family was hard-qualified vet Anna arrives in working, principled and determined that their children would have the sleepy coastal village best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of Ebbourne filled with dreams money although this did not translate into a shortage of following in anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the footsteps of her hero, James Herriot as she starts her new role working in family acquired a rural mixed practicecar. She will be treating farm animals For Otegha, as well as smaller pets, in education meant a friendly community in scholarship to a stunning location. However, Anna barely has time to settle private school in before being thrown headlong into the thick of things with two tricky calvings to deal with London and plenty of muckthen a place at New College, blood and gore. “Oh yes Mum, it’s a glamorous job...” she lamentsOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555077</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=Slow Getting UpMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Nate JacksonGeorgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sporting autobiographies are often written by those sports men and women who made Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it to was the very pinnacle sort of their profession. Their stories surround past glories and how they lifted themselves up above the great life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become the very bestanxious but such occasions were few and far between. HoweverOn a visit to a therapist, for every superstar footballer or tennis playeras an adult, there needs when she was completely unable to be a lot more average Joes speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and Joettes for them to shine against. And who ''My Mess is to say that being an average player a Bit of a Life: Adventures in a professional league Anxiety'' is not an achievement in itself? Nate Jackson was one such ‘average’ player in the NFL – but would you call him that result - or so we are given to his face?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00IO19CYW</amazonuk>believe.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Levels of LifeDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|authortitle=Julian BarnesA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you read Alzheimer's is a broadsheet you will know the format disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this book from when it came out in hardback – indeed I recognised cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a great portion of statue over time affected the third part elements. It seems as having been excerpted somewhereif nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Part one of this triptych Daniel Gibbs is a look back at pioneering aeronauts neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in hot air balloons – either ''hydrogen balloons'' or ''flame balloons'A Tattoo on my Brain', whatever they are. They may have had crash landings, they may have suffered problems here and there and risked life and limb, but they travelled, they saw the world from unique angles, and almost in homage to Barnes' characters chasing the sun in an airplane in his own book, saw themselves as a photographic negative writ large in shadow form on the tops of clouds.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584530</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''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.''
{{newreview|title=To Bed On Thursdays|author=Jenny Selby-Green|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=The advert asked 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 young man, but seventeen year old Jenny Selby-Green applied anywayfarmer. She met all It's not always the other attributes, case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the alternative 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 be having to take whatever job become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was offered via well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Labour ExchangeLake District. She saw a lamb being born and, seeing as she’d already rejected although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the maximum kudos of two offers under her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the 1950s Direction determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of Labour. And soher, she became a journalist, or journalist of sorts anywayset about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852170</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Jackson0008333173|title=A Little Piece of EnglandHungry: A tale Memoir of self-sufficiencyWanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleAutobiography|summary=Here at Bookbag weI're great fans m always relieved when Grace Dent is one of John Jackson. We loved his [[Tales for Great Grandchildren by John Jackson and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini|Tales for Great Grandchildren]] the judges on ''Masterchef'and'. You know that you' [[Brahma Dreaming: Legends re going to get an honest opinion from Hindu Mythology by John Jackson and Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini|Brahma Dreaming: Legends from Hindu Mythology]] so it was something someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of a treat to meet the author time. You also ponder on his own ground, how she can look so to speakelegant with all that good food in front of her. Originally published as I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Bucket of Nuts and a Herring Net: The Birth Memoir of a Spare-Time FarmWanting More'' this is actually Jackson's first book a stunning read which will make you laugh and thirty-five years later we're delighted that it's been republished break your heart in hardback complete with the original black-and-white illustrations by Val Biroequal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909661031</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=My Life In AgonySingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Irma KurtzLouisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I used to love the problem pages of magazines as a teenager. My friends and I would pour over the letters which invariable ended with some form of the question ''Am I normal?'You can' t be happy and mock the invariable Agony Aunt answer of ''Of course you’re normal'', hooting instead ''No, you’re, really, REALLY fulfilled on your own. You are not!complete until you find a man'' That response perhaps illustrates why none of us decided to follow that as a career plan, but Irma Kurtz did, and as agony aunt for Cosmopolitan for more than 40 years it’s safe to say she has been a fair bit more sympathetic than we ever were.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883113</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|title=Never Mind 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 Bullocks: One girl(she's 10,000 km adventure around India in usually fairly young) is rescued by the worlds cheapest car|author=Vanessa Able|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=With a cute little map of India on 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 front cover expectation that they will marry and cartoon cars puttering over the page, I thought I’d chosen an entertaining yet mind-broadening traveloguehave children. Well I It was wrong. Now I’ve read it through, I don’t even see it on the same shelf as a Lonely Planet. But that’s possibly this book’s novelty belief and great strength. The travelogue shelf is fair groaning under weighty tomes by Europeans digging into Indian life and culture. So let me unpack the delights of this particular book for you, but don’t it would be misled: you aren’t going to pick up many recommendations for your own odyssey from this round-India skedaddleyears before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886127</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Here and Now: LettersSakinu Ahronglong|authortitle=J M Coetzee and Paul AusterHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Reading letters by writers affords a particular pleasure. They give The flyleaf to this little collection tells us access to the functioning of that it is a writer’s mind when it’s somewhere between work and restof fiction. That's possibly misleading. Sometimes they reveal secrets I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, offer startling revelations about their writers and insights about or whether it is as the times they lived in. blurb goes on to say ''Here recollections, folklore and Now,autobiographical stories'' . It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an exchange of letters between J M Coetzee 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 Paul Auster between 2008 maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and 2011, describes itself as ‘an epistolary dialogue between two great writers who became great friendstherefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584220</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1544641923|title=How to Disappear Completely: on modern anorexiaAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Kelsey OsgoodSandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=To It's tempting to think that the awkward 14 year-old Kelseydiplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, a happy but family and a comfortable suburban life are dull and numbingconnections tell me that it is far from luxurious. A self-professed bookworm and fan of 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 literary greatsaccompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she craves meaning and purpose in an utterly normal teenage existence') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715647539</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Sorcerers Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Orange Peela Planet in Crisis|author=Ian MathieMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=I can’t understand why Ian Mathie isn’t a more celebrated writer The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and commentator Svante Thunberg took on African cultural affairsmost of the parenting of their two daughters. I’ve never yet heard him on radioThen eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, re-telling episodes from his memorable lifestruggled with what was happening. Our loss. Africa is moving forwardIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to understand the Africa of today we need to pay attention to its recent past as well as its early colonial historyfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. Ian’s unassuming witness of African tribes as If they slowly emerged into the world of the 1970’s is unparalleled for its authenticity and depth of experience. This recent memoir is his best constructed yet; were to find a seriously informative tale for anyone who wants way to live happily again their solution would need to know about the real Africa beneath the surface of today’s mobile phones and pre-loved designer jeansbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852278</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Oscar Goodman and George Anastasia191280493X|title=Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor Coming of Las VegasAge|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I've a confession to make. I've done something which I tell our reviewers they must never do: I took a book to review which I didn't expect to like. The Mafia, He began writing novels and poetry at the mob - call it what you will - are not people I admire and I thought it would be a small step to extend that to an attorney who defended them. Las Vegas? Well, it's not going to be my destination age of choice. I'm not against gamblingtwelve, but I struggle with the concept of travelling it was to take him a city further forty-eight years to realise that revels in ithe wasn’t very good at either. Oscar Goodman says Consistently unpublished for all that had time, he been the benevolent dictator remains a shining example of Las Vegas rather than the mayor he would have legalised prostitution and drugshope over experience. Hmm... This book was going to be one of those that I threw against the wall in disgust, wasn't it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HX9UEG6</amazonuk>'}}
{{newreview|author=James Lasdun|title=Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=In the autumn of 2003 James Lasdun taught ''This a fiction workshop as part memoir from someone you have never heard of the graduate writing programme at a place he calls Morgan College. On all such courses the quality of the students is very variable - but one writer stood out as having talent. He calls her Nasreenwill feel like you have. He offered help over and above the course but Nasreen read a personal interest into this - which wasn't in any way reciprocated. An email correspondence which had been friendly turned nasty, with accusations that Nasreen's work had been stolen to sell to other writers, that he had had an affair with another student and that he had arranged for Nasreen to be raped. Anti-semitic comments were made. Obsessive love had turned to obsessive hate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572311</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=190874572X|title=Glitter and GlueLetters from Tove|author=Kelly CorriganTove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When Kelly leaves Back at the USA for a life-changing trip around beginning of the worldcentury, her goal is not I went on holiday to end up working as Nepal. I met a nanny in suburban Sydneywonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. And her goal is definitely not I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to turn into her mother in the processread Tove Jansson. She doesn’t realise I do know that it at 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 time, but rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as this memoir shows, there are worse things that I could happenget my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444725149</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1908745819|title=The Wolf of Wall StreetSurfacing |author=Jordan BelfortKathleen Jamie|rating=2.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As if 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 have enough excuses like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to appreciate hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering 'Masters 'an older, less tethered sense of the Universeherself.'' Older. Less tethered. That' s not a bad description of the financial sectorwhere I am. After Add to that my love of the tax dodgingnatural world, of those aspects of the bonus scammingpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, price fixing and the valiant attempt to bring down the entire world economy comes Jordan Belfort aka the Wolf substance most of Wall Streetall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. To be fair It was written for me. It would have found its way to Belfort, he plied his trade long before the most recent financial meltdownme eventually. Still, he's managed I am pleased to piggy back the latest crash via a best selling book which has been re-released to coincide with a film adaptation starring Leonardo Dicapriohave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444778129</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1906852472|title=Play It AgainWild Child: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Alan RusbridgerIan Mathie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I’ve maintained for a long time that I’ll read anything, if it’s well-enough writtenFor Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. So it was Ian has come up with this fascinating memoirthe missing link in his narrative, even though it’s a year in the life story of an amateur pianista very unusual childhood (yes, and I don’t play the piano very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later or indeed a note of music. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in his professional role before I read is that the bookis published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. A quick browse through What I most enjoyed was the first couple feeling that many of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a clear story: it is his stock-satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in-trade as Editor of the Guardian. And the book duly held me through a messy, interrupted week of bedtime readingdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1999811402|title=Born in SiberiaPainting Snails|author=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie SlaterStephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a title that doesnlifestyle book, but you't tell you re not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the half of the storybest results. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of The answer would be something along the Soviet Union as we in Britain think lines of 'try it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again itsee's not half of the story. The story here is so complexThen I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, so rich with detail and incidentbecame a busker, finally got into medical school and itself came about in such is now an unusual way, A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373343</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jon Katz|title=The Dog Nobody Loved|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=When we first meet Jon Katz hethere's not an awful lot more to what goes on in a good place: his marriage of thirty-five years was breaking up and he was close to a nervous breakdown. He didnMajor Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''t need any more problems. He particularly Casualty''didn, but that isn'treally what the book's about. There' need s a young rescue doglot about rock & roll, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, who'd been living wild, to contend with and which seems to upset be the fragile equilibrium real passion of the Hartley's life he lived with his animals on Bedlam Farm. Frieda was near feral , but devoted to her rescuer, Maria Wulf and it was Maria who was at didn't actually fit into the centre of this conundrumentertainment genre either. Katz was spectacularly disconnected from Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the world hard way'? Yep - and Maria was that's the only person to whom he seemed able to talk, but to connect with Maria he had to connect with Frieda tooone. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091957443</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|title=Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins|author=Gavin Francis|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=I know two books don't make a genre, but twice in recent years I have read autobiographical travelogues of men who felt too much was going Move on in their lives and their surroundings, and took themselves off to remote, isolated, extremely cold and inhospitable places. One went to the shores of Lake Baikal, and shared his days hunting, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighbours. Gavin Francis took himself south, to the edge of the Antarctic ice, to spend a year as a scientific doctor. He wasn't able to be completely as alone as some have been in the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before the week-long annual changeover of staff was through. Francis ends up with a baker's dozen of companions, in a place where – apart from the ice, sealing things up – only two lockable doors exist. You might think this was a large group of people for someone wanting to be alone, but the very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in the huge emptiness of the landscape is the main point of this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956596X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Biography Reviews]]

Navigation menu