Difference between revisions of "Newest Autobiography Reviews"
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| + | |author=Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed) | ||
| + | |title=Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin | ||
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| + | |summary=Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089897</amazonuk> | ||
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{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author=Roy Tomkinson | |author=Roy Tomkinson | ||
Revision as of 10:44, 15 October 2011
Autobiography
Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)
Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers. Full review...
Of Boys, Men and Mountains - Life in the Rhondda Valley by Roy Tomkinson
Roy Tomkinson comes over as pretty sentimental about aspects of his childhood. He was born into a family of boys, and surrounded by an extended family spread along the valley. He was a child in the nineteen fifties, when post-War austerity was still a feature of life in Wales. Nevertheless, discipline, love and understanding were meted out by his parents in equal measures to provide a strong platform for his childhood adventures. Roy and his gang grew up free-ranging the valley, teaching their dogs and ferrets to catch rats, trespassing on industrial land, learning about girls, and entirely missing the growing affluence of central Britain. For them, it was idyllic, and the author makes it clear, many times, how lucky he feels to have enjoyed such a stable childhood environment. Full review...
Eat, Pray, Eat by Michael Booth
I really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Initially I thought I'd picked up a Me too variant with Eat, Pray Eat and must admit to my heart sinking. But no, here is a different personality with another story and writing style and after a few, doubting pages, I was away. This is a story of a family adventure to India, a hard-fought encounter with yoga, and some culinary interest thrown in. But like Elizabeth Gilbert, like most other visitors, India moved his life-view dramatically and for the better. Full review...
What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness by Candia McWilliam
When you know that a biography tackles alcoholism, a mother's early death, feelings of loneliness and worthlessness, culminating in going blind, you expect that this is going to be one of two types of book – the misery memoir, or the positive 'all ends well' tale. 'What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness' is neither. It is a book which is as complex as the life it relates, and as deep. Full review...
Man in a Mud Hut by Ian Mathie
Ian Mathie deserves a wider audience. I can't understand why he hasn't been leapt upon by Radio 4 , Saga Magazine, the Sunday papers, the Daily Mail, Uncle Tom Cobley and all since the publication of Bride Price in January. Here is a fine new Voice who is completely his own man. His writing is spare, uncomplicated and unassuming. Now Ian Mathie has taken a dusty-dry civil servant and turned him into a hero. Desmond's first visit to Africa is the theme of the dramatic Man in a Mud Hut story. Set in the 1970's, the intrigue and suspense sort of reminded me of The Spy who came in from the Cold - and it all happened. Full review...
A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999 by Chris Mullin
We tend to remember where we were and how we heard about the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person to the list: John Smith. I remember sitting in my office and a colleague coming in to tell me. She added 'I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader now'. We'd many angst-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smith's death is the opening entry in this, the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's Diaries. This book covers the first period of 'New Labour', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999. Full review...
In The Seventies: Adventures in the Counterculture by Barry Miles
The sixties, argues Barry Miles, did not end in 1969. For him, they began as a definable period of cultural history in 1963 and lasted until 1977. During that time he worked on and with various underground and counter-cultural activities in London, among them the founding of 'International Times' and of the Beatles' spoken word label Zapple. Full review...
Gypsy Boy on the Run by Mikey Walsh
I was surprised to find that 'Gypsy Boy on the Run' is Mikey Walsh's second autobiographical book. The book stands alone as a very satisfying read,and there isn't really any feeling that vast chunks of his life have been left out – although presumably his first book 'Gypsy Boy', has more detail on Mikey's childhood as a travelling Romany Gipsy. Full review...
A Broken Childhood: A True Story of Abuse by Lydia Ola Taiwo
Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born to a Nigerian couple in London in 1964 and spent the first five years of her life in a foster home in Brighton. Here she was loved, looked after and lived her life in a genuinely good family. This wasn't an unusual arrangement as it allowed the biological parents to earn money without worrying about childcare – and Ola was happy. It was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her 'home' for the weekend – a weekend which would stretch into seven years of abuse and neglect. Full review...
The Doctor Will See You Now by Max Pemberton
The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about, and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation (the world's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad read. Full review...
Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing by Tim Parks
Self-help books are pretty polarising when you think about it. I mean, would you tell somebody that you were reading a self-help book if you had no idea how they were going to react? On the one hand there must be people who devour these kinds of books one after the other, searching for that mystical formula that will bring about profound inner change. At the other end of the scale are readers that steer well clear of self-help or anything else that isn't rational and based on proper scientific research and evidence. Entrenched views are what makes this title an interesting proposition. A sceptic's search for health and healing which alludes to meditation? Surely much more interesting than a new age guru who already believes wholeheartedly that their insights will transform YOUR life and enrich their bank balance. I want to know how the sceptic was convinced, not the guy who entered the room wearing healing crystals. Full review...
Black by Design: A 2-tone Memoir by Pauline Black
As the front cover of this volume of reminiscences reminds us, Pauline Black is remembered first and foremost for fronting The Selecter, one of the few 2-Tone ska bands to enjoy fleeting chart success at the end of the 1970s. Yet reading this reminds us that that was only the tip of the iceberg. Full review...
Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III
The book opens with Andre and his father taking a jog. Seems a normal and natural activity - what's to write about here, you could be asking. Well, I'll tell you. By this time the father no longer lives in the family home, the mother is struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table - and the author, Andre is too embarrassed to admit to his father that he doesn't own a pair of jogging shoes. He's borrowed his sister's even although they're about two sizes too small, he's in agony seconds into the jog but is he going to own up? Nope. Bloody feet and pain are a by-product of precious time with his father. So straight away, I'm getting the gist of the book and the relationship between father and son. Full review...
No Off Switch: The Autobiography by Andy Kershaw
'The boy Kershaw' as his hero and later friend John Peel sometimes wryly referred to him on air, has had a pretty remarkable life. He's been – taken a deep breath – a concert promoter while studying politics at Leeds University, Billy Bragg's driver across most of Europe, a presenter on BBC TV and successively also on Radios 1, 3 and 4, a news correspondent reporting from Iraq, Haiti, Angola and Rwanda, and also done time as a guest of Her Majesty. Full review...
Signs of Life by Natalie Taylor
Natalie Taylor was just twenty four years old, and five months pregnant, when her husband died in a tragic accident. This memoir takes us from the day she found out he was dead through to her son's first birthday. Natalie's situation is horribly sad. I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done in her place. The record of her grieving process is very raw and honest. Based upon her journals that she kept through this time her pain leaps off the page and makes you feel sick inside for the horror she's facing. I liked that she doesn't seem to be advocating a correct way to grieve. She simply states how she felt, how she reacted at each moment, be that calmly and quietly or with raging, screaming tears. Luckily she had an extremely supportive family and a good group of friends and it is interesting - if rather disturbing - to follow her progress as she deals with her life without her husband. Full review...
Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Ice Cream, Obama, Churchill and My Mother by Simon Schama
The collection has been divided into reader-friendly sections named, for example - Travelling, Testing Democracy, Cooking and Eating, to name but three. As a professor of Art History, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's also a rather chunky section on Schama's thoughts on the art world. Politics also is a centre-stage subject. Each article is headed with where it first appeared and the numerous Guardian pieces may be well-known to some. So I suppose you could say that this is second time around, for those who missed the first publication. Not a bad thing at all when the writing is as good as this, I'd say. Full review...
Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank Sinatra by Barbara Sinatra
Barbara Blakeley, born in 1926, was married firstly to Robert Oliver, an executive, with whom she had a son, and secondly to Zeppo Marx. But it was the already thrice-married and thrice-divorced Francis Albert Sinatra, whom she had idolized as a singer for a long time, with whom she would make her most enduring marriage, and vice versa. They tied the knot in 1976, and stayed together until his death in 1998. Full review...
Bipolar Parent by Anna Burley
Anna Burley keeps telling herself that she is a responsible adult now and works on the idea that most people would see her as a normal, well-grounded person. What people don't see is the story of her childhood. She wrote it down to get rid of it, to get it out her system and rid herself of those pockets of pain which live under her skin. She's decided that she's not going to run from it all any longer. Bipolar Parent is the story of her childhood and the parent who had such an influence in making her into what she is today. Full review...
DMD Life Art and Me by Ian A Griffiths
Ian Griffiths suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - a form of muscular dystrophy which causes muscle degeneration. It begins in early childhood with difficulty in walking and progresses to cause problems with breathing and all the voluntary muscles. Ultimately it's fatal. Men and boys – it's linked to the X chromosome so affects only males – with the disease have a life expectancy of between the late teens and mid-twenties. Ian's in his mid-twenties now and he's written 'DMD Life: art and me' to explain what it really feels like to live with the disease. And when I say 'really feels like' I do mean that. Ian doesn't gloss over anything. Full review...
Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political Humbug by Bob Marshall-Andrews
Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997, rather too late to be a career politician (he was already an established QC) and with a profound distrust of authority. He had no aspirations towards office, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he would become best known for being a dissident. I occasionally enquired as to which party held his allegiance and eventually concluded that he went with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – and I did wonder if this would be just one more to add to the pile. Full review...
Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen
It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film Out of Africa and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss. Full review...
Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010 by Sara Wheeler
This is a great book to acquire if your general knowledge of historical adventurers is as haphazard as mine. Somewhere along the line, I'd missed out on Scott and Shackleton, and it's very satisfying indeed to fill those gaps from such a reliable informant. One brisk section, for example, managed to encapsulate both Antartica's history and further outlook, along with sufficient atmospheric detail to ensure we mortals understood just what it feels like to sleep in Scott's hut during a wintry gale. Full review...
Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945 by Betty Lussier
Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, Canada. At the height of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed the border to the States and settled down to the hard life of raising dairy cattle and the crops needed to feed them. Full review...
Bride Price by Ian Mathie
'Bride Price' has proved an even more absorbing book than I anticipated from its Amazon write-up. I read it in a single sitting; the issues it raised overwhelming my thoughts for the next couple of days. In terms of its overall flavour, quality and impact value, I'd bracket it with the classic 'Walkabout' by James Vance Marshall. Full review...
Enlightening: Letters 1946 - 1960 by Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin wrote in tribute to the memory of Dorothy de Rothschild of her personality, '…overwhelming charm, great dignity, a very lively sense of humour, pleasure in the oddities of life, an unconquerable vitality and a kind of eternal youth and an eager responsiveness to all that passed…' Reading this second volume of letters, now available in paperback, covering Berlin's most creative period, these same characteristics might be aptly applied to Sir Isaiah himself. However, as this most self-aware of intellectuals recognised, his loquacity and compulsive socialising were driven by a persistent need to escape a sense of unreality, an inner void. In these letters he writes, 'my quest for gaiety is a perpetual defence against the extreme sense of the abyss by which I have been affected ever since I can remember myself…' Full review...
Doctor Lark: The Benefits of a Medical Education by Bill Larkworthy
Bill Larkworthy is a pleasant fellow who has lead an eventful, but not world-shattering life. So at the outset it's probably worth saying that this self-deprecating tale won't light many literary fires. If fireworks are what you are looking for, search elsewhere. On the other hand, I always find ordinary people's stories of everyday life fascinating, as well as providing useful background, or what used to be called 'general knowledge', about other parts of the world. Since my general knowledge of the Gulf States is more or less limited to Lawrence of Arabia and current news reports, a little padding won't go amiss. So yes, I did enjoy this read, and I imagine the Saga age group will borrow it in steady numbers from libraries (if they can find one open). It would make a good present for a man of a certain age, which is: Full review...
When I Was A Nipper by Alan Titchmarsh
There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there is a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions. Full review...
Below Stairs: The Bestselling Memoirs of a 1920s Kitchen Maid by Margaret Powell
Below Stairs was first published in 1968, and it's no exaggeration to claim Margaret Powell as the trailblazer for the memoir genre. This book encouraged hundreds of autobiographies of common life, and spawned a whole generation of tv programmes. In its vernacular and popularist way, it was probably as influential as Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor'. Before her, only famous people wrote their stories, and that without too much regard for reality. Unless they were literary writers, achievements were downplayed and emotions hidden away, in the stilted style of the British stiff upper lip. Not so Margaret Powell, who became a publishing sensation when she blasted through with a robust Voice rather than a polished narrative, in the first-ever tale of an ordinary servant writing about everyday life below stairs. Imagine being talent-spotted from an evening class and invited to write your memoir: those were the days! Full review...
For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player by Victoria Coren
Some things are in the blood. For Victoria Coren it was cards. As a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack by their grandfather. He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was always the dealer and always the winner. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler. Victoria was one of life's risk-takers and she leant to the more adventurous side of her father's family. She was unhappy at school, preferring the company of her brother's straight-talking friends to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at school. In the intervening twenty years she's won a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the money. Full review...
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
Amy Chua has firm beliefs about parenting. She brought up her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, using a strict set of rules – including no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no choice of extra curricular activity, no grades less than an A, and no being less than the number 1 student in any 'academic' subject. Then there's the piano and violin practice… On hearing she called her daughter Sophia 'garbage', an acquaintance of hers burst into tears. The thought of praising one of the girls for getting a B, as many American parents do, would no doubt have a similar affect on Chua. Mother – or monster? Full review...
The Girl in the Painted Caravan: Memories of a Romany Childhood by Eva Petulengro
Eva Petulengro was born in a painted caravan in 1939. Her Romany family had travelled in Norfolk and Lincolnshire for generations. She has had a very successful career as a clairvoyant, writer of horoscope columns and publisher of magazines, and her daughter is also a well known media astrologer. The Girl in the Painted Caravan is a memoir of her childhood and youth, up until her marriage in her 20s and the beginning of her career. Full review...
1923: A Memoir by Harry Leslie Smith
Harry Leslie Smith was born in 1923. If you're wondering about the title – that's the explanation – and although it's when Harry began his life it's not where his story began. He takes us back some years before to his father's family with its roots in mining and a sideline in running a pub which was to make them comfortable if not wealthy. Harry's father was middle-aged when he got involved with Lillian, a teenage girl. Unsurprisingly his family were not impressed or welcoming when the pair married because a child was on the way. Albert Smith expected that he would inherit the pub when his father died, but it passed to his uncle and so began a life of disappointment for Albert and Lillian. Full review...
Life by Keith Richards
Nearly forty years ago, Keith Richards was considered the next most likely rock'n'roll star to succumb to drugs. The man has defied all the odds in staying alive, and continuing to do what he has been doing for almost half a century. In the process, he has earned the sometimes grudging, sometimes unqualified respect of those who would once never given him the time of day. Full review...
The Stranger in the Mirror: A Memoir of Middle Age by Jane Shilling
Middle-aged women disappear. They are not see on television, their lives do not appear in newspapers, the legions of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At least, that is what the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 to find the narrative of her contemporaries and their lives which she has been reading about and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanished. She looks in the mirror and sees a face she does not recognise. Even with a punishing regime of early bed, no alcohol and litres of water, it refuses to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides to take a magnifying glass to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth and old age. Full review...
Diaries Volume 1 by Christopher Isherwood
In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England for America in the company of poet WH Auden. This hefty volume covers his diaries from that date until August 1960, when he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday. A 49-page introduction setting out the background leads us into the entries, which are divided into three sections – The Emigration, to the end of 1944; The Post-war Years, to 1956; and The Late Fifties. After these we have a chronology and glossary, or to put it more accurately a section of brief biographies of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over a hundred pages altogether. Full review...
Waking Up In Toytown by John Burnside
After years of alcoholism and borderline insanity, John Burnside decides to become normal. This involves moving to Surrey, working in an office and settling into a numbing daily routine he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards bad habits. These memoirs chronicle the failure of his bid for normality and subsequent disillusionment with the project. It's a solipsistic account but the writing is powerful and it draws you in. Full review...
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Coming Home by Rhoda Janzen
Even although the obliging blurb on the back cover tells the reader a little about being Mennonite, I couldn't resist looking it up in the dictionary. I was intrigued to start reading. And emblazoned across the front cover is 'No 1 In The US'. Great praise indeed, I thought. But how would it go down across the pond? Time to find out ... Full review...
