|summary=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 by John le Carre|The Spy who came in from the Cold]] - and it all happened.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190685209X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Mullin
|title=A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Barry Miles
|title=In The Seventies: Adventures in the Counterculture
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686903</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mikey Walsh
|title=Gypsy Boy on the Run
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720201</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lydia Ola Taiwo
|title=A Broken Childhood: A True Story of Abuse
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Max Pemberton
|title=The Doctor Will See You Now
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tim Parks
|title=Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548887</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Pauline Black
|title=Black by Design: A 2-tone Memoir
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668790X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andre Dubus III
|title=Townie: A Memoir
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393064662</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andy Kershaw
|title=No Off Switch: The Autobiography
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687446</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Natalie Taylor
|title=Signs of Life
|rating=3
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724673</amazonuk>
}}
