My Depression : A Picture Book by Elizabeth Swados
If you have ever suffered from depression you'll find it very difficult to explain to other people how you're feeling. You're not feeling just a little bit down. A treat or a dollop of positive thinking will not miraculously cure you. You're definitely not swinging the lead, but suffering from a legitimate illness which deserves to be recognised. Elizabeth Swados is a long-term sufferer from severe depression: she's also a talented storyteller and has told her the story of how depression feels for her - complete with drawings, which fill in those gaps which words can never fill for any sufferer from depression. Full review...
The Blind Man of Hoy: A True Story by Red Szell
Redmond Széll was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) at age 19. It's now 26 years since he got the life-changing news. Although not completely sightless – he sees shadows and shapes – he is registered blind and walks with the stereotypical white stick. This hasn't stopped him from pursuing his hobby of rock-climbing, though, both indoors on climbing walls and on Britain's cliffs. The culmination of his climbing obsession came in 2013, when he became the first blind person to climb the Old Man of Hoy, the 449-foot cliff off the Orkney Islands of Scotland. Full review...
Chernobyl Strawberries by Vesna Goldsworthy
A book about a woman from a war-shredded country, who discovers she has breast cancer…Not a bundle of laughs, one would assume. One would be wrong. Chernobyl Strawberries is, amongst other things, very funny. Full review...
Caring for Shirley by John Kemp
John Kemp's wife, Shirley, suffered from dementia and loss of coordination and for eight years he was her full-time carer as she was unable to walk unaided (well, she could - but it was likely to result in a serious fall) and took care of all her most personal needs. Probably the most heart-breaking part of this is that Shirley didn't recognise John as her husband - apart from 'give us a kiss', the question 'where's John?' was usually the first which sprang to her lips in any situation. Although she could often have quite an affable disposition she was capable of kicking and biting when she was being 'encouraged' to do something which she didn't want to do. Full review...
Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life by Michael Pronko
Adapting a Buddhist metaphor, Michael Pronko declares that 'writing about [Tokyo] is like catching fish with a hollow gourd.' In other words, it is an elusive and contradictory place that resists easy conclusions. Anyone who has seen the Bill Murray film Lost in Translation will retain the sense of a glittering, bewildering place that Westerners wander through in a daze. A long-term resident but still a perpetual outsider, Pronko is perfectly placed to notice the many odd and wonderful aspects of Tokyo life. Full review...
A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime Germany by Derek Niemann
I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devil's Dictionary to include the following – family: noun; place where the greatest secrets are kept. The Niemann family is no exception. It was long known that grandfather Karl was in Germany during the Second World War, people could easily work that out from the family biography. Yet little was spoken of, apart from him being an office-bound worker, either in logistics or finance. Since the War two of three surviving siblings had relocated to the Glasgow environs, and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (family: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in the best way). What was a surprise to our author, and many of his relatives, was that things were a lot closer to the former than had been expected, for Karl was such an office worker – for the SS. With a lot of family history finally out of the closet of silent mouths, and with incriminating photographic evidence revealed in unlikely ways, the whole truth can be known. But this is certainly not just of interest to that one small family. Full review...
Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of Hours by Erwin Mortier and Paul Vincent (translator)
A chateau in the country. So far, a fine life behind you. Just 65 years of age. A happy collection of three successful children. Alzheimer's. You work out what's the one bummer in that circumstance. Full review...
The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girl's Life in the Siege of Leningrad by Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)
If life as a girl of school-leaving age is hard enough, think about it when you're stuck in a great city under a horrendous siege. Lena Mukhina's diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular were the circumstances that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what it was like, courtesy of these pages. I've been there and never felt the ghost of the siege in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) the ruination of Warsaw had lived on. But a dreadful time this was. At the peak times of Nazi oppression and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives every minute of the day on average. The city was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is a place where it can – and does here – snow in June. Without giving too much of the diet away, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or cats. Full review...
The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe and Anthony Bale (editor)
Born around 1373, Margery Kempe grew up in a family of good standing - her Father serving as a mayor, and as a member of parliament. Whilst no records remain of her childhood, it is unlikely that Margery would have received any kind of formal education. She was, however, taught religious texts, which may well have set the way for the visions she would encounter later in life. Full review...
The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making by David Esterly
Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David Esterly's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it's not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in this memoir, but at the same time there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's life. 'Carvers are starvers,' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterly. Full review...
A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble by Edzard Ernst
Professor Edzard Ernst was born in Germany not long after the end of World War II and grew up with guilt about what had happened in the years before he was born as well as an insatiable curiosity - with the two not being entirely entirely unconnected. He also developed an attitude of speaking his mind - as an early challenge to his step-father about the death of six million Jews in the course of the war proved. In his teens he wasn't determined to become a doctor - he had a hankering to be a musician - despite the fact that it was the family business, so to speak, but came round to the idea and practiced in various countries before settling in Exeter as Professor of Complementary Medicine at the university. Full review...
Oscar & Lucy by Alan Kennedy
With the film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game getting rave reviews and award nominations right, left and centre, the sterling work done by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII is quite high in our minds. But Enigma wasn't the only code broken and Turing wasn't the only one doing secret but heroic work. Full review...
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life by Andy Miller
Andy Miller and his wife both worked and they had a three-year-old son. Despite the fact that Miller was an editor for a London publisher he felt that he'd 'lost' reading from his life. He seemed to acquire a lot of books, but making time for reading them was an entirely different matter. With the help of his wife he developed a 'list of betterment' - initially a limited number of great books which he determined to read but eventually it became fifty great books and two not so great, which he was going to master over the space of a year. He was re-integrating books into everyday life. Full review...
Travelling to Infinity: The True Story Behind the Theory of Everything by Jane Hawking
Travelling to Infinity maps the tapestry of a rich and complex life.
Jane Hawking, the first wife of acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawking, reveals the inner-workings of their life together. Reflecting on the meteoric rise of her husband alongside his physical deterioration, she charts the path of their marriage and family throughout the highs and lows of their circumstance. As asserted by the author herself this story could indeed belong to any English family of the era. What sets this one apart, however, is the fame and publicity of one family member, the widely celebrated, Stephen Hawking. Full review...
Tsunami Kids: Our journey from survival to success by Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan
On Boxing Day 2004, when many of us were celebrating the Christmas holidays with our families, eating leftover turkey, reading books and enjoying time with loved ones, a huge tragedy was unfolding on the other side of the world. The Boxing Day Tsunami killed over 230,000 people, and caused widespread devastation to large parts of Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Somalia. The Forkan family - Mum, Dad, and four of their children, were in Sri Lanka, a spur of the moment choice of destination that ultimately proved to be tragic. The parents, Kevin and Sandra, were killed in the flood. The children, orphaned, injured and without any possessions, traveled the 200 kilometres back to a city, where they contacted elder siblings and were swiftly flown back to the UK. Full review...
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
When I saw Helen Macdonald speak at a nature conference, she recounted a conversation with a Samuel Johnson Prize judge. S/he had remarked that Macdonald's was three books in one: a memoir of grief after her father's unexpected death, a biography of T. H. White, and an account of falconry experiments with Mabel the goshawk. Macdonald quipped that the description made her book sound like washing powder, but it's accurate nonetheless, and explains why the book won the Samuel Johnson Prize (the first memoir to do so) and is shortlisted for the Costa Biography award. Full review...
A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas and Peter Bailey
Christmas time growing up in a Welsh seaside town was magical for Dylan Thomas, always snowy and full of adventure. From attempting to extinguish house fires with snowballs to hippo footprints in the snow his childhood in the snow was a time of wonder and pure joy. Full review...
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
We've all heard the phrase 'it's not brain surgery' but what is it really like to operate on someone's brain in the frightening knowledge that a small slip, a slight error can have the most devastating consequences for the patient, with death probably not being the worst? Henry Marsh is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley/St George's. If anyone knows what it's like then Henry Marsh is the man to tell you. Full review...
The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran by Jennifer Klinec
Jennifer Klinec is the daughter of Hungarian immigrant parents who ran an automotive factory in southwest Ontario. She learned early on to be self-sufficient, even enrolling herself in boarding schools in Switzerland and Dublin. After graduation she moved to London, made a pile as an investment banker, and opened her own cookery school. At age 31, though, she decided to travel to the Iranian city of Yazd to learn Persian dishes. She met Vahid, 25, a military veteran with an engineering background, in a park and he introduced her to his mother for cooking lessons. Full review...
The Iceberg: A Memoir by Marion Coutts
'Something has happened. A piece of news. We have had a diagnosis that has the status of an event. The news makes a rupture with what went before.' With these plain, unsentimental words Coutts begins her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of her husband Tom Lubbock's decline and death from a brain tumour. Shortlisted for the Costa Biography award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, it was also a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Full review...
Life, Love and the Archers by Wendy Cope
As a rule, poetry does not appeal to me - at school it was something to be learned and recited, regardless of merit or meaning and I came to dread those lessons - but there are two exceptions. I love John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel for its irreverence - and Wendy Cope, because she speaks to me in words I can understand about matters which concern me. I discovered her when my daughter gave me a copy of Serious Concerns and her humorous poems tempted me to read some of the more serious content. I was smitten. Over the years I've followed with interest what she has had to say about such matters as copyright and the chance to review Life, Love and the Archers was far too tempting to miss. Full review...
A Tour of Bones: Facing Fear and Looking for Life by Denise Inge
American-born Dr Denise Inge was an expert on seventeenth-century mystic poet Thomas Traherne, mother to two daughters, and wife to an Anglican clergyman. Her husband's appointment as Bishop of Worcester saw them move to a townhouse adjacent to Worcester Cathedral – and attached to a charnel house. Whatever to do with a basement full of bones? An even more pressing question was what to do with her fear of the death they represented, especially when Inge was diagnosed with inoperable sarcoma late in the writing process. Full review...
Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952 by Diana Cooper
Though she is perhaps little remembered these days except as the mother of writer and historian John Julius Norwich, Lady Diana Cooper was one of the towering figures in society life between the wars and for much of the period before her death in 1986. Full review...
Hummingbirds in My Hair: Adventures of a Diplomatic Wife in the Caribbean by Pamela O'Cuneen
Pamela O'Cuneen was what is known in the business as a 'diplomatic wife': the spouse of a diplomat sent abroad to represent his country. It's generally unpaid and extremely hard work - I've always thought of it as one of the original BOGOF deals. When we first meet Pamela she and her husband, KJ, have been transferred from their beloved Africa to Suriname, or Suri-where? as people always responded when it was mentioned to them. It used to be Dutch Guyana on the Caribbean coast of South America and there are few people who would think of it in terms of a holiday destination. Full review...
Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's Bodyguard by Rochus Misch
I am proud to declare an interest in all things Holocaust, one of the key areas of which was the last days of Hitler – the Downfall, if you like, way before youtube satirists. So this book, from the man who for some unspecified years was the last eye-witness to have been in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of the Nazi regime, was always going to be a great read. It remained that even after the foreword dismissed its own book, pointing out differences here to the canon of thought about the timings etc of April/May 1945, and declaring the author somewhat naïve in not being so aware, circumspect and authoritative about the major points of WWII. Full review...
Diary of a Mad Diva by Joan Rivers
The late Joan Rivers was, without a doubt, a character. Actress, comedian, writer, director, presenter, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue and no holds barred persona. This was the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014. Full review...
Life on Air by David Attenborough
I was one of the generation who grew up when David Attenborough was a giant among presenters of wildlife programmes on television, and anything with his name attached was a must-watch. At the time, I had no idea that he was also one of the pivotal characters in the development of broadcasting, having been controller of BBC2 and director of programming for BBC TV for several years. These days, he is probably best remembered for writing and presenting the nine ‘Life’ series, a comprehensive survey of all life on the planet. Full review...
The Last Escaper by Peter Tunstall
The Last Escaper opens differently to many of the great escape biographies that were released soon after the war as it is told some 70 years later. Peter Tunstall was an RAF pilot who was shot down and spent many years as a Prisoner Of War across occupied Europe, including in Colditz. He lived through the war, but also lived through many decades of peace. Will these years of the relative quiet life lesson the tales of bravery and dare doing of the war? Of course not! Full review...
The Animals by Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy
Christopher Isherwood is a writer whose work was often (in fact nearly always) biographical, and one who was always very open about his personal life. Interest in the life of Isherwood seems to have been rife recently, with a film about Isherwood and Bachardy released in 2008, an adaptation of Isherwood's book 'A Single Man' released in 2009, and a BBC adaptation of 'Christopher and his Kind' released in 2011, as well as the seemingly countless revivals of 'Cabaret'. Full review...