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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ ==Autobiography=={{newreview|author=Val Doonican|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican <!-- Remove - 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 he'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 long-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult 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'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aeronwy Thomas |title=My Father's Places: A portrait of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughter|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Aeronwy Thomas was six years old when she and her family came to settle after a nomadic existence at Laugharne, on the Welsh coast, in 1949. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on the BBC, and while he continued to travel to London regularly for the purpose (as well as to carouse with friends in his old haunts), somewhere off the beaten track was a more suitable working environment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PalinVirginie Despentes|title=Diaries 1969-1979: The Python YearsKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Never meet your heroes,King Kong Theory'' goes the old adage. ''Never read their diaries'' might is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be equally sage adviceseen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. That's probably why I didn't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the rest complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the Monty Python teambook can feel somewhat disjointed, he was without doubt a hero reflection of my teenage yearstheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>191309734X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley WilliamsJoan Didion|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography Year of Shirley WilliamsMagical Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Who could resist a title like that? And This book is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent in libraries? The answer to Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the latter is nogrief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Shirley Catlin, as she was born, tells us in the early pages of this memoir Books that during her childhood her father encouraged her shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea househelp people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, right up to the ceiling. It was a secret between the two of denial and delusion and makes themutterly normal, as her mother, Testament of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken armslends them a human face to wear.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>0007216858
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago 1787333175|title=Small MemoriesYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the twentieth centuryNHS, with an author's view of change humour and people, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lotautobiography. Civil Wars in ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the neighbouring Spain; same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the growth work of his country - which still left it as western Europe's pooresta psychiatrist. Here he allows us witness I did wonder whether it was acceptable to his mind drifting through his childhood, be looking for humour in this setting but the country laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and in Lisbon, it is always delivered with empathy and provides a subtle and gentle memoirunderstanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft0241636604|title=Margrave of the MarshesThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=John Peel was without doubt one If you were to bring up an image of the most important disc jockeys a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of all timesomeone like Gary Stevenson. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in midA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-60s America before returning home to join Radio London stripe suit and then become one of his background is the original Radio 1 teamEast End, where he stayed until his death 37 years laterwas familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. I admired the man for There was no posh public school on his passion for playing CV - but he had been to the music nobody else would give the time London School of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns in the music weeklies and later Radio Timesbe stupid. Nevertheless I found much of It was 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)ability at what was, and thought his build-'em-upessentially, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a whilecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. So I approached Eventually, this book with an open mind turned into permanent employment as a fan, but not an uncritical onetrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brand1529395224|title=Look Back in HungerLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=EntertainmentAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Born in Hastings Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in May 1957his footsteps, after leaving Brunel University particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a degree in social sciences, Jo Brand unsuccessfully applied for family friend who was a research vet and was convinced this was the job with Channel 4 on a series about racismfor him. Before long, then worked for a time he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a psychiatric nurse at the South London Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitalchild. But the lure of showbiz proved too strongIf anything, and stardom in stand-up comedy soon beckonedhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355237</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita Thompson (Editor)Edel Rodriguez|title=Ancient Gonzo WisdomWorm: Interviews with Hunter S ThompsonA Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las VegasWe're in childhood, and we' re in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first graced thought of as a saviour of the shelvescountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. His gonzo style Well, putting himself at those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the centre happiest of the storyplaces here, should tell readers as much about an uncle refusing to be the person doing good soldier the writing country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the event he is describingfather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. If that's The mother gets the couple jobs with the case then what is party to be learned from a selection ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer is plenty.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Floyd1035025299|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The AutobiographyWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I grew up with television cookery programmes and still have some recipes Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in my childish handwriting, Leicestershire which begin ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…isn't all that conducive to writing, as there' s always something smallholding happening - as I battled to copy what was on the screen before we retuned to the presenteryou might expect. Programmes stagnated as the cook spoke to camera and lectured The other side of the viewer on how to make sponge cake or a fish dish. Then we were shocked awake. There decision was sealed when a man, quite good-looking in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of way, who cooked on the deck room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a trawler or wherever the whim took him, always glass in hand and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman about how he was doing his job. Like him, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floyd, or Floydy to millionsvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian Johnson Christopher Fowler|title=Rockers and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography Word Monkey|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down as one It's the first of August in the luckiest men middle of a cool wet summer in showbizEast Anglia. He had a brief moment I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of glory going to my beach hut. The weather closed in the early 70s as vocalist with Geordie, a Tyneside version of Sladerain arrived, who had three Top 40 hits and then fell on hard timesI decided not to do that either. After going back to the day jobWhen I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a chance call invited him ) I wanted to go finish reading this book and audition for AC/DC, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly died(b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. Three decades laterNo spoiler alerts, not only have the group held on 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 their loyal fanbaselaugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, but one of their albumsand you know he actually is at that point, according to an online source, is second only to Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' in terms of global salesbecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155424</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kit De Waal
|title= Without Warning and Only 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
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{{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=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan BennettBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=A Life Like Other People'sI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=It was When the Dalai Lama adds his motherwords to your frontispiece, I's illness which triggered Alan Bennettm inclined to think it doesn's excursions into his family background. The bout t really matter how the rest of depression hadn't cleared as the family had hoped and admission world responds to hospital was the next step in the treatmentyour book. Asked if there had been anything like this beforeI know, Bennett said nothaving read the book in question, failing to notice his father's hand gently touch his kneethat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. The son was educated He knows (and at Oxford and had even been seen on core so do I) that it matters very much how the television. He did rest of the talking rather than world responds to this book, because it tells the fathertruth as it is, reluctant butcher and a man not given to putting himself forwardin the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott J Gorn gareth_steel|title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number OneNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAnimals and Wildlife|summary=John Dillinger was born and brought up in Indiana. His childhood was no better and no worse than most I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but the early part of his adult life was with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be blighted by a spell in prison when he was convicted appropriate. Stories of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upvet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced to As a lengthy term of imprisonmentTV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, whilst as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the man book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him pleaded not guilty and when convicted received a shorter sentence. ItHe says that he's easy written it to see where Dillingerinform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn's contempt for the law was spawnedt lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia Dave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Making Jack FalconeSpeedy: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia FamilyHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia worked for How to summarise the FBI. That might sound rather glamorous but Jack had a special claim to fame. He was one life of those rare people who always worked undercover – not just for hours or days at Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a time but sometimes for years. In ''Making Jack Falcone'' he tells the story of how he came pithy sentence to infiltrate the Mafia in New York and was responsible for kick off a string review of arrests which crippled the organised crime families. If that doesnhis memoir? Do you know, I really don't sound impressive enough, then just consider that Jack Garcia was a Cuban-born American and he went undercover as an Italian amongst Italiansthink I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847393942</amazonuk>}}
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{{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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Wadham 0571365884|title=The Secret My Mess is a Bit of Life of France: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Lynn Barber comes from the ''lowerGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, unremembered, orders on both sides''even as a child. There is no ancestral home or village – just parents who were determined that she should work hard and make something of herself. Well, they She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were – until Simon proposed and comfortable: it was explained the sort of life where if she had nothing to her that Oxford didn't really matter, that being married to a good man worry about she would be more importantbecome anxious but such occasions were few and far between. Simon was much older – older in fact than he would admit On a visit to – and he picked Lynn up (quite literally) at a bus stop therapist, as an adult, when she was just sixteen. Surprisingly completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her parents were unworried by this and threw them together, despite the fact it was suggested that Simon, who was in the property business, had some strange friends. In the nineteen fifties she should write it wasndown and 't every sixteen year old girl who had 'My Mess is a Bit of a passing acquaintance with Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the evil slum landlord, Peter Rachmanresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039558</amazonuk>
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|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joe Queenan made good despite Alzheimer's is a deprived disease that slowly wears away your identity and neglected childhoodsense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. His world was Your memories and personality worn away like a far cry from statue over time affected the middle class background of most aspiring writers of his generationelements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. He grew up in Philadelphia, born to parents This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so immersed in their own problems that they made little attempt to love or care for their four childrenadmirable. Practically the only way his father provided Daniel Gibbs is a role model neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in his love of reading. Otherwise, he was an alcoholic, frequently beating his young children''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330458272</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Carr1529109116|title=The Night of the Gun|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography |summary=When you decide to take drugs for the first time, according to most, it's rarely a class 'Call Me Red: A' variety - usually itShepherd's kids messing around with cannabis. This is how David Carr began his love affair with illicit substances, clearly not even for one second imagining what it would eventually do to him and everyone around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847396283</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewJourney|author=Cylin Busby and John Busby|title=The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter MemoirHannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and Finance Lifestyle|summary=''When my dad dies, his body will go to the Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston'', ''though I suspect they are mostly interested in his head... His was in an interesting case - want the lower half image of his jaw'' ''was removed when he was shot a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the head with a shotgunnation. His tongue was torn in half, his teeth and gums blown'' ' I don'away, leaving a bit of bone t think that was once his chin connected with dangling flesh at the front of his faceis too much to ask.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802015</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Coleen Nolan0008333173|title=Upfront and PersonalHungry: The AutobiographyA Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a child, I was a huge fan 'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the Nolan Sisters. When judges on ''IMasterchef'm in the Mood for Dancing'. You know that you' hit re going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the charts time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in 1979, front of her. I was ten years old. Bernie was my favourite Nolan at 've often wondered about the woman behind the time media image and in recent years, I have enjoyed watching her acting in shows like ''The BillHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More''is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283070889</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick Wakeman1504321383|title=Grumpy Old Rock StarSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Rick Wakeman wrote and published a more conventional autobiography, ''Say Yes!'You can' in 1985, t be happy and it has so far never been updatedfulfilled on your own. This, written with the aid of ghost-writer Martin Roach, takes You are not complete until you find a totally different approach, being a selection of episodes from his sixty years in more or less random order. In theory it might seem rather disjointed, but in practice it works brilliantlyman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090056</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma CharlesSakinu Ahronglong|title=How Could He Do It?Hunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge of thinking The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mum, dad, two daughters, three dogs, it is a rabbit and a couple work of guinea pigsfiction. That's possibly misleading. Sprinkle I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for the girlssense that Ahronglong made it all up, a nice car in or whether it is as the drive of the nice houseblurb goes on to say ''recollections, good clothes folklore and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with autobiographical stories''. It feels like the way that life was goinglatter. Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin, gave her It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a notechild, couched in graphic termsas an adolescent, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for the past five years.In moments the family's life fell apartas an adult are real and true. Gone were all the certaintiesBut memory is a fickle thing, the hopes and the expectationsmaybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. In came the police, Social Services and Child Protection OfficersMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Walker1544641923|title=Pilgrim StateAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was intrigued and touched by Jacqueline WalkerIt's beautiful memoir of her childhood in Jamaica tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and London in the 1960'sluxurious. This It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is a book inevitably compared with Andrea Levyfar from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''Small Islanddiplomatic''. It follows similar groundto do so, you know), but the main difference and great strengthdiplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, is that it's the real narrative of mother and daughteran entirely different matter. As She (and it still usually is a girl I was familiar with areas of London where Jackie Walker lived and heard some members of my family denigrate Caribbean immigrants. From this memoir, I've garnered much about the lived experience of my less advantaged contemporariesshe') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Taylor0241446732|title=The ParishOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Ours are hard times for humanity - for a number The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of reasonstheir two daughters. Firstly Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, we don't talk to each other muchBeata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. Second In such circumstances, we don't care about each other much - or at least enough to outwardly show it. We would rather walk a mile when it's raining cats and dogs than knock on natural to seek a neighbours' door asking for a cup of sugar. Maybe that's just mesolution close to home, but look around you - pregnant women struggle eventually, it became clear to get a seat on the train, 12family that they were ''burned-year olds get accidentally shot in out people on a supermarket lane, and itburned-out planet''s . acceptable If they were to throw find a tantrum over wrong hair colourway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863223974</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Worth191280493X|title=Farewell To The East EndComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I am interested in social history and, as a mother, the job of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell to the East End'' is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife He began writing novels and nurse, working with the nuns poetry at Nonnatus House in the East End age of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amy Dickinson|title=The Mighty Queens of Freeville|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you're a reader of ''The Chicago Tribune'' then Amy Dickinson will be a familiar name; for those of us on the other side of the pond (and not the one at Chicago's back door) twelve, but it's was to take him a name further forty-eight years to realise that's vaguely familiar but not one which you can readily placehe wasn’t very good at either. Amy was the replacement Consistently unpublished for Ann Landersall that time, probably the most influential American woman he remains a shining example of the late twentieth century and the most widely read agony aunt of her age with an estimated ninety million readershope over experience... So, what was it about Amy Dickinson which propelled her into a job which must have been a dream and a nightmare combined? In ''The Mighty Queens of Freeville'' we meet Amy, her daughter Emily and the women of Amy's family who were their support.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340962607</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rania Al-Baz190874572X|title=Disfigured: A Saudi Woman's Story of Triumph over ViolenceLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Throughout her life Rania Al-Baz has been an unusual woman. She was married off by her father when she was still Back at school to a man she hardly knew and was the only married pupilbeginning of the century, forced to conform to the Saudi Arabian traditions of putting her husband first in all things but still expected to keep up with her school work. Pregnancy forced her to give up I went on her schooling but the marriage failed and Rania returned holiday to her fatherNepal. It might have been expected that she would fade quietly into the home, but in I met a most unusual step she wonderful Finnish woman and we became the smiling face sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a Saudi television programmelater one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. No woman had ever been a news anchor before and I do know that it was only to be expected four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that there would be plenty I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of men wanting to marry herJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844370755</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Fiennes1908745819|title=The Music RoomSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=William Fiennes grows up in Sometimes when people suggest that you read a castle (Broughton Castlecertain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, in fact - but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that wedidn're not told directly which one)t like the book. It sounds That's a dream upbringing - rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a large librarybook calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, chances I was told why. The blurb speaks of ice-skating round the moatauthor considering ''an older, film crews dropping in less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to record TV that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and heritage cinemalyrical that are about style not form, a host and substance most of culture and nature at handall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. But like so many castles of fiction there is a bogeyman hampering out and out joyIt was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. In this case I am pleased to have it is William's oldest brother, Richardfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330444409</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Pritchard1906852472|title=Shooting the CookWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=David Pritchard would have you believe that he was a bumbling TV producer For Ian Mathie fans there is good and that he, almost by accident, discovered two men who would go on to become celebrity chefsbad news. The firstIan has come up with the missing link in his narrative, Keith Floyd, was the story of a revelation to viewers as he slurped a glass very unusual childhood (or two) of wineyes, said exactly what you thought he shouldn't have said and cooked amazing food in one exotic location after another. After the stultifying programmes very years that made by him the likes Fanny Craddock amazing man he was a breath of fresh air and like or loathe him there was no way became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that you could be ambivalentthe book is published posthumously. The second manAs always, Rick Stein, was an entirely different, erit's beautifully written, kettle of fishwith many exciting moments. Quiet, thoughtful and decidedly more erudite – it What I most enjoyed was difficult to imagine two more diverse personalities, but he brought out the best feeling that many of both and made programmes which stay the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the mind years laterdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007278306</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emmanuel Jal1999811402|title=War Child: A Boy Soldier's StoryPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emmanuel Jal, internationally successful rap artist, spent his childhood as a solider in his native Sudan. He has written his story in order It's very difficult to help those children who are still fighting, and those who have managed to get away. There are a number of books about the Sudan by western aid workers and journalists, who do, classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I am sure, write fluently and passionately about the horror of Darfur. This is the first book thought that I have read which tells the story of war from the point of view of as it's loosely based around a small boy carrying year on an AK-47allotment it would be a lifestyle book, a gun taller than he is himself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700050</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Mullin|title=A View from the Foothills|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Chris Mullinbut you's diaries cover the period from July 1999 re not going to get advice on what to May 2005 during which time he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Transport plant when and the Regions, for the Department where for International Development and after a period on the back benches also at the Foreign Officebest results. As he says, there will The answer would be no shortage of memoirs from those who have occupied the Olympian Heights. In A View from something along the Foothills he offers a refreshingly different perspective – that lines of a man at the lowest levels of government who's party to whattry it and see's happening further up the hillside and down on the plains.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682231</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rosalind Penfold|title=Dragonslippers: This is What Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an Abusive Relationship Looks Like|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Soengineering apprenticeship, became a five star book where we can predict the entire plotbusker, finally got into medical school and at times foretell just what people in it sayis now an A&E consultant (part-time). ItI found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a damning indictment of things that Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that is even possible. This book lives by its subtitle – 'isn'this is t really what an abusive relationship looks like'the book's about. Rosalind meets There's a man who lot about rock & roll, which seems nigh-on perfect – they seem to fall in love with easebe the real passion of Hartley's life, and she gets on very well with his four children from an earlier marriagebut it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Then odd occurrences start to happen – he declares her work getting in his Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way, he possibly drinks a bit too much, he sees flirting in her shop'? Yep -talk with other menthat's the one. And things escalate and escalate, and – you know every stage. She suffers a guilt trip, before suffering physical violence, discovering affairs, getting back with him, then finding the right kind of helpIt's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007216882</amazonuk>
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