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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Chris Packham0241636604|title= Fingers in the Sparkle JarThe Trading Game: A MemoirConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''Everything seemed alive in that scintillating moment re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and as jeans replaces the gleams gyrated pin-stripe suit and glittered I imagined I could see their tiny twinkling heartshis background is the East End, seeding the sparks that made them so very vivid. And then I wiped away the spilled slop of the riverwhere he was familiar with violence, polished the glare poverty and thrust my fingers into the sparkle jar injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to stir the soft tickles London School of the swirling tinsel of fishesEconomics.'' ''Fingers in the Sparkle Jar'' Stevenson is a unique memoir, written in a distinct style quite unlike any other. Chris Packham, wellbright - extremely bright -known TV presenter and wildlife expert, takes he has a facility with numbers which most of us back can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his childhood in 1960s Southamptonability at what was, essentially, and we meet a curious child who doesn't quite fit in to the societal normcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Fast forward Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a few years, and the chasm widens, leading to bullying, name-calling and beatings at the hands of the local thugs at his comprehensive schooltrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785033506</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jo Pavey1529395224|title= This Mum Runs|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= I am something of a self-confessed running addict: I think nothing of hitting Letting the roads for 50 miles a week, and spend much Cat Out of my time searching for races to run all over the country. That is, until I wound up with a persistent sports injury, hung up my running shoes for nearly a year, and switched the road to the pool. At the time I thought nothing could alleviate the misery of not being able to run; but now I wish I had had Jo Pavey's autobiography, ''This Mum Runs'', to keep me company because the elite athlete’s account of the Olympics, injury, family, and life in general falls nothing short of inspirational.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224100432</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Patrice Chaplin|title=The Stone Cradle |rating=5|genre=Autobiography |summary= 'The Stone Cradle' is a remarkable book from the author Patrice Chaplin. It is a biography, the third in a series set in the Catalonian city of Girona. It is also an enduring love story and a journey into mystery and spirituality. The city has drawn artists, writers and philosophers for centuries. Rich in Kabbalistic thought through Azriel, the most famous student of Isaac the Blind, it has always been a home for mysticism and secrets. The magnetism and resonance of the city has had a hold on Patrice Chaplin since she first visited it in the fifties. The series of books detail her journey and her encounters with the esoteric society that have protected its mysteries since ancient times. 'The Stone Cradle' also gives a new life and direction to the mysteries of Rennes le Chateau, the small French village, made famous by the Da Vinci Code and the Holy Blood and Bag: The Holy Grail. Linking the two places through sacred geometry to the mountain of Canigou.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190557083X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Min Kym|title= Gone|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= Gone is a fascinating peephole into the world of solo musicians and their instruments. When Min Kym's 300 year old Stradivarius violin was stolen in 2010, the newspapers were eager to tell the story; this memoir is Kym's side of it, from her early childhood and education at the Purcell School (their youngest ever pupil) to the recovery of the Strad and beyond. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241263158</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Cathryn Kemp|title= Coming Clean|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= When Cathryn develops acute pancreatitis it leaves her in intense pain. With no obvious cure, she is prescribed strong painkillers to manage the painful flare ups. Yet still she bounces in and out Secret Life of hospital, from one 'expert' to another, undergoes needless operations when Consultants say ''I know there's no evidence for this, but we may as well try it''…the list goes on. As time passes, the pain remains but is joined by a new friend: a dangerous addiction to painkillers, prescribed at many times above the usual dose and soon to have a damaging effect on her health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749958073</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewVet|author=Charlotte Rampling, Christophe Bataille and William Hobson (translator)|title=Who I AmSion Rowlands

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=ISiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn'll drop all pretence of plot summaryt want to follow in his footsteps, and set particularly when he considered the stall out, just as this book does. Herestrain that being on-call put on his father's a quote from page one – Who I Am: ''not a biography''life. With When he was seventeen he took the name of one opportunity of cinema's most esteemed actresses on the front, you might assume it to be an autobiography for doing work experience with a start, but before that quote we'll already have been disabused of that thought, for apart from family friend who was a couple of quotes the first six vet and a half pages of was convinced this was the book is addressed ''to'' Charlotte Rampling, and not apparently by herjob for him. There are gnomic paragraphs and lyrics hereBefore long, in italics that suggest they are direct quotes, leaving the rest of the text here to be both a collaborative look he was at the starLiverpool University. It hadn's background, and t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a musing perusal of the nature of creating the book in the first placechild. And that stall I was setting out certainly doesnIf anything, he't have the right number of legs if I don't mention this book can d wanted to be read in well under an houra professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785781936</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter KornEdel Rodriguez|title=Why We Make Things and Why It MattersWorm: The Education of a CraftsmanA Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We'My intuition from the day I first picked up a hammer was that making things with a commitment to quality would lead to a good lifere in childhood,and we' Peter Korn writesre in Cuba. As an aimless The revolution has happened, and Castro, free-spirited University first thought of as a saviour of Pennsylvania studentthe country, has proven himself a Communist, he moved to Nantucket Island to earn the rest of his college credits through independent study and happened not done nearly enough to be offered create a carpentry joblevel playing field for all. That arbitrary job choice at the age Well, those hours-long speeches of twenty would come to define the rest his were kind of taking his careertime away. Manual labour was all new to him, but Our narrator's family weren'from t in the start there was a mind/body wholeness to carpentry that put it way ahead happiest of what I imagined office work places here, an uncle refusing to be.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784705063</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Henning Mankell|title= Quicksand|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary= How do you judge a book? Not by its cover, we're told. In my case, often by the number of turned down corners or postgood soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-it-note-marked pages by Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the time I've finished reading it. Sometimesfather being watched and watched, by whether I worry about leaving its characters to fend and not liked for themselves while I take a break…or by how much of it stays with me afterwards or for how long. In this casehis successful photography business, it doesn't mattersuccess being frowned upon. However, I judge ''Quicksand'' The mother gets the judgement comes up couple jobs with the same. This collection party to ease some of vignettes from an ageingthe heat, possibly dyingbut in this sultry island country, writer looking back on his own life is as powerful as it is simple, as easy to read as it is impossible to forget.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784701564</amazonuk>1474616720

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Klebold1035025299|title=A Mother's Reckoning: Living in Went to London, Took the Aftermath of the Columbine TragedyDog|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=Sue KleboldNina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's son Dylan was one of the shooters been at Columbine High School Victoria's smallholding in LittletonLeicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, Colorado. Her book opens on 20 April 1999, the day of the shootings. Klebold remembers the confusion and dread she and her husband and older son felt when they learned as there's always something was smallholding happening at Columbine. Early on they were told Dylan was a suspect, and before long they also knew he was dead, but they didn't know how he was involved or how he died- as you might expect. From the start, though, it was clear that there would be fallout: one The other side of the first things they had to do, before they even cremated their son, decision was have sealed when a clandestine meeting with room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a lawyer. In the months that followed, they were essentially in hiding in their own hometownvery reasonable rent. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753556812</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Saroo BrierleyChristopher Fowler|title= Lion: A Long Way HomeWord Monkey|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary=At It's the first glance, Saroo Brierley seems to be of August in the middle of a normal, well adjusted Australian mancool wet summer in East Anglia. He has a job, a girlfriend, a good social life and a supportive family, but his life could have turned out very differently. Saroo was born I decided not to swim at the pool in India, where his single mother had to work hard favour of going to feed him and his three siblingsmy beach hut. The children lived an almost feral existenceweather closed in, disappearing for daysrain arrived, exploring the local area for food and job opportunities. One fateful day, young Saroo begged his older brother Guddu I decided not to take him along on an adventuredo that either. The thrill soon turned to fear when the pair became separated and Saroo found himself trapped on a moving train. After a long journey, the train finally pulled into Kolkata station When I finished reading this book, leaving the five-year-old child alone and terrified. Soon he I realised it was found by the authorities and adopted by because (a family in Australia, where he spent most of his life trying ) I wanted to piece together his fragmented memories of his origins.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405930993</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Xu Hongci finish reading this book and Erling Hoh (Translatorb)|title= I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No Wall Too High|rating= 4|genre= History|summary= It was one of the greatest prison breaks of all timespoiler alerts, during one of the worst totalitarian tragedies of the 20th Century. Xu Hongci dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was an ordinary medical student when he was incarcerated under Mao's regime – and forced to spend years of his youth in some of China's most brutal labour campsfirst chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. Three times he tried There is something very strange about being made to escape. And three times laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he failed. Butis dying, determinedand you know he actually is at that point, because he eventually broke free, travelling the length of China, across the Gobi desert, and into Mongoliadoes. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846044960</amazonuk>0857529625

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Simon BennettKit De Waal|title= In Search of Sundance, Nessie...Without Warning and ParadiseOnly Sometimes

|summary= No As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you haven't stumbled into a music review from the 1970sup, I'm talking about The Boss's autobiography. Lots of books have been written about Springsteen by folk who knew himyour mum and dad/ They may not mean to, worked with him but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by others who have only read Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the cuttingsbonds that bind family. Over This book is a memoir focussing on the last seven author’s formative years he has been going about – not putting the record straight, exactly – but telling it as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from his own perspectiveSt. As he puts it: ''Writing about yourself Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a funny business''black man. By his own admission, it isn't This intersectionality plays a large role in the whole truthautobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, discretion holds him back but ''in a project like thisher class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, the writer has made one promiselove, to show and the reader his mind.'' ''In these pages, I've tried kind of anger only a child can express to do thistheir parents.''|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471157792</amazonuk>1472284852

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Krystyna Mihulka and Krystyna Poray Goddu1638485216|title=Krysia: A Polish Girl's Stolen Childhood During World War II|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Most of us would think of Polish children suffering in World War Two because of the Nazi death camps – they and their families suffering through countless round-ups, ghettoization, and transport to the end of the line, where they might by hint or dint survive to tell the horrid tale. But most of us would think of such Polish children as Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This book opens the eyes up in a most vivid fashion to those who were not Jewish. They did not get resettled in the Nazi ''Lebensraum'', but were sent miles away to the East. Krysia's family were split upBlack, partly due to her father being a Polish reservist when the Nazis invadedWhite, and then courtesy of Stalin, who had [[The Devils' AllianceGray All Over: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941 by Roger Moorhouse|signed a pact]] with Hitler dividing the country between the two states, before they turned bitter enemies. KrysiaA Black Man's family, living in the eastern city of Lwow, were packed up and sent – Odyssey in the stereotypical cattle train – east. And east, and east – right the way across the continent to rural Kazakhstan, Life and a communal farm in the middle of anonymous desert, deep in Communist Soviet lands. Proof, if proof were needed, that that horrendous war still carries narratives that will be new to us…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1613734417</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewLaw Enforcement|author=Matt Woodcock|title=Becoming Reverend: A diaryFrederick Reynolds|rating=4.5

|summary=[[:Category:Matt Woodcock|Matt Woodcock]] ''Corruption is enjoying life: successful journalistnot department, happily married and a new dream home bought and heavily mortgagedgender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The only cloud murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the horizon is their struggle to have children world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but they have faith in the IVF treatment as itFloyd's early days yetdeath was an exception. Then comes the funny turn Matt has The image of Chauvin kneeling on the way to a story George's neck is not one day. This takes him by surprise but which I'll ever forget and the resulting clergy collar comes as a total shockprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. He's There was a normal bloke who always thought of himself as more pint than piety believing backlash against the police - and not just in a God whoMinneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all''s happy for him to remain in tarred by the pewsChauvin brush. Errrrm… whoops!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781400105</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick MbayaBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title= My Brain Is Out Of ControlI May Be Wrong|rating= 45|genre= Home and FamilyAutobiography|summary=Dr Patrick Mbaya was enjoying life as a consultant psychiatristWhen the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, husband and fatherI'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. His career was going well and he enjoyed making ill people better I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. His marriage was solid He knows (and fulfilling and his two children were exploring their potentialat core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, often through in the uplifting power of music. Life was good. But then..early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524636649</amazonuk>1526644827

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Kleboldgareth_steel|title=A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine TragedyNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Sue KleboldI 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 son Dylan was one of life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the shooters at Columbine High School in Littleton, Coloradocompanion volume you've been looking for. Her book opens on 20 April 1999As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, the day of the shootingsas do other similar programmes. Klebold remembers Gareth Steel says that the confusion book is not suitable for younger readers and dread she - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and her husband and older son felt when they learned something was happening at Columbineprovoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Early on they were told Dylan was a suspect, It deals with some uncomfortable and before long they also knew he was dead, distressing issues but they didnit doesn't know how he was involved or how he died. From the start, thoughlack sensitivity, it was clear that although there are occasions when you would be fallout: one of the first things they had to do, before they even cremated their son, was have a clandestine meeting with a lawyerbest choosing between reading and eating. In the months that followed, they were essentially in hiding in their own hometown. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753556812</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Astrid LindgrenDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=A World Gone MadSpeedy: The Diaries of Astrid Lindgren 1939-45Hurled Through Havoc

|summary=Before she became How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a world famous author, Astrid Lindgren worked as pithy sentence to kick off a secretaryreview of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.  Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and as a wife and motherprofessional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. She kept The son of a diaryLutheran minister, and throughout the war maintained her own personal record of world eventshe's struggled with a controlling father, commenting on political situations as well as her own day run away to day activities and struggles. She writes in join the circus (not a fresh metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and candid mannerpainted theatre sets, and her observations are both personal and astutehit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272313</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Williams0008350388|title= My Son's Not Rainman: One Man, One Autistic Boy, A Million AdventuresWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating= 3.5|genre= AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In 2012, stand''To be a dark-up comedian John Williams was encouraged by his work colleagues skinned Black woman is to write a show charting his experiences be seen as the parent of an autistic boyless desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... After registering the domain name: ''My Son ''We Need to Talk About Money''s Not Rainman,by Otegha Uwagba '' he also decided to write a blog to share his funny anecdotes and experiences0. After 7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a shaky start (''I had book by a handful writer of followerscolour while only 7% study a book by a woman. Three of them were my brothers''), ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the blog eventually went viral as it increased in popularity with parents UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who felt a connection came first, with John her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and 'The Boy'determined that their children would have the best education possible. This book fills in some There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the gaps family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in the story, starting with 'The Boy's' early childhood London and ending, appropriatelythen a place at New College, on his thirteenth birthday, when he suddenly became 'The Teen'Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433880</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Ziegler0571365884|title=Wild and Precious My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett

|summary=You probably remember Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the case of Brittany Maynard; bed were comfortable: it was much in the news in the latter half sort of 2014life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. Diagnosed with On a visit to a massive brain tumour at age 29therapist, as an adult, Brittany chose when she was completely unable to move from speak about what was wrong with her home in California to Oregon so it was suggested that she could take drugs to end her life at should write it down and ''My Mess is a time Bit of her choosing using that statea Life: Adventures in Anxiety''s Death with Dignity Act. She and her family appeared in documentaries and national news media and gave official testimony to raise awareness about the cause of assisted dying for the terminally ill. A film about her story is also in the worksresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785033026</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Iris Murdoch, Avril Horner and Anne RoweDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title= Living A Tattoo on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934-1995my Brain|rating= 3.5

|summary=This collection of Iris MurdochAlzheimer's most interesting is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and revealing letters gives us personality worn away like a living portrait of one of statue over time affected the twentieth centuryelements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs's greatest writers and thinkersmemoir so admirable. They show her mind at work - seeing Murdoch grappling Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with philosophical questions, feeling anguish when a book fails to come together, Alzheimers and uncovering Murdochhas documented his journey in ''s famed personal life, in all its intriguing complexity. They also show the A Tattoo on my Brain'real life material' that fed into her fiction - and above all we see her life - blazing, brave, and brilliant in this collection of letters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570157</amazonuk>1108838936

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Magda Szubanski1529109116|title= ReckoningCall Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=In her memoir, actress, comedian and activist Magda Szubanski describes her journey ''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of self-discovery from a suburban childhood person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.'' The 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 an immigrant child, haunted by the demons of her fatherto what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's espionage activities in wartime Poland not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and by her secret awareness brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of her sexualityanimals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, to the complex dramas of adulthood whale scientist' and she was well on her need way to find out the truth about herself and achieving this when her life changed on a familyholiday to the Lake District. With courage She saw a lamb being born and compassion she addresses , although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her own frailties and fearsoriginal intention, and asks she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the big questions about lifedetermination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass onachieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925355411</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Harrison0008333173|title=I Me MineHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent

|summary=This sumptuous volume was first published in 1980 as a rather heftily-priced limited edition I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of 2,000 copies, each signed by the former Beatlejudges on ''Masterchef''. It now appears with a revised introduction by his widow Olivia, including brief references You know that you're going to their years together. What we have here is not a book get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of memoirs in the conventional sensetime. George Harrison was the man whose first solo album, excluding two rather experimental records You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of electronic music and film soundtrack not really aimed at a mainstream audience, was a lavish boxed set including three long-playing records, one consisting of extended musical jamming sessions with friendsher. If you I're expecting a tidy set of chapters telling his story as he recalls it from childhood to ve often wondered about the date he laid down his pen (or powered his laptop off, or whatever woman behind the 1980 equivalent was) - this media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is not ita stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905662408</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irina Ratushinskaya 1504321383|title=Grey is the Colour of HopeSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5

|summary=In April 1983 [[:Category:Irina Ratushinskaya|Irina Ratushinskaya]] was convicted of 'agitation carried 'You can't be happy and fulfilled on for the purpose of subverting or wrecking the Soviet Regimeyour own. You are not complete until you find a man''. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. She had dared It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to defend human rights and to ask questions of the Soviet system via what they thought would be best for her writing in general and poetry in particular. The penalty that came with the conviction It was 7 years in a labour camp followed reinforced by 5 years in internal exile. In [[In all those fairy tales where the Beginning girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by Irina Ratushinskaya|In the Beginning]], handsome prince who then marries her first autobiography, Irina touches on so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that time of her lifethey will marry and have children. Now, It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''Grey a belief is the Colour of Hopea choice'' goes back to look at it in detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473637228</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Irina RatushinskayaSakinu Ahronglong|title=In the BeginningHunter School

|summary=[[:Category:Irina Ratushinskaya|Irina Ratushinskaya]] was born in the Ukraine of 1954 The flyleaf to an engineer and this little collection tells us that it is a teacherwork of fiction. IrinaThat's very early childhood possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is innocent, having been sheltered by a loving extended family from "fiction" in the harsher side of Soviet life. Howeversense that Ahronglong made it all up, when Irina starts school she begins to realise that doing or whether it is as the right thing is often frowned blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and tainted by an illogical regimeautobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. Early on she realises she has It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a choice: be a good Soviet citizen or be child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true to her own sense of justice. The choice – But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and living with maybe calling it fiction means that its repercussions – form Irina's existence from that point onwards for Ratushinskaya the poet, the writer, the dissident, the prisonersafer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473637244</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1544641923|title=Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Lydia GinzburgSandra Aragona|titlerating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Notes It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. 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 Blockadediplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=Autobiography Politics and Society|summary=With the scenes from war torn Syria brought to our screens every night, 'Notes from the blockade' is a timely bookThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. It is the remarkable story Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of Lydia Ginzburg's survival during the 900-day siege parenting of Leningrad during World War 2their two daughters. With beautiful prose full of Russian melancholy Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and pragmatismher sister, it details daily life in the besieged cityBeata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. I have to confess that I found this to be one of the most moving books that In such circumstances, it has ever been my pleasure 's natural to read. Pleasure may be seek a strange choice of words solution close to describe a book recounting horrifying eventshome, but eventually, it came from became clear to the lyrical quality of the writing. Ginzburgfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''s prose is simply beautiful. Her descriptions of the minutiae of everyday life, as it descends into the abyss, are the most human I have encountered If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. It is this that leaves its mark long after the final page is turned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099583380</amazonuk>

Vikki Turner is a busy mum {{Frontpage|isbn=191280493X|title=Coming of four, Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''He began writing novels and for herpoetry at the age of twelve, family is everythingbut it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Her first two children gave her no cause Consistently unpublished for concernall that time, hitting their developmental milestones right on cue and behaving beautifully when in publiche remains a shining example of hope over experience...''  ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have. When Toby came along''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=190874572X|title=Letters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), she naturally expected things to be Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Back at the beginning of the samecentury, but it soon became apparent that there was something different about himI went on holiday to Nepal. Toby had I met a fear wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of bright lights and insisted -friends. I can't remember if it was on wearing sunglasses wherever he went. Sounds bothered him, so he constantly wore earphones that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to block out the outside worldread Tove Jansson. Earphones in I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, sunglasses on and hood up, Toby had created his own that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of''bubbletranslations of the rest of Jansson' in which he s work and devoured them as soon as I could feel safeget my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785032003</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris McIvor1908745819|title=The World is ElsewhereSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie

|summary=As Sometimes when people suggest that you read a Country Directorcertain book, Chris McIvor they tell you ''this one has worked for a number of years your name on it''. Mostly we take them at Save their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the Childrenbook. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The World is Elsewhereblurb speaks of the author considering '' covers his time there andan older, his journeys across a number less tethered sense of countriesherself.'' Older. It is Less tethered. That's not a beautiful mix bad description of autobiography and travelwhere I am. It also captures his philosophical thoughts on international aid. He reflects on both Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the good poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and the bad with a very easysubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, conversational writing style that makes the this book truly captivatinghad my name on it. I read from cover to cover in a single sitting, unusual It was written for a reviewerme. Such was the draw as he laid himself bareIt would have found its way to me eventually. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910124346</amazonuk>I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Violet Prater1906852472|title=My Life from the BeginningWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=2.5

|summary=Violet Prater For Ian Mathie fans there is 83 good and she's decided to tell us her storybad news. She knows that there are grammar and spelling errorsIan has come up with the missing link in his narrative, but she wants to tell the story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it'her'' way without any interference from an editors beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I can understand most enjoyed was the feeling that and I recognise many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in 'honesty'Wild Child' behind her words' with a satisfying clunk. Her storySeemingly all that's important because it illustrates that child abuse can extend beyond beatings and sexual abusenow left in the drawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524636738</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mara Wilson1999811402|title= Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental FamePainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary= Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of placeIt's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as the only child it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a film set full of adultslifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the first daughter in a house full lines of boys'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, the sole clinically depressed member of a cheerleading squaddid an engineering apprenticeship, became a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in Californiabusker, finally got into medical school and is now an adult the world still remembers as A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a little girl. Tackling everything Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from how she first learned about sex on the set of ''Melrose PlaceCasualty'',but that isn't really what the book's about. There' to losing her mother at s a young agelot about rock & roll, which seems to getting her first kiss (or was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe trip, to not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell be the story real passion of one young womanHartley's journey from accidental fame to relative obscuritylife, but also illuminate it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and figuring out who you are and where you belongcategory for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the one. It's an autobiography. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143128221</amazonuk>