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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Harry Leslie Smith0241636604|title= Don't Let My Past Be Your FutureThe Trading Game: A Call to ArmsConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating= 4.5|genre= Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary= DonIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you't Let My Past Be Your Future: re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A Call to Arms is part biography hoodie and part rallying call for society to tackle jeans replaces the systemic, endemic pin-stripe suit and debilitating inequality faced by his background is the people of the United KingdomEast End, where he was familiar with violence, particularly in the Northpoverty and injustice. Through reflecting There was no posh public school on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has painted a frank and uncompromising picture facility with numbers which most of the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to endure due to the poverty faced by be stupid. It was his family contrasted with theability at what was, shamefully stillessentially, grim and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cutscard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, austerity and political turmoilthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147212345X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael Bristow1529395224|title= China in DragLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: Travels with The Secret Life of a Cross-dresserVet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating= 43.5|genre= Autobiography Animals and Wildlife|summary=Having worked for nine years Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in Bejing as a journalist for the BBChis footsteps, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning particularly when he considered the local language for several years, Bristow asked strain that being on-call put on his language teacher for guidance - father's life. When he was seventeen he took the language teacher, born in opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to thatjob for him. Before long, Bristow he was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothingat Liverpool University. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal hadn't - as with so many students - yet also paints been his dream since he was a fascinating portrait of one of the worldchild. If anything, he's most intriguing nationsd wanted to be a professional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910985902</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger MooreEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Bientot...Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The news revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one saviour of those people you knew would go on the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for everall. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness Well, those hours- the news that a matter long speeches of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript were kind of taking his book, ''À bientôt…time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his publisherssuccessful photography business, success being frowned upon. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to look as though I could resist reading ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it straight away.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782438610</amazonuk>1474616720

{{newreview <!-- remove 10/9 -->Frontpage|authorisbn=Stuart Burrell1035025299|title=Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey Went toLondon, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World RecordsTook the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=The first of Stuart BurrellNina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's world records, well, the first two, actuallysmallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as hethere's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accidentalways something smallholding happening - as you might expect. There had been a plan to raise some money for The other side of the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not decision was sealed when a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people in and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002 he went for the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Needvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>154712251X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elena LappinChristopher Fowler|title=What Language Do I Dream In?Word Monkey

|summary=Speaking many languages fluently seems close to It's the first of August in the middle of a superpower cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to most swim at the pool in favour of usgoing to my beach hut. Elena Lappin's memoir is about how she came to be at home The weather closed in five or more languages, rain arrived, and what effect this has on her identity. Her family's history and the emigrations I decided not to do that led to her learning so many languages are caught up with European eventseither. As When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a child she moved from Russia ) I wanted to Czechoslovakia finish reading this book and from there (b) I did not want to Germanydo so anywhere near my shack. Elena No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad to learn French ' – and English toohis first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. Then she chose university in Israel and learnt Hebrew. So just as the rest of us might pick up bits of furniture or books from our various homes, Elena picked up There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a language every time. A clever member of an intellectual householdman who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, with parents who were translators and writersyou know he actually is at that point, there never seems to have been great effort involved in acquiring languages, it just happenedbecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844085783</amazonuk>0857529625

{{newreview <!-- remove 1/9 -->Frontpage|author=Parrain ThoranceKit De Waal|title=The French Cashew TreeWithout 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}}{{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

|summary=The place isn't given a name, but we can work out that it's in the Caribbean and it's here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his parentsCorruption is not department, brother and sister until he was eight years oldgender or race specific. It was then that his mother died suddenly and the family was broken up: his brother and sister went has everything to live do with an aunt and Parrain stayed with his father character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The 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 world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an aunt and uncle moved into the family homeexception. The aunt - his fatherimage of Chauvin kneeling on George's sister - was fine, but Parrain neck is not one which I'll ever forget and her husband never got onthe protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. The easy, generous days of childhood, sitting under There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted againChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524681458</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Hunter DaviesBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=A Life in the Day: Memories of Sixties London, Lots of Writing, The Beatles and my Beloved WifeI May Be Wrong|rating= 5

|summary= Although I knew When the name Hunter Davies before I picked this book upDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I was unaware just 'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how pivotal a figure of the Swinging Sixties Hunter Davies really was. Take him, Harold Wilson and a certain musical quartet from Liverpool out rest of the decade, and you are left with a bit of a vacuumworld responds to your book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471161293</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Roald Dahl|title= War|rating= 5|genre= Short Stories|summary=In war I know, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring having read the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot book in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strifequestion, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405933194</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Julia Blackburn|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, who became too ill to go to seathat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 knows (and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years at a time and he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit core so do I) that his work had to be done on the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, it matters very much how the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures rest of the sea. Then he moved on world responds to embroiderythis book, producing wonderful pictures of because it tells the Norfolk coast - andtruth as it is, most famously, of in the evacuation at Dunkirkearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>1526644827

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Elkingareth_steel|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and LondonNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel

|genre=History Animals and Wildlife|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: theyI don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''re places where you canNever Work With Animals't or shouldn't it seems to be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking appropriate. Stories of everything from a vet's life have proved popular since 'Madame Bovary'All Creatures Great and Small'' but ' to 'Never Work With Animals'Revolutionary Road'is definitely not the companion volume you')ve been looking for. When she imagines to herself what As a TV show the female version of author would argue that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneurAll Creatures''lacked realism, might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the worldbook is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn'streetwalker' applied to themt lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Saqib NoorDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Surgery on the Shoulders of GiantsSpeedy: Letters from a doctor abroadHurled Through Havoc

|summary=The letters begin much in How to summarise the fashion life of any young man away from home, perhaps Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a quite exciting country, writing back pithy sentence to family and friends to tell them kick off a review of his experiencesmemoir? Do you know, the sights heI really don's seen and the people he's mett think I can. It's just a little different in ''Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants'' though: Saqib Noor   Dave is a junior doctor, training to be an orthopaedic surgeon author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and over a period of ten years he visited six countries, not as professional horseman. And a tourist but to give medical assistance. They're countries which Noor describes as ''fourth world'' - third world with added disaster - and their need is desperaterecovering alcoholic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1521173192</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Johnny Ringwood|title=Cargoes & Capers: The life and times son of a London Docklands man|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Johnny Ringwood was born in 1936, just three years before the start of the second world warLutheran minister, as he says's struggled with a controlling father, ''slap bang next run away to join the Royal Victoria dock''. His education was somewhat limited, circus (not least because it was regularly interrupted by the Luftwaffe. You might therefore be surprised at what he has managed to achieve in the intervening eighty years. I certainly was.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1544833555</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Grindrod|title= Outskirts|rating= 4|genre =Animals and Wildlife|summary=''Outskirts'' is an interesting take on a phenomenon of the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of countryside surrounding inner city housing estates. John Grindrod grew up on the edge of one such estate in the 1960's and '70'smetaphor), trained horses, as he puts itpainted caravans, ''I grew up on the last road in London.'' Grindrod explores the introduction of the green beltdesigned and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the various fights and developments it has gone through bottle took over the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions. Within this topic, he has somehow managed to wind around his personal memories of childhood, producing a memoir with a lot of heart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473625025</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Wilbourne0008350388|title=Shepherd of Another FlockWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=[[:Category:David Wilbourne|David Wilbourne's]] CV looks like 'To be a career path for people who are harddark-ofskinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-humouredskinned counterparts... '' Banker, teacher ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of Ancient Greek, vicar, bishop…none English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of these are jobs normally connected in our minds with colour while only 7% study a book by a jovial twinklewoman. '' Yet in David's case we'd be totally wrong The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to assumethe UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The current Bishop of Llandaff takes us by the hand to show us episodes from his life as vicar of the characterfamily was hard-packed Yorkshire parish of Helmsley proving working, principled and determined that tears their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of sorrow are equally shared with tears money although this did not translate into a shortage of laughteranything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283072709</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie Nelson0571365884|title=The Red PartsMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Autobiography of a TrialAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett

|summary=Maggie Nelson is the author of four volumes of poetry and five wide-ranging works of nonfiction that delve into the nature of violence and sexuality. From what I'd heard about her writingGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, I knew to expect an important and unconventional thinker with even as a distinctive, lyrical stylechild. Now Vintage is making some of her backlist, including this book (originally published in 2007) and the uncategorisable ''Bluets'', available for She would worry about whether the first time in monsters under the UK.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784705799</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Henry Marsh|title=Admissionsbed were comfortable: A Life in Brain Surgery|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's more than two years since I read [[Do No Harm: Stories it was the sort of Life, Death life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh|Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery]] but the memories have stayed with mefar between. I had thought then that On a visit to a book therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about brain surgery might sound as though I what was taking my pleasures too sadly, but the book wrong with her it was superb - and very easy reading suggested that she should write it down and when I heard about ''AdmissionsMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' I decided to treat myself is the result - or so we are given to an audio download, particularly as Henry Marsh was narratingbelieve. I knew that my expectations were unreasonably high, but how did the book do?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1474603866</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna KendrickDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Scrappy Little NobodyA Tattoo on my Brain

|summary=Celebrity autobiographies. ItAlzheimer's is a genre long tainted by the examples disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of people who clearly didn't deserve to be a celebrity, let alone self. I have a ghost-writer create their book, and been directly affected by those who did so little but managed to churn out five memoirs before they were even thirty. But more recently it's become a way of staking a claim to importance for female comics. They've not all written autobiographiesthis cruel disease, as Bridget Christie proved, but enough have to provide for many. Your memories and personality worn away like a rapidly-filling shelf at statue over time affected the bookstoreelements. 2016 we had Amy Schumer winning a GoodReads award, Lena Dunham's been at it, It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and weyour dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs've also got Anna Kendrickmemoir so admirable. Now she's not Daniel Gibbs is a strict comic – not all of her films are designed to make you laugh, neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and some of them that are just don't – but this has to be documented his journey in the same bracket''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471156834</amazonuk>1108838936

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Chris Packham1529109116|title= Fingers in the Sparkle JarCall Me Red: A MemoirShepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=''Everything seemed alive in that scintillating moment and as the gleams gyrated and glittered I imagined I could see their tiny twinkling hearts, seeding want the sparks image of a British farmer to simply be that made them so very vividof a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. And then I wiped away the spilled slop of the river, polished the glare and thrust my fingers into the sparkle jar don't think that is too much to stir the soft tickles of the swirling tinsel of fishesask.''

The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his''Fingers in family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Sparkle JarWirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she' is d always had a unique memoir, written in a distinct style quite unlike any otherdeep love of animals. Chris Packham Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well-known TV presenter and wildlife expert, takes us back on her way to his childhood in 1960s Southampton, and we meet achieving this when her life changed on a curious child who doesn't quite fit in family holiday to the societal normLake District. Fast forward She saw a few yearslamb being born and, and although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the chasm widenskudos of her original intention, leading she knew that she wanted to bullying, name-calling and beatings at be a shepherd. With the hands determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of the local thugs at his comprehensive schoolher, she set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785033506</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jo Pavey0008333173|title= This Mum Runs|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= I am something of a self-confessed running addictHungry: I think nothing of hitting the roads for 50 miles a week, and spend much 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 A Memoir of inspirational.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224100432</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewWanting More|author=Patrice Chaplin|title=The Stone Cradle Grace Dent

|genre=Autobiography |summary= I'The Stone Cradle' m always relieved when Grace Dent is a remarkable book from one of the author Patrice Chaplinjudges on ''Masterchef''. It is a biography, the third in a series set in the Catalonian city of Girona. It is also You know that you're going to get 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 honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most famous student of Isaac the Blind, it has always been a home for mysticism and secretstime. The magnetism and resonance of the city has had a hold You also ponder on Patrice Chaplin since how she first visited it can look so elegant with all that good food in the fifties. The series front of books detail her journey and her encounters with the esoteric society that have protected its mysteries since ancient times. I'The Stone Cradle' also gives a new life and direction to ve often wondered about the mysteries of Rennes le Chateau, woman behind the small French village, made famous by the Da Vinci Code media image and the Holy Blood ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and The Holy Grail. Linking the two places through sacred geometry to the mountain of Canigoubreak your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190557083X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Min Kym1504321383|title= GoneSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary= Gone is ''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a fascinating peephole into the world of solo musicians and their instrumentsman''. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. When Min Kym It wasn's 300 year old Stradivarius violin t unkind: it was stolen simply the adults in 2010, the newspapers were eager her life advising her as to tell what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the story; this memoir is Kymgirl (she's side of it, from usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her early childhood and education at the Purcell School (their youngest so that they can live happily ever pupil) after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the recovery of the Strad expectation that they will marry and beyondhave children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241263158</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Cathryn KempSakinu Ahronglong|title= Coming CleanHunter School|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 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>}}{{newreview|author=Charlotte Rampling, Christophe Bataille and William Hobson (translator)|title=Who I Am|rating=3.5

|summary=I'll drop all pretence The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of plot summary, and set the stall out, just as this book doesfiction. HereThat's a quote from page one – Who possibly misleading. I Am: ''am not a biography''. With sure whether it is "fiction" in the name of one of cinema's most esteemed actresses on the frontsense that Ahronglong made it all up, you might assume or whether it is as the blurb goes on to be an autobiography for a start, but before that quote wesay ''ll already have been disabused of that thoughtrecollections, for apart from a couple of quotes the first six folklore and a half pages of the book is addressed autobiographical stories''to'' Charlotte Rampling. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and not apparently by hertrue. There are gnomic paragraphs But memory is a fickle thing, and lyrics maybe poetic licence has taken over here, in italics and there and maybe calling it fiction means that suggest they are direct quotes, leaving the rest of the text here to be both a collaborative look at the star's background, its safer and a musing perusal of the nature of creating the book in the first placetherefore more people will read it. And that stall I was setting out certainly doesn't have the right number of legs if I don't mention this book can be read in well under an hourMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785781936</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Korn1544641923|title=Why We Make Things and Why Ambassadors Do It Matters: The Education of a CraftsmanAfter Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=It'My intuition from s tempting to think that the day I first picked up a hammer was that making things with a commitment to quality would lead to a good diplomatic life,' Peter Korn writesis privileged and luxurious. As an aimless It might be privileged, free-spirited University of Pennsylvania student, he moved to Nantucket Island to earn the rest of his college credits through independent study and happened to be offered a carpentry jobbut family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. That arbitrary job choice at the age of twenty would come Now you're not going to define the rest of his career. Manual labour was all new get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to himdo so, you know), but 'from the start there was a mind/body wholeness to carpentry diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that put 's an entirely different matter. She (and it way ahead of still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what I imagined office work to begoes on.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784705063</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Henning Mankell0241446732|title= QuicksandOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating= 5|genre= AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary= How do you judge a book? Not by its cover, we're toldThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. In my case, often by Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the number parenting of turned down corners or posttheir two daughters. Then eleven-ityear-note-marked pages by the time I've finished reading it. Sometimesold Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, by whether I worry about leaving its characters to fend for themselves while I take a break…or by how much of it stays struggled with me afterwards or for how longwhat was happening. In this casesuch circumstances, it doesn't matter. Howevers natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, I judge it became clear to the family that they were ''Quicksandburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' the judgement comes up the same. This collection of vignettes from an ageing, possibly dying, writer looking back on his own life is as powerful as it is simple, as easy If they were to find a way to read as it is impossible live happily again their solution would need to forgetbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701564</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Klebold191280493X|title=A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath Coming of the Columbine TragedyAge|author=Danny Ryan

|summary=Sue Klebold's son Dylan 'He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was one of the shooters to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at Columbine High School in Littletoneither. Consistently unpublished for all that time, Coloradohe remains a shining example of hope over experience...''  ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have. Her book opens on 20 April 1999''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=190874572X|title=Letters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Back at the day beginning of the shootingscentury, I went on holiday to Nepal. Klebold remembers the confusion I met a wonderful Finnish woman and dread she and her husband and older son felt when they learned something was happening at Columbinewe became sort-of-friends. Early on they were told Dylan was a suspect, and before long they also knew he was dead, but they didnI can't know how he was involved or how he died. From the start, though, remember if it was clear on that there would be fallout: holiday or a later one of the first things they that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I do, before they even cremated their son, know that it was have a clandestine meeting with a lawyer. In the months four years later that followedI finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, they were essentially in hiding in their own hometownand that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753556812</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Saroo Brierley1908745819|title= Lion: A Long Way HomeSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary=At first glance, Saroo Brierley seems to be Sometimes when people suggest that you read a normalcertain book, well adjusted Australian manthey tell you ''this one has your name on it''. He has a jobMostly we take them at their word, or not, a girlfriendbut rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a good social life and rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a supportive familybook calling your name, but his life could have turned out very differentlyrarely get it wrong. Saroo In this case, I was born in India, where his single mother had to work hard to feed him and his three siblingstold why. The children lived blurb speaks of the author considering ''an almost feral existenceolder, disappearing for days, exploring the local area for food and job opportunitiesless tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. One fateful day, young Saroo begged his older brother Guddu to take him along on an adventureThat's not a bad description of where I am. The thrill soon turned Add to fear when that my love of the pair became separated and Saroo found himself trapped on a moving train. After a long journeynatural world, of those aspects of the train finally pulled into Kolkata stationpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, leaving the five-year-old child alone and terrifiedsubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. Soon he It was written for me. It would have found by the authorities and adopted by a family in Australia, where he spent most of his life trying its way to me eventually. I am pleased to piece together his fragmented memories of his originshave it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405930993</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Xu Hongci and Erling Hoh (Translator)1906852472|title= No Wall Too HighWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating= 45|genre= HistoryAutobiography|summary= It was one of For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the greatest prison breaks story of all timea very unusual childhood (yes, during one of the worst totalitarian tragedies of very years that made him the 20th Centuryamazing man he became). Xu Hongci was an ordinary medical student when he was incarcerated under MaoThe bad – well it's regime and forced to spend hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of his youth the questions in some of ChinaIan Mathie's most brutal labour campslater books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Three times he tried to escape. And three times he failed. But, determined, he eventually broke free, travelling the length of China, across Seemingly all that's now left in the Gobi desert, and into Mongoliadrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846044960</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Simon Bennett1999811402|title= In Search of Sundance, Nessie...and ParadisePainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating= 4.5|genre= Travel Autobiography|summary= Books are personal. There are three things that signal good books It's very difficult to meclassify ''Painting Snails'': how originally I feel while reading them thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and in where for the enforced spaces between reading them, best results. The answer would be something along the degree to which lines of 'try it and see'. Then I bore everyone around me for ages afterwards by quoting them and talking about themconsidered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and whether is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I remember howfound out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', when and where I first read thembut that isn't really what the book's about. That last criterion can only There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be judged laterthe real passion of Hartley's life, but on it didn't actually fit into the first two entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'In Search of Sundance…? Yep - that's the one. It' definitely qualifiess an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524666173</amazonuk>