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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leslie Kenton0241636604|title=Love AffairThe Trading Game: The Memoir of a Forbidden Father-daughter RelationshipA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=For some yearsIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, I had been aware of Leslie Kentonyou's books on healthy living, and also re unlikely to think of Stan Kenton's work as a jazz bandleader, though I had never made the connection until nowsomeone like Gary Stevenson. This family memoir reveals all about A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the famous father East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and laterinjustice. There was no posh public school on his CV -but he had been tothe London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright -beextremely bright -famous daughter, and it is he has a disturbing talefacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091910536</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Taylor|title=The Village|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Two other authors It was his ability at what was, [[:Category:Miss Read|Miss Read]] and [[:Category:Rebecca Shaw|Rebecca Shaw]]essentially, have already purloined the village for their owna card game which got him an internship with Citibank. I so wish that the publishers had chosen Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a more distinctive title for this reprint. It's the Irishness of the memoir that will attract English readerstrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224202</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Drabble1529395224|title=The Pattern in Letting the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws |rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Imagine Cat Out of the sceneBag: a major publishing house receives the latest pitch for a book. Its basis is a history of the jigsaw, interwoven with a highly personal memoir of an ever so slightly irascible maiden aunt with whom the author partook in the delights The Secret Life of puzzling. Two words save this pitch from oblivion: Margaret Drabble. Faced with the same dilemma in a bookshop, the reader would be wise to follow the publisher's hunch and buy this book - it is a gentle delight from start to finish.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546205</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewVet|author=Alice Taylor|title=To School Through The FieldsSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=To School Through Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the Fields is strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the memoir opportunity of doing work experience with a farmer’s daughter family friend who grew up in rural County Cork in was a vet and was convinced this was the 1940s (though the book never mentions the date of when it is set)job for him. Taylor makes it clear Before long, he was at the beginning that she is writing Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a nostalgic look back at the era of her childhoodchild. If anything, before the he'changing winds of time' and then presents d wanted to be a series of anecdotes about her parents, her family and some of the other characters who lived in her villageprofessional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224210</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil DanielsEdel Rodriguez|title=Phil DanielsWorm: Class ActorA Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=If We're in childhood, and we 're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were asked kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to nominate be the archetypal Cockney actor on large or small screen over good soldier the last twenty years or socountry demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, Phil Daniels would undoubtedly come high on such as Angola) and the listfather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Born The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in Islington in 1958 and raised in Kings Crossthis sultry island country, he was a graduate it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970s.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847376207</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicole Dryburgh1035025299|title=Talk Went to London, Took the HandDog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=We first met Nicole Dryburgh in her book ''The Way I See It'', which she wrote at eighteen, and which detailed her battles with cancer and the loss of her sight. We loved the warts-and-all picture of her life that she gave us then, and so we were really pleased to see that she's written a second book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996978</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ian Mathie
|title=The Man of Passage
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Carole White and Sian Williams
|title=Struggle or Starve
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Struggle or Starve Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a collection of autobiographical writings about girlssabbatical after being away for twenty years. She' and womens been at Victoria's lives smallholding in South Wales between Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the wars. This is decision was sealed when a new edition room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurityvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit Christopher Fowler|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely FriendshipWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In early 2005, It's the first of August in the middle of a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day swim at the pool in favour of going to day life my beach hut. The weather closed in Baghdad, rain arrived, and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections thereI decided not to do that either. May's detailed When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Bee(b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and a friendship develops between the two womenhis first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. They tell each other There is something very strange about their workbeing made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, relationships and family livesyou know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>0857529625
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chinua AchebeKit De Waal|title=The Education of a British-Protected ChildWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall ApartAs Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian“They f*** you up, Biafran your mum and Igbo history and culturedad/ They may not mean to, African literature but they do” Without Warning and the legacy Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of colonialism in his country parenthood and the rest 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 AfricaBirmingham. Some of the essays are taken Her father is from guest lectures at universities around St. Kitts in the world Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and conference papersmarrying 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 others are written for this bookwith care, love, particularly many and the kind of the more personal pieces about Achebe's familyanger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gabriel Weston1638485216|title=Direct RedBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Few people have the ability ''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened do with jargoncharacter. Gabriel Weston is one such – and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hoursPeriod. She's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Dana Fowley|title=How Could She?|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to ''One more of the same. She was raped by her motherbody just wouldn't matter''s partner and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of those.
Her mother 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 exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a willing participant backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the abuse and organised much of itChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Val DoonicanBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete AutobiographyI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=In When the 1960sDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, if Harold Wilson was the personification of politics and the Beatles I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the collective icon rest 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 world responds to passing fads and fashions, remained true to himself, and in the process he has never really put a foot wrongyour book. As he says towards the end, 'When you find out what it is you do bestI know, and what having read the public wants from youbook in question, then stick that Lindeblad would disagree with it, that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it as well as you can.' With matters very much how the possible exception rest of his contemporary and long-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harristhe world responds to this book, because it's difficult to think of another person in showbiz who comes across tells the truth as more genuinely likeableit is, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'in the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aeronwy Thomas gareth_steel|title=My Father's Places: A portrait of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughterNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=3.54|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Aeronwy Thomas was six years old when she I 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 life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and her family came to settle after Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a nomadic existence at Laugharne, on TV show the Welsh coastauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, in 1949as do other similar programmes. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on Gareth Steel says that the BBC, book is not suitable for younger readers and while - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he continued 's written it to travel to London regularly for the purpose (as well as to carouse inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with friends in his old haunts)some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, somewhere off the beaten track was a more suitable working environmentalthough there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PalinDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Diaries 1969-1979Speedy: The Python YearsHurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Never meet your heroesHow to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know,'' goes the old adage. ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice. That's probably why I didnreally don't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero of my teenage yearsthink I can.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Shirley Williams
|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Who could resist a title like that? And is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent in libraries? The answer to the latter is no.
Shirley Catlin, as she was born, tells us in the early pages of this memoir that during her childhood her father encouraged her to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea house, right up to the ceiling. It was a secret between the two of them, as her mother, Testament of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken arms.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|Dave is an author=Jose Saramago |title=Small Memories|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much of the twentieth century, with an author's view of change artist. An inspirational speaker and people, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lotprofessional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. Civil Wars in the neighbouring Spain; the growth The son of his country - which still left it as western Europea Lutheran minister, he's poorest. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhood, in the country and in Lisbon, and provides struggled with a subtle and gentle memoir.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft|title=Margrave of the Marshes|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=John Peel was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939controlling father, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home run away to join Radio London and then become one of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day circus (even if I didn't always enjoy it myselfnot a metaphor) and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to heartrained horses, painted caravans, designed and I always enjoyed reading his columns in the music weeklies painted theatre sets, and later Radio Times. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards hit rock bottom when the end, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), and thought his build-'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a while. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical onebottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
{{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
{{newreview|author=Jo Brand|title=Look Back in Hunger|rating=3''0.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Born 7% of English Literature GCSE students in Hastings in May 1957, after leaving Brunel University with England study a degree in social sciences, Jo Brand unsuccessfully applied for book by a research job with Channel 4 on writer of colour while only 7% study a series about racism, then worked for book by a time as a psychiatric nurse at the South London Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitalwoman. '' But the lure of showbiz proved too strong, and stardom in stand-up comedy soon beckoned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355237</amazonuk>}}''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
{{newreview|author=Anita Thompson (Editor)|title=Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S Thompson|rating=4Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine.5|genre=Autobiography|summary= It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' was her mother who came first graced the shelves, with her father joining them later. His gonzo style The family was hard-working, putting himself at principled and determined that their children would have the centre best education possible. 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 storyfamily acquired a car. For Otegha, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event he is describing. If that's the case then what is education meant a scholarship to be learned from a selection of interviews with the main man himself private school in London and then? The answer is plentya place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Floyd0571365884|title=Stirred But Not ShakenMy Mess is a Bit of Life: The AutobiographyAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I grew up with television cookery programmes and still have some recipes in my childish handwritingGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, which begin ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…'' even as I battled to copy what was on a child. She would worry about whether the screen before we retuned to monsters under the presenter. Programmes stagnated as bed were comfortable: it was the cook spoke sort of life where if she had nothing to camera worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and lectured the viewer on how to make sponge cake or a fish dishfar between. Then we were shocked awake. There was On a man, quite good-looking in visit to a raffishtherapist, slightly dangerous sort of wayas an adult, who cooked on the deck when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a trawler or wherever the whim took him, always glass Life: Adventures in hand and who was quite capable of berating Anxiety'' is the cameraman about how he was doing his job. Like him, result - or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floyd, or Floydy so we are given to millionsbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian Johnson Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Rockers and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography A Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Brian Johnson will probably go down Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as one of the luckiest men in showbizhave many. He had Your memories and personality worn away like a brief moment of glory in statue over time affected the early 70s elements. It seems as vocalist with Geordie, a Tyneside version of Slade, who had three Top 40 hits if nature wants that final victory over you and then fell on hard timesyour dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. After going back to the day job, Daniel Gibbs is a chance call invited him to go neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and audition for AC/DC, whose vocalist Bon Scott had suddenly died. Three decades later, not only have the group held on to their loyal fanbase, but one of their albums, according to an online source, is second only to Michael Jacksonhas documented his journey in 's ''ThrillerA Tattoo on my Brain'' in terms of global sales.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155424</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.''
{{newreview|author=Susan Hill |title=Howards End is The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the Landing|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Esteemed author, Susan Hill challenges herself land where ''his'' 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 year of farmer. It's not buying books, always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and re-reading some of her vast collectionbrought up on the Wirral: not she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a terribly deep love of animals. Her original ideaintention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, but an intriguing one nonethelesswhale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. Most avid readers will no doubt have made similar vows at some point in their lives (I know I have…) Early in She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the memoirkudos of her original intention, Ms Hill does admit she knew that for professional purposes she will continue to review books sent to her - but buying/obtaining for pleasure, is wanted to be out of boundsa shepherd. In With the course determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of guiding us through her vast and eclectic collection, scattered throughout her home, she also sets herself the task of choosing set about achieving her top 40 books - and comes up with a very erudite selectionambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682657</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Keenan0008333173|title=I'll Tell Me MaHungry: A Childhood Memoirof Wanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Keenan memorably told I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the story of his years as a hostage in Beirut in judges on ''An Evil CradlingMasterchef''. Now he turns You know that you're going to his childhood. Anyone who had get an urban upbringing in honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the 1950's will find themselves saying ''I remember time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that!'' at intervals throughout this bookgood food in front of her. Senior Service cigarettes, Pontefract cakes, I've often wondered about the rag woman behind the media image and bone man, the Lone Ranger, family photographs kept in an old biscuit tin, Dad polishing everyone's shoes, the realisation that there was 'Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a wider world beyond the city streets…These are some of the things that brought back my own memories – what can stunning read which will make you find?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224062166</amazonuk>laugh and break your heart in equal measures.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Bennett1504321383|title=A Life Like Other People'sSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It was his mother's illness which triggered Alan Bennett's excursions into his family background. The bout of depression hadnYou can't cleared as the family had hoped be happy and admission to hospital was the next step in the treatmentfulfilled on your own. Asked if there had been anything like this before, Bennett said You are not, failing to notice his father's hand gently touch his knee. The son was educated at Oxford and had even been seen on the television. He did the talking rather than the father, reluctant butcher and complete until you find a man not given to putting himself forward''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571248128</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Elliott J Gorn |title=Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One|rating=4|genre=History|summary=John Dillinger This was what Louisa Pateman was born and brought up in Indianato believe. His childhood It wasn't unkind: it was no better and no worse than most but simply the early part of his adult adults in her life was advising her as to what they thought would be blighted best for her. It was reinforced by a spell in prison when he was convicted of an attack on a man in a botched hold-upall those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Hoping for leniency he pleaded guilty but was sentenced Few girls are lucky enough to a lengthy term of imprisonment, whilst be brought up ''without'' the man with him pleaded not guilty expectation that they will marry and when convicted received a shorter sentencehave children. Itwas a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice's easy to see where Dillinger's contempt for the law was spawned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0195304837</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia Sakinu Ahronglong|title=Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia FamilyHunter School|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joaquin 'Jack' Garcia worked for the FBIThe flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That might sound rather glamorous but Jack had a special claim to fame's possibly misleading. He was one of those rare people who always worked undercover – I am not just for hours sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or days at a time but sometimes for years. In whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''Making Jack Falconerecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' . It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells the story of how he came to infiltrate the Mafia in New York about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and was responsible for a string of arrests which crippled the organised crime familiestrue. If that doesn't sound impressive enoughBut memory is a fickle thing, then just consider and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that Jack Garcia was a Cuban-born American its safer and he went undercover as an Italian amongst Italianstherefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847393942</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Mangan 1544641923|title=My Family and Other DisastersAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Not living in It's tempting to think that the UK means diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that we donit is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''t have British newspapers. Even when we lived in Englanddiplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, we never bought that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'The Guardian'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, so I had never actually heard Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of Lucy Mangan before being sent this booktheir two daughters. That Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's probably not natural to seek a bad thingsolution close to home, since I began but eventually, it became clear to the book family that they were ''burned- out people on a collection of her Guardian columns burned- without any preconceptionsout planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852651244</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Buzz Aldrin191280493X|title=Magnificent DesolationComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It seems the first thing one does when one lands on the moon is go through all but the final steps in the process of flying straight back up - just in case. The first thing one does when one steps down on to the moon is to make sure you can step back up into your lunar module - just in case there's a panic somewhere. The first thing one does when land back on earth - you would think - would be to have the same urgency to get back up 'He began writing novels and out there, but life has a habit of getting in poetry at the way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804026</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bernard P Morgan |title=Memories age of the Rare Old Times: Through The Eyes of a Dubliner|rating=2|genre=Autobiography|summary=This is the story of Bernard Morgantwelve, one of nine children growing up in Dublin in the 50s. As but it was to take him a boy Bernard tells us about his love of football and boxing. He played truant from school, preferring further forty-eight years to smoke cigarettes instead and, as realise that he got older, he hung around in gangs with his brothers and friendswasn’t very good at either. We hear of the wars they hadConsistently unpublished for all that time, and how the Irish stick by one another. Finally we see him go to England where he tries to find work, sleeping rough and living on nothing. Along the way we meet the street people remains a shining example of Dublin and above all Bernard's family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312454</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Vicky Jaggers|title=Silenced|rating=3hope over experience.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Vicky Jaggers had a dreadful childhood. One sister was in a home following an accident which made her violent and her elder brother, David, was obviously her mother's favourite. He was very intelligent, but disliking any sort of work his abilities were directed towards getting what he wanted without making any effort. The family moved house regularly as Vicky's father looked for work and schooling soon became an option which wasn't always chosen. Sexually mature at the age of nine and looking much older than her years she took to spending much of her time in the pubs her parents ran and it was whilst her parents were serving in the bar that David raped her – on three successive nights – when she was only twelve. Her pregnancy wasn't evident for six months.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976772</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Ruth Merry and Steve Emecz
|title=Enabled: One Disabled Woman's Incredible Story of Tackling Her Disability in Pursuit of a Lifelong Dream
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ruth Merry has never been your common-or-garden young lady. Born with no ability to move her legs, and more, due to a condition called arthrogryposis, she still became an avid equestrian, downhill skier, competitive swimmer, fund-raiser and more. At the beginning of this book a flippant comment inspires another, future dream - that of going down in a four-man bobsleigh.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312322</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Lucy Wadham |title=The Secret Life of France|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=I'm rather at 'This a loss to describe this book for memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you, and Ihave.'m still uncertain how to categorise it. It's part personal memoir and part analytical. Whether you regard this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is down, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynn Barber 190874572X|title=An EducationLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Lynn Barber comes from Back at the ''lowerbeginning of the century, unremembered, orders I went on both sides''holiday to Nepal. There is no ancestral home or village – just parents who were determined that she should work hard I met a wonderful Finnish woman and make something we became sort-of herself-friends. Well, they were – until Simon proposed and I can't remember if it was explained to her on that holiday or a later one that Oxford didn't Paula told me I really matter, that being married had to a good man would be more importantread Tove Jansson. Simon I do know that it was much older – older in fact than he would admit to – four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and he picked Lynn up (quite literally) at a bus stop when she was just sixteen. Surprisingly her parents were unworried by this and threw them together, despite the fact that Simon, who was in I eagerly awaited the property business, had some strange friends. In ''Sort Of'' translations of the nineteen fifties it wasnrest of Jansson't every sixteen year old girl who had a passing acquaintance with the evil slum landlord, Peter Rachmans work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039558</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stan Cattermole 1908745819|title=Bete de JourSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''Somethingthis one has your name on it's just come in '. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that might appeal to youwe didn't like the book. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, said Sue from rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The Bookbagblurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, having just taken delivery less tethered sense of herself.''Bête de Jour' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Pleased Add to be thought that my love ofthe natural world, I never mustered of those aspects of the courage to ask whether poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this thought book had my name on it. It was motivated by a previous liking written for bloke lit, or by the book's subtitle: ''The Intimate Adventures of an Ugly Man''me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007312741</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Joe Queenan|title=Closing Time|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Joe Queenan made good despite a deprived and neglected childhood. His world was a far cry from the middle class background of most aspiring writers of his generation. He grew up in Philadelphia, born to parents so immersed in their own problems that they made little attempt to love or care for their four children. Practically the only way his father provided a role model was in his love of reading. Otherwise, he was an alcoholic, frequently beating his young children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330458272</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Carr|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 'A' variety - usually it'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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cylin Busby and John Busby1906852472|title=The Year We DisappearedWild Child: A Father-Daughter Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Business and Finance |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 - the lower half of his jaw'' ''was removed when he was shot in the head with a shotgun. His tongue was torn in half, his teeth and gums blown'' ''away, leaving Growing Up a bit of bone that was once his chin connected with dangling flesh at the front of his face.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802015</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNomad|author=Ronan Smith |title=Lord of the Rams: The Greatest Story Never Told|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography |summary=When you read ''Lord of the Rams'' you could be forgiven for thinking that you're hearing about someone with a split personality. Our author, Ronan Smith, is a true gentleman and a real delight when you're exchanging pleasantries. He's good to his mother and not just because he doesn't get home that often. Then we have the subject of his autobiography – ''Rambo'', ''Lord of the Rams'' or, more usually, simply ''the Rams''. You'll find it unnerving that the author speaks of his other self in the third person - and that's before we get to the strange nicknames which people acquire, the fact that there's nothing which can't be made into a joke and the drinking…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425164846</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Coleen Nolan|title=Upfront and Personal: The AutobiographyIan Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a child, I was a huge fan of For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the Nolan Sisters. When ''I'm missing link in his narrative, the Mood for Dancing'' hit story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the charts in 1979, I was ten very years oldthat made him the amazing man he became). Bernie was my favourite Nolan at the time and in recent years, I have enjoyed watching her acting in shows like ''The Bill'bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283070889</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rick Wakeman|title=Grumpy Old Rock Star|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Rick Wakeman wrote and published a more conventional autobiographyAs always, it''Say Yes!'' in 1985s beautifully written, and it has so far never been updatedwith many exciting moments. This, written with What I most enjoyed was the aid feeling that many of ghost-writer Martin Roach, takes a totally different approach, being a selection of episodes from his sixty years the questions in more or less random order. In theory it might seem rather disjointed, but Ian Mathie's later books are answered in practice it works brilliantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090056</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Belle de Jour|title=The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Following the recent success with ITV2's highly-publicised TV version of Belle de Jour's online blog, starring Billie Piper, it comes as no surprise that sales for her 2005 book, Wild Child''The Intimate Adventures of with a London Call Girl'', sky-rocketedsatisfying clunk. After Seemingly all, who doesnthat't want to hear all the profound details of working s now left in the London sex trade?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753819236</amazonuk>drawer is unpublishable.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Charles1999811402|title=How Could He Do It?Painting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emma Charles was It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on the edge of thinking that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mumallotment it would be a lifestyle book, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and a couple of guinea pigswhere for the best results. Sprinkle in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for the girls, a nice car in The answer would be something along the drive lines of the nice house, good clothes 'try it and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life was goingsee' Then her fifteen year old daughterI considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, Tamsindid an engineering apprenticeship, gave her became a notebusker, couched finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in graphic termsa Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', saying but that her father had been sexually abusing her for isn't really what the past five yearsbook's about.In moments There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the familyreal passion of Hartley's life fell apart, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Gone were all Did we have a category for 'doing the certainties, impossible the hopes and hard way'? Yep - that's the expectationsone. In came the police, Social Services and Child Protection OfficersIt's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Jacqueline Walker|title=Pilgrim State|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was intrigued and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir of her childhood in Jamaica and London in the 1960's. This is a book inevitably compared with Andrea Levy's ''Small Island''. It follows similar ground, but the main difference and great strength, is that it's the real narrative of mother and daughter. As 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 contemporaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Taylor|title=The Parish|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ours are hard times for humanity - for a number of reasons. Firstly, we don't talk to each other much. Second, 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 a neighbours' door asking for a cup of sugar. Maybe that's just me, but look around you - pregnant women struggle to get a seat Move on the train, 12-year olds get accidentally shot in a supermarket lane, and it's acceptable to throw a tantrum over wrong hair colour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863223974</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Biography Reviews]]