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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry Leslie Smith0241636604|title=1923The Trading Game: A MemoirConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=#Harry Leslie Smith was born If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in 1923. If your mind, you're wondering about unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the title – that's the explanation – pin-stripe suit and although it's when Harry began his life it's not background is the East End, where his story beganhe was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. He takes us back some years before to There was no posh public school on his father's family with its roots in mining and a sideline in running a pub which was CV - but he had been to make them comfortable if not wealthythe London School of Economics. Harry's father was middleStevenson is bright - extremely bright -aged when and he got involved has a facility with Lillian, a teenage girlnumbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Unsurprisingly It was his family were not impressed or welcoming when the pair married because ability at what was, essentially, a child was on the waycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Albert Smith expected that he would inherit the pub when his father diedEventually, but it passed to his uncle and so began this turned into permanent employment as a life of disappointment for Albert and Lilliantrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450254136</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Richards1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Lifeof a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=EntertainmentAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Nearly forty years agoSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Keith Richards was particularly when he considered the next most likely rockstrain that being on-call put on his father'n'roll star to succumb to drugss life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. The man has defied all the odds in staying aliveBefore long, and continuing to do what he has was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been doing for almost half his dream since he was a centurychild. In the processIf anything, he has earned the sometimes grudging, sometimes unqualified respect of those who would once never given him the time of day'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297854399</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane ShillingEdel Rodriguez|title=The Stranger in the MirrorWorm: A Memoir of Middle AgeCuban American Odyssey|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Middle-aged women disappearWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. They are The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not see on televisiondone nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, their lives do not appear those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in newspapers, the legions happiest of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At leastplaces here, that is what an uncle refusing to be the author Jane Shilling believes good soldier the country demanded (especially as she wakes up aged 47 he would probably be shipped off to find some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the narrative of her contemporaries father being watched and their lives which she has been reading about watched, and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanished. She looks in the mirror and sees a face she does not recogniseliked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Even The mother gets the couple jobs with a punishing regime the party to ease some of early bedthe heat, no alcohol and litres of waterbut in this sultry island country, it refuses to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides to take a magnifying glass to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth and old age.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701181001</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Isherwood1035025299|title=Diaries Volume 1Went to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England Nina Stibbe is returning to London for America in the company of poet WH Audena sabbatical after being away for twenty years. This hefty volume covers his diaries from She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that date until August 1960conducive to writing, when he celebrated his fiftyas there's always something smallholding happening -sixth birthdayas you might expect. A 49-page introduction setting out the background leads us into the entries, which are divided into three sections – The Emigration, to other side of the end of 1944; The Post-war Years, to 1956; and The Late Fifties. After these we have a chronology and glossary, or to put it more accurately decision was sealed when a section of brief biographies room became available (courtesy of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over Deborah Moggach) at a hundred pages altogethervery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555824</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BurnsideChristopher Fowler|title=Waking Up In ToytownWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=After years It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of alcoholism going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and borderline insanity, John Burnside decides I decided not to become normaldo that either. This involves moving When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to Surrey, working in an office finish reading this book and settling into a numbing daily routine he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards bad habits(b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. These memoirs chronicle No spoiler alerts, the failure of dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his bid for normality and subsequent disillusionment with the projectterminal diagnosis. It's There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a solipsistic account but the writing man who repeatedly reminds you that he is powerful dying, and it draws you inknow he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099507838</amazonuk>0857529625
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rhoda JanzenKit De Waal|title=Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Coming HomeWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Even although 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 obliging blurb bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the back cover tells the reader author’s formative years as a little about being Mennonite, I couldn't resist looking it up teenager living in the dictionarya lower class area of Birmingham. I was intrigued to start readingHer father is from St. And emblazoned across Kitts in the front cover Caribbean and her mother is 'No 1 In The US'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. Great praise indeedKit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, I thoughther class and her gender. But how would it go down across Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the pond? Time kind of anger only a child can express to find out ..their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085789031X</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Judt1638485216|title=The Memory ChaletBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In 2008 the historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative disorder that eventually results in complete paralysis for the sufferer. Unable to jot down ideas as they came to him, Judt had to rely on his memory to hold them until he had the chance to dictate his words to somebody else. His memory, which was already good, became exceptional. The progress of the disorder left Judt unable to move''Corruption is not department, but no mental deterioration gender or lack of sensation occurred, which he describes as a mixed blessingrace specific. He had to endure whole nights lying in the same position, unable to roll over or even It has everything to scratch an itch, a prisoner in his own body. To preserve his sanity during these tortuous nights he focussed on events from his own past, linking then do with other events and ideas it had never occurred to him were connectedcharacter. It was during these reveries that the essays in The Memory Chalet were not only conceived, but also developed in their entiretyPeriod.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020966</amazonuk>}}''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
{{newreview|author=Robert Leon Davis|title=Running Scared: For 22 Years He Was The murder of George Floyd, a Fugitive forty-six-year- The Corrupt Cop Busted old black man, on 25 May 2020 by God|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Robert Davis was Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the eldest US city of nine children all living with their grandmother in New Orleans – on welfareMinneapolis sent shock waves around the world. His grandmother was We rarely see pictures of a good, honest woman and Davis loved and respected her, murder taking place but money Floyd's death was so tight that he resorted to thieving to bring some extra food in for the familyan exception. He knew that she would be deeply upset about it, but hunger The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is hunger. In your heart you cannot one which I't blame him ll ever forget and it seems that all is coming good when Davis becomes a respected police officer in the mid nineteen-seventiesprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. He's living with There was a good, decent woman backlash against the police - and looks set to have a good career. Great, you think, sometimes life not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''isall'' fair and it works outtarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854249932</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Denis O'ConnorBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Paw Tracks at Owl CottageI May Be Wrong|rating=3.5|genre=PetsAutobiography|summary=When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'Paw Tracks at Owl Cottagem inclined to think it doesn' is t really matter how the story rest of four pedigree Maine Coon cats which the author and his wife acquired after moving back world responds to a cottage where they had previously livedyour book. This is I know, having read the sequel to a volume called 'Paw Tracks book in the Moonlight'question, which I have not read, and which features their first cat Toby Jugthat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. ApparentlyHe knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, on his demise, they had sold because it tells the cottage; but nowtruth as it is, a little more advanced in years, they buy it again, and do extensive renovations before deciding that it's ready for another catthe early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016402</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase Phinngareth_steel|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little StarsNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=HumourAnimals and Wildlife|summary=I spent many don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of my teenage years reading James Herriota vet's books, life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just TV show the settingauthor would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, for Phinn was a school inspector in as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the Dales book is not suitable for many years, but younger readers and - after reading - I think agree with him. He says that he also has that knack of capturing a situation, 's written it to inform and a characterprovoke thought, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculousparticularly amongst aspiring vets. Here he collates stories from his other books, It deals with some Christmassy uncomfortable and others notdistressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed betweeneating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer
|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.
{{newreview|Dave is an author=Nicky Haslam|title=Redeeming Features|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Nicholas Haslamand an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, interior designerhe's struggled with a controlling father, columnistrun away to join the circus (not a metaphor), reviewertrained horses, the man whom it was said would attend a lighted candlepainted caravans, let alone a partydesigned and painted theatre sets, socialite and name dropper - this is your lifehit rock bottom when the bottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009954623X</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
 
''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
{{newreview|author=Gok Wan|title=Through Thick Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and Thin|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Famous for his sensitivity and understanding nine. It was her mother who came first, with women, encouraging her father joining them and enabling them to accept themselveslater. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their bodies, as they are, Gok Wan's autobiography sadly tells children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a very different story with regards to his own body acceptanceshortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. Having gained weight throughout his childhood, getting up to twenty one stone as When Otegha was ten the family acquired a teenagercar. For Otegha, he loathed his body and ended up starving himself, becoming anorexic in education meant a desperate effort scholarship to be thin and, therefore, successful. Perhaps this is where his empathy comes from? That when he stands a woman private school in front of London and then a wall of mirrors in her underwearplace at New College, he actually truly understands what it is to loathe your own bodyOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091938392</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Wynn0571365884|title=Two Sons in My Mess is a War ZoneBit of Life: Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father's ConflictAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's almost a nightly occurrence – that news item which contains the words '… Georgia Pritchett has always been killed in Afghanistan' and we think of anxious, even as a young life, or young lives cut tragically shortchild. They're fresh-faced young men or women at what should have been She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the beginning sort of their adult life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and now they are no morefar between. You feel for them and their familiesOn a visit to a therapist, as an adult, but when she was completely unable to speak about what about the families who have people they love out in Afghanistan, who live each day was wrong with the worry her it was suggested that the knock will be coming to their door? Stephen Wynn has two sons who have done tours she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of duty a Life: Adventures in Afghanistan and who are likely to do so again. Anxiety'Two Sons in a War Zone' is his story of how he copes with the unrelenting pressureresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570244</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Don MullanDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The Boy Who Wanted to FlyA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There Alzheimer's is a Foreward by both Pele disease that slowly wears away your identity and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Names to make most sense of us sit up and noticeself. The title is certainly quirky and Mullan is probably hoping that prospective readers will be saying to themselves, what's I have been directly affected by this all about then. Good startcruel disease, I thoughtas have many. Then I realised that there's an awful lot of football in this book. Even although it's a slim, sliver of Your memories and personality worn away like a book, there's no getting away from statue over time affected the subject matterelements. FootballIt seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. I donThis is what makes Daniel Gibbs't memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in 'do' football. So, I counted to ten, put A Tattoo on what I hoped was a good reviewermy Brain''s face and started to read ...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907756019</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=Megan Rix|title=The Puppy That Came For Christmas and Stayed Forever|rating=4|genre=Pets|summary=Megan Rix and husband Ian took stereotypical farmer was probably born on two massive challenges at the same time. Their failure to conceive a child became something of an issue with Megan being, as she herself said land where ''his'north of forty'family have farmed for generations. Time was passing quickly and it looked He's probably grown up without giving much thought as though IVF was the only option if they were to have the long-for childwhat he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's time-consuming and traumaticnot always the case though. At Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the same time the couple became involved with Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a charity which provides helper dogs for people with disabilitiesdeep love of animals. Puppies come Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family for six months holiday to do their basic training and then move onthe Lake District. And that was how EmmaShe saw a lamb being born and, a softalthough 'Hannah Jackson, sweet-naturedfarmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, adorable puppy came into their livesshe knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. PredictablyWith the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, they fell in love with she set about achieving herambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951062</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Johnson0008333173|title=Hungry: A Diary Memoir of The Lady: My First Year as EditorWanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Along with most I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of my contemporaries Ithe judges on ''ve never read Masterchef'The Lady' except once when looking for . You know that you're going to get an au pair job in my student days, and that, it turns out, is honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the problemtime. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in June 2009 the average age front of her. I've often wondered about the readership was 75, woman behind the circulation was dropping media image and the magazine was haemorrhaging money. The Budworth family, proprietors ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'The Lady' since it was founded 125 years ago, chose son is a stunning read which will make you laugh and heir Ben Budworth to turn the magazine's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editorbreak your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1504321383
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all 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. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jo BrandSakinu Ahronglong|title=Can't Stand Up For Sitting DownHunter School|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I am The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a big fan work of Jo Brand and I love her inimitable droll style of comedyfiction. That's possibly misleading. I always enjoy her stand am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up performances , or whether it is as well as her appearances the blurb goes on my favourite panel programme QI. As a consequence I was really interested to read her second say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical book – Canstories''t Stand Up for Sitting Down. As she states at It feels like the beginning thoughlatter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, this as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is not really an autobiography but a collection of thoughts fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and experiences maybe calling it fiction means that have resulted due to her life as a stand up comedian. The book covers the period from her first professional gig up to the present dayits safer and therefore more people will read it. Her early life and career in psychiatric nursing are covered in her earlier book [[Look Back in Hunger by Jo Brand|Look Back in Hunger]] More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755355261</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ellen MacArthur1544641923|title=Full CircleAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's some years since I read [[Taking on tempting to think that the World by Ellen MacArthur|Taking on the World]] diplomatic life is privileged and – against all expectations thoroughly enjoyed luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that itis far from luxurious. INow you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it'm s really like (it's not a sailor and don't have a great deal of interest in yacht racing – 'diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but what appealed to me immediately was the character of someone who was determined not to let diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'anythingshe'' stand ) 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|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 way parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her ambitionssister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. My only disappointment came later as I felt that In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the book had been written too soon – I really wanted to know about '''family thatthey were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet' big race and what you do with the future when you've done everything. How lucky did I feel when ''Full Circle'' landed on my desk?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718148630</amazonuk>If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Davies191280493X|title=Teenage Revolution: Growing Up in the 80sComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in 1966, Alan Davies grew up in Essex, the son of a staunchly Conservative-voting father and a mother who died of cancer when he was only six. It was a childhood dominated at first by 'Citizen Smith' and the other TV sitcoms, 'Starsky and Hutch', 'Grease', Barry Sheene, the Barron Knights, He began writing novels and Debbie Harry. The book begins poetry at 1978, ''the year I started venturing out more''age of twelve, and finishes at 1988, when he graduated from Kent University but it was to find that standtake him a further forty-up comedy could be an alternative eight years to finding a job where realise that he would have to do what wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he was toldremains a shining example of hope over experience...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141041803</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview
|author=Mark Oaten
|title=Screwing Up
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Like John Profumo and others, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for the wrong reasons. It was the episode which made him for a while the country's No. 1 paparazzi target, and which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his 'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detail. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with the Blair and Brown years. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Tony Fitzjohn|title=Born Wild: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Passion for Lions and for Africa|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Maybe it's just my rockThis a memoir from someone you have never heard of -chick nature but "Born Wild" feels a little clunky as titles go. Surely it should will feel like you have been "Born To Be Wild"? Perhaps that phrase has been copyrighted and wasn't available. Or maybe Fitzjohn was deliberately referencing Joy Adamson's book "Born Free" – since much of the early part of his own time in Africa was spent with her husband George. "Born To Be Wild" would have been more accurate as well. Many of the animals we meet weren't born wild at all – though a good few of them got to live out the remainder of their days and die that way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918911</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith Summers190874572X|title=The Badness of King GeorgeLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=People know how Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to get round me: they offer me Nepal. I met a book wonderful Finnish woman and then say we became sort-of-friends. I can'It's about t remember if it was on that holiday or a dog' and like Pavlov's canine later one that Paula told me I say 'Oh, lovely'really had to read Tove Jansson. And so I do know that it was with four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Badness of King George. George is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Summer Book, and that I have to quibble with eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the title – superb as it is – because George is not bad. If anything herest of Jansson's badly done by work and devoured them as soon as Judith Summers, plagued by empty nest syndrome when her son goes to university, decides to foster rescue dogs. Poor George has absolutely no idea what she's let him in for. And nor has JudithI could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046473</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Lewis1908745819|title=The Kid: A True StorySurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's a poverty-stricken London council estate in 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 blurb speaks of the sort author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of home herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the neighbours complain about. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most natural world, of those aspects of her six children the poetic and he was beaten lyrical that are about style not form, and starved by both substance most of his parentsall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. You might think that Social Services It was written for me. It would have stepped in and removed him, but any relief was found its way to be short-livedme eventually. Eventually he was put into care but even then the support was inadequate and Kevin found himself caught up in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as 'The Kid'I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dai Henley1906852472|title=B PositiveWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Dai Henley counts himself lucky to have been born to loving For Ian Mathie fans there is good and nurturing parentsbad news. When they discovered that Ian has come up with the missing link in his blood group was B positive they gave him his motto in lifenarrative, and coincidentallythe story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the title of this very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the bookis published posthumously. As he explainsalways, it's not a celebrity autobiography (you might be selling yourself a little short therebeautifully written, Dai) and nor is it a misery memoirwith many exciting moments. It's What I most enjoyed was the story feeling that many of a man who has made the most of every opportunity hequestions in Ian Mathie's been given – and later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a few mistakes along the way – but hesatisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's won through despite now left in the difficulties and played a fair amount of sport toodrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499180</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malalai Joya1999811402|title=Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak OutPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=Forget entertainment – this is It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I 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 read if you have any interest in plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the war in Afghanistanlines of 'try it and see'. My particular view has developed from a British armchair Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, comprising part emotional reactiondid an engineering apprenticeship, became a smidgeon of history busker, finally got into medical school and is now an overA&E consultant (part-reliance time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on British media sourcesin a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't really what the book's about. In a war zone where truth has been There's a casualty throughoutlot about rock & roll, this book gives which seems to be the general reader an authentic view real passion of conditions in Afghanistan over Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the past twenty five years of continual warfareentertainment genre either. Written by Did we have a young and hotcategory for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep -headed, wildly patriotic that'ordinarys the one. It' woman, this is no more reliable than any other partisan view, but its value is to help put official news sources into their proper contexts an autobiography. I found it educative in several senses.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041503</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|author=Steve Duno|title=Last Dog On The Hill|rating=5|genre=Pets|summary=Driving through northern California Steve Duno found a puppy by the side of the road. He was flea-bitten, tic infested, emaciated and suffering from an infection. His father was a Rottweiler and his mother a German Shepherd - both were guard dogs at the local marijuana farm. When Steve whistled the dog came Move on to him and it's no exaggeration to say that in that moment his life changed. He'd always wanted a dog, but hadn't been able to have one as a child. There was a moment's indecision at the side of the road – and then Lou became Steve's dog.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330520024</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Biography Reviews]]