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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> ==Autobiography== <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lydia Ola Taiwo0241636604|title=A Broken ChildhoodThe Trading Game: A True Story of AbuseConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born If you were to bring up an image of a Nigerian couple city banker in London in 1964 your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and spent injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the first five years London School of her life in a foster home in BrightonEconomics. Here she was loved, looked after Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and lived her life in he has a genuinely good familyfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. This wasn't an unusual arrangement as it allowed the biological parents He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to earn money without worrying about childcare – and Ola was happybe stupid. It was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her 'home' for the weekend – his ability at what was, essentially, a weekend card game which would stretch got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into seven years of abuse and neglectpermanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Max Pemberton1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Doctor Will See You NowSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics Animals and SocietyWildlife|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to have an opinion aboutfollow in his footsteps, and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation (particularly when he considered the worldstrain that being on-call put on his father's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know)life. Max Pemberton is one When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of those people: doing work experience with a family friend who was a doctor, though despite what you might assume from vet and was convinced this was the titlejob for him. Before long, not a GP but a hospital mediche was at Liverpool University. This is It hadn't - as with so many students - been his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of dream since he was a hospitalchild. If anything, plus the odd excursion he'd wanted to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not be a bad readprofessional footballer. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim ParksEdel Rodriguez|title=Teach Us to Sit StillWorm: A Sceptic's Search for Health and HealingCuban American Odyssey|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Self-help books are pretty polarising when you think about itWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. I mean The revolution has happened, and Castro, would you tell somebody that you were reading first thought of as a self-help book if you had no idea how they were going to react? On the one hand there must be people who devour these kinds saviour of books one after the othercountry, has proven himself a Communist, searching and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for that mystical formula that will bring about profound inner changeall. At the other end Well, those hours-long speeches of the scale are readers that steer well clear his were kind of self-help or anything else that isn't rational and based on proper scientific research and evidencetaking his time away. Entrenched views are what makes this title an interesting proposition. A scepticOur narrator's search for health and healing which alludes to meditation? Surely much more interesting than a new age guru who already believes wholeheartedly that their insights will transform YOUR life and enrich their bank balance. I want to know how family weren't in the sceptic was convincedhappiest of places here, not an uncle refusing to be the guy who entered good soldier the room wearing healing crystals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548887</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pauline Black|title=Black by Design: A 2country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-tone Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=As Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the front cover of this volume of reminiscences reminds usfather being watched and watched, Pauline Black is remembered first and foremost not liked for fronting his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The Selecter, one of mother gets the couple jobs with the few 2-Tone ska bands party to enjoy fleeting chart success at the end ease some of the 1970s. Yet reading heat, but in this reminds us that that was only sultry island country, it remains the tip kind of heat forcing you out of the iceberg.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668790X</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andre Dubus III1035025299|title=Townie: A MemoirWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The book opens with Andre and his father taking a jog. Seems a normal and natural activity - what's to write about here, you could be asking. Well, I'll tell you. By this time the father no longer lives in the family home, the mother is struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table - and the author, Andre Nina Stibbe is too embarrassed to admit returning to his father that he doesn't own London for a pair of jogging shoessabbatical after being away for twenty years. HeShe's borrowed his sisterbeen at Victoria's even although theysmallholding in Leicestershire which isn're about two sizes too smallt all that conducive to writing, heas there's in agony seconds into the jog but is he going to own up? Nopealways something smallholding happening - as you might expect. Bloody feet and pain are a by-product The other side of precious time with his father. So straight away, I'm getting the gist decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of the book and the relationship between father and sonDeborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393064662</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy KershawChristopher Fowler|title=No Off Switch: The AutobiographyWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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 going to my beach hut. The boy Kershaw' as his hero weather closed in, rain arrived, and later friend John Peel sometimes wryly referred I decided not to him on airdo that either. When I finished reading this book, has had I realised it was because (a pretty remarkable life) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. HeNo spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was's been – taken a deep breath – a concert promoter while studying politics at Leeds University, Billy Bragg's driver across most of Europe, a presenter on BBC TV and successively also on Radios 1, 3 and 4, his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a news correspondent reporting from Iraqman who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, Haiti, Angola and Rwandayou know he actually is at that point, and also done time as a guest of Her Majestybecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687446</amazonuk>0857529625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Natalie TaylorKit De Waal|title=Signs of LifeWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=34|genre=Autobiography|summary=Natalie Taylor was just twenty four years oldAs Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and five months pregnantdad/ They may not mean to, when her husband died in a tragic accidentbut 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 takes us from focussing on the day she found out he was dead through to her son's first birthdayauthor’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Natalie's situation Her father is horribly sadfrom St. I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done Kitts in the Caribbean and her place. The record of mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her grieving process is very raw family for becoming pregnant by and honestmarrying a black man. Based upon This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her journals that she kept through this time race, her pain leaps off the page class and makes you feel sick inside for the horror she's facing. I liked that she doesn't seem to be advocating a correct way to grieveher gender. She simply states how she felt, how she reacted at each moment, be that calmly Her parents loom large and quietly or are written with ragingcare, love, screaming tears. Luckily she had an extremely supportive family and the kind of anger only a good group of friends and it is interesting - if rather disturbing - child can express to follow her progress as she deals with her life without her husbandtheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444724673</amazonuk>1472284852
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Schama1638485216|title=ScribbleBlack, ScribbleWhite, Scribbleand Gray All Over: Writing on Ice Cream, Obama, Churchill A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and My MotherLaw Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The collection has been divided into reader-friendly sections named, for example - ''Travelling, Testing Democracy, Cooking and Eating''Corruption is not department, to name but threegender or race specific. As a professor of Art History, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's also a rather chunky section on Schama's thoughts on the art world. Politics also is a centre-stage subject. Each article is headed It has everything to do with where it first appeared and the numerous Guardian pieces may be well-known to somecharacter. So I suppose you could say that this is second time around, for those who missed the first publicationPeriod. Not a bad thing at all when the writing is as good as this, I'd say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546655</amazonuk>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian A GriffithsBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=DMD Life Art and MeI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ian Griffiths suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - a form When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of muscular dystrophy which causes muscle degenerationthe world responds to your book. It begins I know, having read the book in early childhood question, that Lindeblad would disagree with difficulty in walking and progresses to cause problems with breathing and all the voluntary muscles. Ultimately it's fatalthat thought. Men He knows (and boys – at core so do I) that it's linked to the X chromosome so affects only males – with matters very much how the disease have a life expectancy rest of between the late teens and mid-twenties. Ian's in his mid-twenties now and he's written 'DMD Life: art and me' world responds to explain what this book, because it really feels like to live with tells the truth as it is, in the disease. And when I say 'really feels like' I do mean that. Ian doesn't gloss over ''anything''early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907652337</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bob Marshall-Andrewsgareth_steel|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political HumbugNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997, rather too late I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a career politician (he was already an established QC) vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and with Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a profound distrust of authority. He had no aspirations towards officeTV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, which was perhaps as well do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for all concerned as younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he would become best known for being a dissident. I occasionally enquired as 's written it to which party held his allegiance inform and eventually concluded that he went provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – some uncomfortable and I did wonder if this distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be just one more to add to the pilebest choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlixenDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Out Of AfricaSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's more than How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a quarter review of a century since his memoir? Do you know, I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasnreally don't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. think I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to misscan.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}}
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bill Larkworthy0571365884|title=Doctor LarkMy Mess is a Bit of Life: The Benefits of a Medical EducationAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bill Larkworthy is a pleasant fellow who Georgia Pritchett has lead an eventfulalways been anxious, but not world-shattering lifeeven as a child. So at She would worry about whether the outset monsters under the bed were comfortable: it's probably worth saying that this self-deprecating tale won't light many literary fires. If fireworks are what you are looking for, search elsewhere. On was the other hand, I always find ordinary people's stories sort of everyday life fascinatingwhere if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as well as providing useful backgroundan adult, or when she was completely unable to speak about what used to be called was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and 'general knowledge', about other parts of the world. Since my general knowledge of the Gulf States My Mess is more or less limited to Lawrence a Bit of Arabia and current news reports, a little padding wonLife: Adventures in Anxiety't go amiss. So yes, I did enjoy this read, and I imagine ' is the Saga age group will borrow it in steady numbers from libraries (if they can find one open)result - or so we are given to believe. It would make a good present for a man of a certain age, which is:|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906852065</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan TitchmarshDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=When I Was A NipperTattoo on my Brain|rating=4|genre=History|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley3. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Powell|title=Below Stairs: The Bestselling Memoirs of a 1920s Kitchen Maid|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Below Stairs'' was first published in 1968, and itAlzheimer's no exaggeration to claim Margaret Powell as the trailblazer for the memoir genre. This book encouraged hundreds of autobiographies of common life, is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and spawned a whole generation sense of tv programmesself. In its vernacular and popularist wayI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, it was probably as influential as Mayhew's 'London Labour have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the London Poor'elements. Before her, only famous people wrote their stories, and It seems as if nature wants that without too much regard for reality. Unless they were literary writers, achievements were downplayed final victory over you and emotions hidden away, in the stilted style of the British stiff upper lipyour dignity. Not This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so Margaret Powell, admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who became a publishing sensation when she blasted through was diagnosed with a robust Voice rather than a polished narrative, Alzheimers and has documented his journey in the first-ever tale of an ordinary servant writing about everyday life below stairs''A Tattoo on my Brain''. Imagine being talent-spotted from an evening class and invited to write your memoir: those were the days! |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330535382</amazonuk>1108838936
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{{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.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy Chua0008333173|title=Battle Hymn Hungry: A Memoir of the Tiger MotherWanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Amy Chua has firm beliefs about parentingI'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Masterchef''. She brought up her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, using a strict set of rules – including no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no choice of extra curricular activity, no grades less than You know that you're going to get an A, and no being less honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the number 1 student time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in any 'academic' subjectfront of her. Then there I's ve often wondered about the piano woman behind the media image and violin practice… On hearing she called herdaughter Sophia 'garbage', an acquaintance Hungry: A Memoir of hers burst into tears. The thought of praising one of the girls for getting Wanting More'' is a B, as many American parents do, would no doubt have a similar affect on Chuastunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures. Mother – or monster?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812673</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eva Petulengro1504321383|title=The Girl in the Painted Caravan: Memories of a Romany ChildhoodSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Eva Petulengro was born in a painted caravan in 1939. Her Romany family had travelled in Norfolk ''You can't be happy and Lincolnshire for generationsfulfilled on your own. She has had a very successful career as a clairvoyant, writer of horoscope columns and publisher of magazines, and her daughter is also a well known media astrologer. The Girl in the Painted Caravan is You are not complete until you find a memoir of her childhood and youth, up until her marriage in her 20s and the beginning of her careerman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519999</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith RichardsSakinu Ahronglong|title=LifeHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Middle-aged women disappearThe flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. They are I am not see on television, their lives do not appear sure whether it is "fiction" in newspapers, the legions of novels sense that are written each year rarely feature them. At leastAhronglong made it all up, that or whether it is what as the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 blurb goes on to find say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the narrative of her contemporaries and their lives which she has been reading about and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanishedlatter. She looks in It feels like the mirror stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and sees a face she does not recognisetrue. Even with But memory is a punishing regime of early bedfickle thing, no alcohol and litres of water, maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it refuses to regain fiction means that its youthful bloomsafer and therefore more people will read it. So she decides to take a magnifying glass to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth and old ageMore people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701181001</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Isherwood1544641923|title=Diaries Volume 1Ambassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England for America in It's tempting to think that the company of poet WH Audendiplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. This hefty volume covers his diaries It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that it is far from that date until August 1960, when he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthdayluxurious. A 49-page introduction setting out Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the background leads us into diplomatic spouse, the entriesaccompanying baggage, which are divided into three sections – The Emigrationwell, to the end of 1944; The Post-war Years, to 1956; and The Late Fiftiesthat's an entirely different matter. After these we have a chronology She (and glossary, or to put it more accurately still usually is a section of brief biographies of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over a hundred pages altogether'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555824</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Burnside0241446732|title=Waking Up In ToytownOur 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=After years of alcoholism and borderline insanity, John Burnside decides to become The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. This involves moving to Surrey, working in Malena Ernman was an office opera singer and settling into a numbing daily routine he hopes will prevent him drifting back towards bad habits. These memoirs chronicle Svante Thunberg took on most of the failure parenting of his bid for normality their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and subsequent disillusionment her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with the projectwhat was happening. It In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solipsistic account solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the writing is powerful and it draws you infamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507838</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhoda Janzen191280493X|title=Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir Coming of Coming HomeAge|author=Danny Ryan|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Even although the obliging blurb on the back cover tells ''He began writing novels and poetry at the reader a little about being Mennoniteage of twelve, I couldn't resist looking but it up in the dictionary. I was intrigued to start readingtake him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. And emblazoned across the front cover is 'No 1 In The US'. Great praise indeedConsistently unpublished for all that time, I thought. But how would it go down across the pond? Time to find out he remains a shining example of hope over experience...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789031X</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Denis O'Connor190874572X|title=Paw Tracks at Owl Cottage|rating=3.5|genre=Pets|summary='Paw Tracks at Owl Cottage' is the story of four pedigree Maine Coon cats which the author and his wife acquired after moving back to a cottage where they had previously lived. This is the sequel to a volume called 'Paw Tracks in the Moonlight', which I have not read, and which features their first cat Toby Jug. Apparently, on his demise, they had sold the cottage; but now, a little more advanced in years, they buy it again, and do extensive renovations before deciding that it's ready for another cat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849016402</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewLetters from Tove|author=Gervase Phinn|title=Twinkle, TwinkleTove Jansson (Author), Little Stars|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's books, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just the setting, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculous. Here he collates stories from his other booksBoel Westin (Editor), some Christmassy and others notHelen Svensson (Editor), and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicky Haslam|title=Redeeming FeaturesSarah Death (Translator)|rating=35
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nicholas HaslamBack at the beginning of the century, interior designer, columnist, reviewer, the man whom I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was said would attend on that holiday or a lighted candlelater one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, let alone a party, socialite and name dropper - this is your lifethat 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>009954623X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gok Wan1908745819|title=Through Thick and ThinSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Famous for his sensitivity and understanding with womenSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, encouraging they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them and enabling them to accept themselvesat their word, and their bodiesor not, as but rarely do we ask them why they arethought so, Gok Wanunless it turns out that we didn't like the book. That's autobiography sadly tells a very different story with regards rare experience. People who are sensitive to his own body acceptancehearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. Having gained weight throughout his childhoodThe blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, getting up less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to twenty one stone as a teenagerthat my love of the natural world, he loathed his body of those aspects of the poetic and ended up starving himselflyrical that are about style not form, becoming anorexic in a desperate effort to be thin andsubstance most of all, thereforeabout connection. Of course, successfulthis book had my name on it. Perhaps this is where his empathy comes from? It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. That when he stands a woman in front of a wall of mirrors in her underwear, he actually truly understands what I am pleased to have it is to loathe your own bodyfall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091938392</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Wynn1906852472|title=Two Sons in a War Zone: AfghanistanWild Child: The True Story of Growing Up a Father's ConflictNomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's almost a nightly occurrence – that For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news item which contains . Ian has come up with the words '… has been killed missing link in Afghanistan' and we think his narrative, the story of a young lifevery unusual childhood (yes, or young lives cut tragically shortthe very years that made him the amazing man he became). TheyThe bad – well it're fresh-faced young men or women at what should have been s hardly news two years later – is that the beginning of their adult life and now they are no morebook is published posthumously. You feel for them and their familiesAs always, but what about the families who have people they love out in Afghanistanit's beautifully written, who live each day with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the worry feeling that many of the knock will be coming to their door? Stephen Wynn has two sons who have done tours of duty questions in Afghanistan and who Ian Mathie's later books are likely to do so againanswered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that'Two Sons s now left in a War Zone' the drawer is his story of how he copes with the unrelenting pressureunpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570244</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Don Mullan1999811402|title=The Boy Who Wanted to FlyPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There 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 Foreward by both Pele and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Names lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to make most of us sit up plant when and noticewhere for the best results. The title is certainly quirky answer would be something along the lines of 'try it and Mullan is probably hoping that prospective readers will be saying to themselves, whatsee's this all about then. Good startThen I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, I thoughtfinally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). Then I realised found out that there's an awful lot of football more to what goes on in this book. Even although it's a slim, sliver of a book, thereMajor Trauma Centre than you's no getting away ll ever glean from the subject matter. Football. I don't 'doCasualty'' football. So, I counted to ten, put on but that isn't really what I hoped was a good reviewerthe book's face and started to read ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907756019</amazonuk>}} {{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 on two massive challenges at the same timeabout. Their failure There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to conceive a child became something be the real passion of an issue with Megan beingHartley's life, as she herself said 'north of fortybut it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Time was passing quickly and it looked as though IVF was the only option if they were to Did we have the long-a category for child. It's time-consuming and traumatic. At doing the same time impossible the couple became involved with a charity which provides helper dogs for people with disabilities. hard way'? Puppies come to a family for six months to do their basic training and then move on. And Yep - that was how Emma, a soft, sweet-natured, adorable puppy came into their lives's the one. Predictably, they fell in love with herIt's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951062</amazonuk>
}}