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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604__NOTOC__|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you'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 injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=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 strain that being on-call put on his father's 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. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susannah CahalanEdel Rodriguez|title=Brain on FireWorm: My Month of MadnessA Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=One day Susannah Cahalan was a brightWe're in childhood, outgoing tabloid reporter and we're in New YorkCuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, with a promising career ahead first thought of her. Within weeks as a mysterious illness reduced her to an incoherent shadow saviour of her former selfthe country, struggling with basic taskshas proven himself a Communist, and left doctors at one not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of the worldtaking his time away. Our narrator's top medical centres baffled. In family weren''Brain on Fire'', Cahalan – now t in the 'post-recovery' stage happiest of her life – attempts places here, an uncle refusing to recapture be the memories good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and events from the her 'month of madness' before diagnosis father being watched and watched, and curenot liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846147395</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pam Weaver1035025299|title=Bath Times and Nursery RhymesWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In 1961, Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a young 16 year old girl called Pam Weaver embarks on a career path that will change her life. Fed up with the tedium of working on the broken biscuit counter at Woolworths, she decides to train sabbatical after being away for her NNEBtwenty years. She's been at Victoria'Bath Times and Nursery Rhymess smallholding in Leicestershire which isn'' sees Pam progress from a shy and awkward teenager to a competent and caring nursery nurse. Reluctant t all that conducive to stay too long in any positionwriting, Pam tries her hand at a variety of jobs, including her initial employment in a Councilas there's always something smallholding happening -run children’s home, working as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a private nanny to a rich young widow and an eventful but emotional stint in room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a premature baby wardvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007488440</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina GuinnessChristopher Fowler|title=The Crocodile by the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a FamilyWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Selina Guinness lived It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at Tibradden as a child and the pool in 2002 she and her husband-favour of going to-bemy beach hut. The weather closed in, Colin Grahamrain arrived, moved back and I decided not to the house when her elderly uncle Charles became fraildo that either. The surname might lead you When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to suspect that there were brewery millions in do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the background but this wasndust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was't the case– and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. The couple were young academics There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and doing what needed to be done you know he actually is at Tibradden would need that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=0857529625}}{{Frontpage|author= Kit De Waal|title= Without Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to be done in addition to full-time jobs, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. The house was This book is a memoir focussing on the outskirts author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a property developer or large role in the last defence against autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the encroaching city if you were notkind of anger only a child can express to their parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Salman RushdieBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Joseph AntonI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre= Autobiography
|summary= When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century.
|isbn=1526644827
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=gareth_steel
|title=Never Work With Animals
|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|summary=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 Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer
|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Salman Rushdie's How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir of? Do you know, predominantly, the fatwa years I really don't think I can. Dave is completely gripping - albeit not necessarily in the way the an author intended I suspectand an artist. For any lover of literature it's An inspirational speaker and a fascinating insight into the manprofessional horseman. People write memoirs largely to put their side of the storyAnd a recovering alcoholic. Rushdie is The son of course supremely intelligent and a gifted wordsmith and yet while aspects of the story remain shocking and induce both anger and incredulity that the situation was allowed to go as far as it did and for so longLutheran minister, ithe's probably struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a book that will change your views of Rushdie the manmetaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, not least as he displays many of the traits that and hit rock bottom when the press ascribed to himbottle took over. Oh why do our heroes always have to be so imperfect?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224093975</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
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonio Caluccio0571365884|title=A Recipe for My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Antonio Carluccio is a name you know well if you've any interest in food and particularly Italian food. He's well known Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a cook, restaurateur, deli owner, television personality and authorchild. In everything he's done he's concentrated on She would worry about whether the flavour of monsters under the food - this isn't bed were comfortable: it was the man to turn to sort of life where if you're interested in fine dining as there's a lack of frills and ostentation - and he has his own phrase she had nothing to describe his vision. 'Mof mof' stands for 'maximum of flavour worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and minimum of fuss'far between. He's On a visit to a man after my own heart but therapist, as an adult, when I thought she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it I realised was suggested that I knew little, beyond the occasional news item, she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of Carluccio a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the man. His autobiography came at just the right timeresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742703925</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Halina WagowskaDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The TestimonyA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The Holocaust must Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been particularly horrendous for the young survivordirectly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Halina here says how she had barely three years of schooling before the events of the Final Solution took over, Your memories and her life was changed for ever. It was personality worn away like a life a little different to those around her – a nanny who took her to a cathedral and brought her home full of statue over time affected the Catholic anti-Semitic sentimentelements. Religion and its effects were of little consequence – she was more worried It seems as if nature wants that those seeing a photo of her and a dog had more admiration for the look of the dog than of her. But things were only to change for the worst – existence in the Lodz ghetto, final victory over you and later, the death campsyour dignity. This book is just not arch enough to be too structured and self-aware, what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so when Halina sees those by tram travelling through the ghetto and wonders what the life of the gentiles on it admirable. Daniel Gibbs is like, this only provides one small glimpse of how her life turned into one of those thinking of a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and helping others, with special affinity for those has documented his journey in minorities everywhere''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1742703577</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.''
The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of animals. 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 holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Balding0008333173|title=My Animals and Other FamilyHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Clare Balding was born into a racing family - her father, Ian, was the trainer I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of Mill Reef who won the Derby in 1971, the same year that Clare was bornjudges on ''Masterchef''. Whilst her father would never forget the year You know that his horse won you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the Derby he would usually fail to remember time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that it was also the year good food in front of his daughter's birthher. Horses came first and they were the priority in Ian Balding I's life: ve often wondered about the family had to adjust accordingly. He was a gifted and successful trainer who understood woman behind the animals in his care media image and his record, including Mill Reef's Derby success speaks for itself. Clare's childhood was separate from the life Hungry: A Memoir of the racing stable but she inherited her familyWanting More''s love of animalsis a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921467</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Coleman1504321383|title=The Train in the Night: A Story of Music Single, Again, and Again, and LossAgain|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Picture the scenario. ''You have always been passionate about music, with a catholic taste which embraces classical, soul and heavy rock with a bit of everything in between, can't be happy and fulfilled on your job is that of an arts and music journalistown. In your mid-forties You are not complete until you wake up one morning to find your whole world changed overnight by Sudden Neursosensory Hearing Loss. It has a devastating effect on your balance when subjected to any kind of sound, whether it is an aeroplane overhead, the roar of the crowd at a football match, or the music which you once adored with every fibre of your being. Your head is filled with tinnitus, like a very poorly-tuned radio which lacks an off switch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093576</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Prue Leith|title=Relish: My Life on a Plate|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Prue Leith was born in South Africa, the daughter of a prominent actress who was considered 'dangerously liberal' in her views on race. Prue was largely unaware of the horrors of apartheid and had a privileged lifestyle. She came to London in the early sixties but still retains an awareness of colour as a legacy of her childhood. What didnman't come from her childhood was her love of cooking - she drifted into catering almost accidentally but went on to set up a very successful catering company and then to open Leith's Restaurant . Her cookery school and regular food columns in national newspapers followed soon after.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857384058</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MathieSakinu Ahronglong|title=Dust of the DanakilHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I enjoyed all three of Ian Mathie’s previous books so it’s probably no surprise The flyleaf to find me praising this one toolittle collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. AlreadyI am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, for meor whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, this writer has set folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a high bar with his paredchild, as an adolescent, modest prose and authentic descriptions of life as an educated white man with unsophisticated mid-African tribes in the middle of the twentieth centuryadult are real and true. His everyday life in this book But memory is a perilous adventure – modern travel memoirs seem banal by comparisonfickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906852138</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Beth Raymer1544641923|title=Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling Underworld|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Ambassadors Do It was a dream which brought Beth Raymer to Las Vegas, but the reality was that she ended up waiting tables in a low-end diner and living in a distinctly unsavoury motel. A chance meeting brought her into contact with Dink, the self-styled king of the city's sports betting and she moved into what was very much a man's world - of high-stakes gambling and a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily want your daughter to know. This is the story of how Beth learned the trade and moved into the world of the big money where gambling regulations don't apply. Being sharp was what it was all about.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555395</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAfter Dinner|author=Melissa Kite|title=Real Life: One Woman's Guide to Love, Men and Other Everyday DisastersSandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=WeIt're used s tempting to thinking about career women who have it all: think that the high-flyer who goes home to her husband, children and immaculate house to plan their next holiday diplomatic life is privileged and their social lifeluxurious. We It might not know these people - be privileged, but everything seems to family connections tell us me that theyit is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''therediplomatic''. Whatto do so, thoughyou know), of but the single womandiplomatic spouse, no longer in the first flush of youth (accompanying baggage, well, that's probably nineteen, these days) who struggles just to keep going? an entirely different matter. What of the woman who struggles to keep the ''boiler'' going She (and who it still usually is tempted to kidnap the television repairman and tie him to the bed because a 'she's convinced that the television will stop working the moment he ) can tell us exactly what goes?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780331916</amazonuk>on.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Agatha Christie and Mathew Prichard (editor)0241446732|title=The Grand TourOur House is on Fire: Letters Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and photographs from the British Empire expeditionSvante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=TravelPolitics and Society|summary=In 1922 Agatha Christie, already the author of three very successful books, The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was happily married with a small daughter, an opera singer and her heart's desire was to continue writing while she led a quiet life in Svante Thunberg took on most of the countryparenting of their two daughters. However Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her husband Archie was becoming increasingly restless and disenchanted sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with working in the City, and his longing for a change what was suddenly to be fulfilled in a most unexpected wayhappening. An old friend, Major BelcherIn such circumstances, it'blessed with great powers of bluff', presented them both with the opportunity of a lifetime – s natural to join him on seek a trip solution close to several imperial outposts in preparation for the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition home, but eventually, it became clear to be staged at Wembley. Archie would be his financial adviser, and Agatha was cordially invited for the trip, as his wifefamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. (Two-year-old Rosalind If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would have need to stay at home, a decision which involved some soul-searching)be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000744768X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tessa Hainsworth191280493X|title=Home to RoostComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=There seems ''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to be take him a plethora of books about people who have moved further forty-eight years to unusual placesrealise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, or changed lifestyle in middle age for he remains a variety shining example of reasonshope over experience.. This book features a London family who have moved to Cornwall, and is the third (so far) in a series about their transition. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093756</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Peake190874572X|title=Under a Canvas Sky: Living Outside GormenghastLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=To many Back at the beginning of usthe century, the very name Peake I went on the cover of holiday to Nepal. I met a book will immediately suggest the creator wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of -friends. I can'Gormenghast' and his familyt remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. We have had I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the occasional biography ''Sort Of'' translations of Mervyn Peake from others, plus the recollections rest of his widow Maeve, Jansson's work and to join devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them, here is the story from another perspective altogether – that of their youngest child, daughter Clare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780333854</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roxy Freeman1908745819|title=The Little Gypsy: A Life of Freedom, a Time of SecretsSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Roxy FreemanSometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, born 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 rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a life of freedom and open roadsbook calling your name, shares a gypsy caravan with her parentsrarely get it wrong. In this case, brother and four sistersI was told why. As a child she may not have gone to school but from The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an early age her skillsolder, suited less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to living off that my love of the landnatural world, surpassed of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of her more traditional peersall, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. However, her innocence is stolen from her by family friend, 'Uncle' Tony and her childhood becomes tainted by fear and secretsIt was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849833443</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot1906852472|title=Dotter of Her Father's Eyes|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=If there's one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joyce's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with the same names too - James and Nora, both took to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but it's the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similarities, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now as more than able to produce a delightful graphic novel - [[:CategoryWild Child:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Holroyd|title=A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Picture the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansion. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour of the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there was that tempestuous iconoclast, D.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. She, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into Growing Up a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends in the pages of annotated diaries which became ''A Book of Secrets''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNomad|author=Erica Heller|title=Yossarian Slept HereIan Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='To live forever or die For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the attempt' was story of a very unusual childhood (yes, the essential glory in life and living very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is at that the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]book is published posthumously. This autobiography of the daughter of his creatorAs always, Joseph Hellerit's beautifully written, reveals how with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout feeling that many of the Heller familyquestions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. The harebrained unpredictability, Seemingly all that's now left in the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and vervedrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Whyman1999811402|title=Pig in the Middle|rating=4.5|genre=Pets|summary=I'm so pleased I read this book. It's only the occasional writer who grabs me by the short and curlies with his observation of human nature, but accomplished children's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPainting Snails|author=Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn|title=Henry's Demons: Living with Schizophrenia. a Father and Son's StoryStephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In February 2002 Patrick Cockburn was in KabulIt'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, reporting but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The Independent on answer would be something along the fall lines of the Taliban'try it and see'. While he was there he called Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his wife Jan at home in EnglandA levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and was shocked to learn is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that their 20-year-old elder son Henry had been rescued by fishermen after coming close there's an awful lot more to death while swimmingwhat goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', fully clothedbut that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, in which seems to be the icy waters real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the Newhaven estuaryentertainment genre either. The police had decided Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that he was a danger to himself, and he was now in a mental hospital's the one. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377033</amazonuk>
}}