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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Benn0241636604|title=The Last DiariesTrading Game: A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situation. He's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewConfession|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and LoveGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in his childhood as Ah Nomyour mind, was born early in the twentieth century in the village you're unlikely to think of Dai Waan in rural Chinasomeone like Gary Stevenson. His father died when A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was young and he lived familiar with his grandmotherviolence, mother poverty and 'Little Uncle', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nominjustice. They'd become friends as they grew older, There was no posh public school on his CV - but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between he had been to the twoLondon School of Economics. Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he intended to take the boys to America has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be educatedstupid. 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 wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either againtrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=My Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Lifeof a Vet|author=David JasonSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Born in North London in February 1940 during the early years of the Second World War, David John White once had a brief career as an electricianSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Fortunately for the world of entertainment His father was a GP and the publicRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he soon forsook considered the world of fuses and wires for strain that of the stage and small screenbeing on-call put on his father's life. When he joined Equity, they already had was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a David White on their recordsvet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, and after he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a little quick thinking on the phonechild. If anything, he became David Jason'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891407</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Piece of Danish HappinessEdel Rodriguez|authortitle=Sharmi AlbrechtsenWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Sharmi Albrechtsen was a true Hindu-American princessWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. Obsessed with shoes The revolution has happened, and handbags and designer labelsCastro, she saw status and wealth first thought of as a saviour of the only route country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to happinesscreate a level playing field for all. But she wasn't happy enough Well, no matter how much designer gear she ownedthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. And it wasn Our narrator's family weren't until 1997in the happiest of places here, when she married her second husbandan uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, a Danesuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and relocated not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to Denmarkease some of the heat, that she began to wonder if it was something lacking but in herselfthis sultry island country, rather than her possessions, that was at it remains the root kind of her problems.heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00EAINZM8</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035025299|title=The True German: The Diary of a World War II Military JudgeWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Werner Otto Muller-Hill and Benjamin Carter HettNina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=We've had diaries of teenagers, opium addicts, drug smugglers, and a lot more. Some of them have been optimistic, happy things, and many not. Clearly World War II was not a place Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a terribly cheerful outlook, whatever the diarist. However sometimes it was not the done thing to be pessimistic, sabbatical after being away for example when you were in the huge German military and were publicly denigrating the dreamt-of Nazi successtwenty years. Such She's been at Victoria'corrosion of morales smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there' would mean s always something smallholding happening - as you being put in front of a three-man military tribunal, and most probably sentenced for such treacherous behaviourmight expect. The startling thing about this book, however, is that it contains much that would certainly have been deemed ''corrosion other side of morale'', yet it the decision was written by one sealed when a room became available (courtesy of the Deborah Moggach) at a very military judges who served on those panelsreasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278544</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Hospice Voices: Lessons for Living at the End of LifeChristopher Fowler|authortitle=Eric LindnerWord Monkey|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It''Hospice Voices'' tells s the stories first of August in the last days middle of some fascinating people while a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it follows author Eric Lindner through was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his journey as terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a hospice volunteer man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and a crisis in his own daughter's healthyou know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1442220597</amazonuk>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, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her race, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and the kind of anger only a child can express to their parents.|isbn=1472284852}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1638485216|title=Lucky MeBlack, White, and Gray All Over: My A Black Man's Odyssey in Life With - And Without - My Mom, Shirley MacLaineand Law Enforcement|author=Sachi Parker with Frederick StroppelReynolds|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in Los Angeles''Corruption is not department, raised in Tokyo, and schooled across Europe, Sachi Parker had already lead an eventful life before she turned 18gender or race specific. Add It has everything to the mix a secretive father do with an explosive temper and a Hollywood icon for a mother and you have enough stories to fill a bookcharacter. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Boy on the Wooden BoxBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|authortitle=Leon LeysonI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=This is When the memoir of one of Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the youngest people on Oskar Schindler's famous list rest of Jews saved from the Nazis during World War IIworld responds to your book. It opens between I know, having read the warsbook in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with Leon's family living in the small Polish town of Narewkathat thought. There wasn't He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in how the hopes rest of making a better life and when Leon and his siblings eventually join himthe world responds to this book, you can feel because it tells the wonder of a little boy new to truth as it is, in the big cityearly 21st century. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00CWEHR2G</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Wicked GamesNever Work With Animals|author=Kelly LawrenceGareth Steel|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Sometimes you read I don't often begin my reviews with a book that is supposed warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be fiction, and immediately question whether it isn’t appropriate. Stories of a true story loosely fictionalised 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 few character names changed, so TV show the author doesn’t lose face if it’s not well received. would argue that ''Wicked GamesAll Creatures'' is no such booklacked realism, because you’re told from as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the outset book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that it’s a real life erotic memoirhe's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. And, while the author still has It deals with some discretion regarding how much or how little she sharesuncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you genuinely come away feeling like you’ve just read a startlingly intimate description of a real person’s private lifewould be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753541718</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will CohuDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=The Wolf PitSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Up on How to summarise the north Yorkshire Moors there’s a feature life of the landscape known as the Wolf Pit. It’s thought to be Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a medieval trap into which wolves were driven, but as you get close to it, it’s difficult pithy sentence to locate, marked only by kick off a change in the light, a slope review of the ground. Will Cohu doesn’t concentrate on the pit but rather on nearby Bramble Carr, the remote moorland cottage to which his grandparents moved in 1966memoir? Do you know, almost on a whim and certainly with insufficient thoughtI really don't think I can. George Brook was a manager at ICI in Billingham Dave is an author and Dorothy was an artist . An inspirational speaker and musiciana professional horseman. They’d been brought together by And a shared love recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the arts but once installed at Bramble Carr circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and with little more than each other for company hit rock bottom when the marriage deteriorated into dark silencebottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542358</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
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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
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Wakefield0571365884|title=Kurt VonnegutMy Mess is a Bit of Life: LettersAdventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Kurt Vonnegut: Letters'' is Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a fascinating tome of personal correspondences between one of child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the greats in American literature and bed were comfortable: it was the several individuals sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and institutions whose paths he’d crossedfar between. Written from the early forties up until 2007 On a visit to a therapist, the year of Vonnegut's untimely deathas an adult, these letters enable readers when she was completely unable to understand the workings of the mind behind classics such as ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''Cat's CradleMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety''is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582937</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neil AnsellDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Deer IslandA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Neil Ansell volunteered in the 1980s to work for an organization Alzheimer's is a disease that provided support for the homelessslowly wears away your identity and sense of self. These homeless were the people other shelters would reject for various reasons (drink, drugs, etc.) but the group Neil worked for were a little different to most similar charities. Due to I have been directly affected by this Neil experienced some of the worst case scenarios of being down and out in Londoncruel disease, and along the way befriended as have many interesting but ultimately ill-fated people. To escape Your memories and recover from personality worn away like a life full of brief friendships, poverty and untimely death Neil travelled to statue over time affected the Isle of Jura off the West coast of Scotlandelements. Jura came to be a special place for him It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and of all places in the world it was the one most in his heartyour dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Deer Island Daniel Gibbs is Neil’s account of his life in the 1980s a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his discovery of Jura; it is, journey in effect, his love song to the island that has been his sanctuary''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908213132</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.''
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=Kristine Barnett0008333173|title=The SparkHungry: A Mother's Story Memoir of Nurturing Genius Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The tutor stands at I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the front judges on ''Masterchef''. You know that you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the university class, frantically scribbling equations time. You also ponder on the large whiteboard how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of himher. He I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is well respected by his students; an expert in several fields, including general relativity, string theory, quantum field theory a stunning read which will make you laugh and biophysics. In fact, he recently unveiled a brand new theory that may put him break your heart in line for a Nobel Prizeequal measures. Oh, and did I forget to mention that he is just 14 years old?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145627</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Dawson1504321383|title=Pigs in Clover: Or How I Accidentally Fell in Love with the Good LifeSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Simon Dawson really had no intention of leading a life of self-sufficiency - he accidentally fell into the beginnings of it at a New Year's Eve party which was a little too noisy for him to 'You can't be completely certain what it was he was agreeing tohappy and fulfilled on your own. But even then there was no need for it to go too far. After all, this You are not complete until you find a man's heart was in London and he was an estate agent - a member of the profession whose place at the top of the opprobrium ladder was only made wobbly after a serious PR campaign on behalf of journalists and politicians. But his wife was determined that she couldn't stand being a property solicitor any longer and so they sold their flat in London and rented a property on Exmoor and Simon began a weekly commute - weekends in Devon and most of the week in London.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285019</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin GrantSakinu Ahronglong|title=Bageye at the Wheel: A 1970s Childhood in SuburbiaHunter School|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Growing up as one The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of the few black children in Luton fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the 1970ssense that Ahronglong made it all up, Colin Grant was in awe of his father, always known or whether it is as Bageye. In this memoir of his childhoodthe blurb goes on to say ''recollections, he looks back at his own early years folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the impact stories he tells about his feckless dad - and his friendsexperiences as a child, or sparsas an adolescent, such as Summer Wearan adult are real and true. But memory is a fickle thing, Tidy Boots, Anxious and Pioneer - had on himmaybe 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>0099552396</amazonuk>1999791282
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malcolm Philips1544641923|title=Jobsworth: Confessions of the Man from the CouncilAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Local government isn’t what it used It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be. People say this with regretprivileged, but reading Malcolm Philips’ memoir you will probably be left with the impression family connections tell me that this it is a Very Good Thingfar from luxurious. Because fun as Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it may have been 's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to be working in do so, you know), but the council in diplomatic spouse, the 60s and 70saccompanying baggage, if this entertaining account is anything to go bywell, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it was also an awful shamblesstill usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909183156</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Quindlen0241446732|title=Lots Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Candlesa Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Plenty of CakeBeata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=I first encountered Anna Quindlen when I read [[Life with Beau: A Tale The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of a Dog and His Family by Anna Quindlen|Life with Beau: A Tale the parenting of a Dog and His Family]]their two daughters. I'm a sucker for nonThen eleven-year-fiction books about dogs but old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what struck me was that the book could have been tritehappening. Instead In such circumstances, it was elegant's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, witty and with a real eye for detail and social nuance. It was genuinely about life it became clear to the family that they were ''withburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' Beau and what the family learned from him rather than - as so many such books are - what the family had done for the dog. The book struck If they were to find a particular chord with me as our older dog was, we knew, on borrowed time (although her innate stubbornness kept her going for another two years) and Quindlen helped me way to live happily again their solution would need to think about what Rosie had given usbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955903X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mac Carty191280493X|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on the Margate Sands Coming of Time)Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for 'The Vagaries of Swing' was the BBC television series 'True Love' which portrayed a series of romantic encounters all set by the sea in his home town of Margate. But Carty has taken the original idea - about relationships between people - He began writing novels and run with it, extending ''love'' into ''passion'', say for cricket, or (poetry at the other end age of the scale) as twelve, but it was to take him a human encounter which ends in violencefurther forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Whilst the television series might have been the catalyst Consistently unpublished for the book there was another and probably more compelling reason. When his friend Mike died he realised all that time, he had no one with whom to share his fund of stories about growing up in Margate, all remains a shining example of which had been revisited on a regular basis and usually hope over a pintexperience... I've just read the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>'}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mollie Moran190874572X|title=Aprons and Silver SpoonsLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=At Back at the tender age beginning of 14the century, young Mollie Browne was forced I went on holiday to put her idyllic childhood behind her and embark on the world of workNepal. Rebellious I met a wonderful Finnish woman and strongwe became sort-willed, young Mollie had no intentions of working in her grandmother’s shop as her parents had planned and sought to escape her small-town life in rural Norfolkfriends. Fortunately for Mollie, a position I can't remember if it was available for on that holiday or a scullery maid in a townhouse in Kensingtonlater one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. Would this free spirit manage to make 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 ''Sort Of'' translations of the transition from carefree days climbing trees to working 15 hour sessions rest of repetitive, back-breaking toil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718159993</amazonuk>Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helga Weiss1908745819|title=Helga's Diary: A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration CampSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This seems to be quite Sometimes when people suggest that you read a rare certain book, and I doubt if there will be too many further examples in 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 years to comebook. I donThat't mean s a rare experience. People who are sensitive to say that Holocaust testimonies are thin on the groundhearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, for I've reviewed several on this site recentlywas told why. I mean The blurb speaks of the fact that this is newly published and by author considering ''an author who is still aliveolder, less tethered sense of herself. '' There is something Older. Less tethered. That's not a little heart-warming bad description of where I am. Add to know that this lady was living my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and able to be interviewed by her translator in 2011lyrical that are about style not form, and presumably able to answer his editorial notes and queriessubstance most of all, about connection. Of course, that fact does highlight the selling point of this book – the author had my name on it. It was a very young girl when WWII startedwritten 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>0670921416</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Jago1906852472|title=The Man Who Was George SmileyWild Child: The Life of John BinghamGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris, volunteered to serve in the army at the outbreak of the Second World War, but his sight prevented front-line service For Ian Mathie fans there is good and he joined MI5bad news. Prior to this he’d been a journalist, working on Ian has come up with the '’Hull Daily Mail’’ before moving to Fleet Street. He found a natural home missing link in MI5 and a considerable talent for interrogation. At a time when spies are thought of as being flamboyanthis narrative, he was the opposite - story of a smallvery unusual childhood (yes, bespectacled man who could easily blend into the background. His greatest skill was very years that made him the amazing man he was a patient listenerbecame). [[:Category:John Le Carre|John Le Carre]] has said The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that nobody who knew John and the work he book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was doing could have missed the description feeling that many of Smiley the questions in his [[Call for the Dead by John le Carre|first novel]]Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Le Carre was a junior colleague Seemingly all that's now left in MI5the drawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849545138</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Nicolson1999811402|title=The Romantic Economist: A Story of Love and Market Forces|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=William Nicolson was a student - well a student of economics, to be accurate. He had an uncanny knack of losing girlfriends far too quickly, the last one having departed in a personal best time of six weeks. Actually I don't think that was too bad - I've encountered a lot of men who only ever managed about thirty minutes - but it worried Will and he considered applying what he had learned as an economist to his relationships with the fair sex. Girls were something of a mystery to him but he was sure that if he used his ability to reduce a complex world to a set of rational principles then he should be on to a winner. Or two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721021</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPainting Snails|author=Susannah Cahalan|title=Brain on Fire: My Month of MadnessStephen John Hartley|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=One day Susannah Cahalan was It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a brightyear on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, outgoing tabloid reporter in New York, with a promising career ahead but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the lines of her'try it and see'. Within weeks a mysterious illness reduced her to Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an incoherent shadow of her former selfengineering apprenticeship, struggling with basic tasksbecame a busker, finally got into medical school and left doctors at one of the worldis now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's top medical centres baffled. In an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Brain on FireCasualty'', Cahalan – now in but that isn't really what the book'post-recoverys about. There' stage s a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the real passion of her Hartley's life – attempts to recapture , but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the memories and events from impossible the her hard way'? Yep - that'month of madnesss the one. It' before diagnosis and cures an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846147395</amazonuk>
}}
