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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|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=James LasdunEdel Rodriguez|title=Give Me Everything You HaveWorm: On Being StalkedA Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not 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…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035025299|title=Went to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the autumn of 2003 James Lasdun taught Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a fiction workshop as part of the graduate writing programme at a place he calls Morgan College. On all such courses the quality of the students is very variable but one writer stood out as having talentsabbatical after being away for twenty years. He calls her Nasreen. He offered help over and above the course but Nasreen read a personal interest into this - She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which wasnisn't in any way reciprocated. An email correspondence which had been friendly turned nastyall that conducive to writing, with accusations that Nasreenas there's work had been stolen to sell to other writers, that he had had an affair with another student and that he had arranged for Nasreen to be raped. Antialways something smallholding happening -semitic comments were madeas you might expect. Obsessive love had turned to obsessive hateThe other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572311</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Glitter and GlueChristopher Fowler|authortitle=Kelly CorriganWord Monkey
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When Kelly leaves It's the first of August in the USA for middle of a life-changing trip around cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the worldpool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, her goal is rain arrived, and I decided not to end up working as do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a nanny in suburban Sydney. And her goal is definitely ) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to turn into her mother in do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the processdust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. She doesn’t realise it There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at the timethat point, but as this memoir shows, there are worse things that could happenbecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444725149</amazonuk>0857529625
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Wolf of Wall StreetKit De Waal|authortitle=Jordan BelfortWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating=2.54|genre=Autobiography|summary=As if we didn't have enough excuses Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to appreciate , but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the 'Masters of bonds that bind family. This book is a memoir focussing on the Universe' author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of the financial sectorBirmingham. Her father is from St. After Kitts in the tax dodging, the bonus scamming, price fixing 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 valiant attempt to bring down the entire world economy comes Jordan Belfort aka the Wolf of Wall Streetautobiography. To be fair Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to Belforther race, he plied his trade long before the most recent financial meltdownher class and her gender. StillHer parents loom large and are written with care, love, he's managed to piggy back and the latest crash via kind of anger only a best selling book which has been re-released child can express to coincide with a film adaptation starring Leonardo Dicapriotheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444778129</amazonuk>1472284852
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1638485216|title=Play It AgainBlack, White, and Gray All Over: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleA Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Alan RusbridgerFrederick Reynolds|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I’ve maintained for a long time that I’ll read anything, if it’s well-enough written. So it was with this fascinating memoir, even though it’s a year in the life of an amateur pianist''Corruption is not department, and I don’t play the piano – gender or indeed a note of music. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in his professional role before I read the bookrace specific. A quick browse through the first couple of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell a clear story: it is his stock-in-trade as Editor of the GuardianIt has everything to do with character. And the book duly held me through a messy, interrupted week of bedtime readingPeriod.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|title=Born in Siberia|author=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's a title that doesn'One more body just wouldn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. Thatmatter's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual way, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373343</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Jon Katz|title=The Dog Nobody Loved|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=When we first meet Jon Katz he's not in murder of George Floyd, a good place: his marriage of thirtyforty-six-year-five years was breaking up and he was close to a nervous breakdown. He didn't need any more problems. He particularly ''didn't'' need a young rescue dogold black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mixforty-four-year-old police officer, who'd been living wild, to contend with and to upset in the fragile equilibrium US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the life he lived with his animals on Bedlam Farmworld. Frieda We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was near feral but devoted to her rescuer, Maria Wulf an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and it was Maria who was at the centre of this conundrumprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. Katz There was spectacularly disconnected from a backlash against the world police - and Maria was not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the only person to whom he seemed able to talk, but to connect with Maria he had to connect with Frieda tooChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091957443</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empire Antarctica: IceBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Silence Navid Modiiri and Emperor Penguins Agnes Bromme (Translator)|authortitle=Gavin FrancisI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=I know two books don't make a genre, but twice in recent years I have read autobiographical travelogues of men who felt too much was going on in their lives and their surroundings, and took themselves off to remote, isolated, extremely cold and inhospitable places. One went to When the shores of Lake Baikal, and shared Dalai Lama adds his days hunting, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighbours. Gavin Francis took himself south, words to the edge of the Antarctic iceyour frontispiece, I'm inclined to spend a year as a scientific doctor. He wasnthink it doesn't able to be completely as alone as some have been in really matter how the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before rest of the week-long annual changeover of staff was throughworld responds to your book. Francis ends up with a baker's dozen of companionsI know, having read the book in a place where – apart from the icequestion, sealing things up – only two lockable doors existthat Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. You might think this was a large group of people for someone wanting to be alone, but the He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in much how the huge emptiness rest of the landscape is the main point of world responds to this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins…because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009956596X</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry Redknappgareth_steel|title=Harry: My AutobiographyNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4.5|genre=SportAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Everybody I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with an interest in football knows who ''HarryNever Work With Animals'' isit seems to be appropriate. The cover Stories of his book wona vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small''t tell you who he is, but if you're 'Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not in the know itcompanion volume you's Harry Redknapp - football manager and ve been looking for many of us, something of . As a national treasure. HeTV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures's the manager who's seen it alllacked realism, having started at rock bottom as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - a 70s Portakabin at Oxford City after reading - and risen to the heights of managing Tottenham Hotspur in the PremiershipI agree with him. At the same time He says that he was the popular choice for the England Manager's job when Capello threw in the towelwritten it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. Itdeals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn's fair to say that Harry has lived his football life to the full t lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and anyone buying this book will get their money's wortheating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091917875</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Love, NinaDave Letterfly Knoderer|authortitle=Nina StibbeSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When I began reading this book I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it. I didn't quite know how How to take summarise the Nina from the title. She's a twenty year old Nanny, employed by the editor of the London Review life of Books and living near Regent's Park Dave Letterfly Knodererv in North London. The book contains her letters a pithy sentence to her sister, Victoria living at home in Leicestershire, and tell of the events and happenings in her life as a Nanny and then, going on, in her life as kick off a student at Thames Polytechnic. Initially it felt like she was name dropping - Alan Bennett lives over the road and drops in for dinner most days; the father review of Will and Sam, the two boys she is nannying, is Stephen Frears; down the road lives Claire Tomalin and her partner Michael Frayn...and yet, given chance, his memoir? Do you begin to see that she isn't awed by the notoriety of these people (indeedknow, she tells her sister that Alan Bennett was in Coronation Street!) and actually they are just the neighbours and so it is less important that Alan Bennett (AB as he's referred to in the book) comes around for dinner every night since he isnI really don't there for fame value but rather for his own unique place in this rather crazy family life memoir!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922765</amazonuk>}}think I can.
{{newreview
|title=Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time
|author=Penelope Lively
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Now aged 80, Penelope Lively, the Booker Prize-winning author of twenty works of fiction including ''Moon Tiger'' (1987) and ''How It All Began'' (2011), is increasingly conscious of death approaching. It may be true that, as concluded in [[Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes]], 'we cannot truly savour life without a regular awareness of extinction', but this memoir is less a ''memento mori'' than an agreeably scattered tour through Lively's life and times.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146380</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|Dave is an author=Tony Benn|title=and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The Last Diaries: A Blaze son of Autumn Sunshine|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout my life Ia Lutheran minister, he've found that whilst I might not always agree s struggled with Tony Benn's politicsa controlling father, whatever he had run away to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed join the way that I viewed circus (not 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 diariesmetaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' designed and ''the disadvantages of growing olderpainted theatre sets, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and hit rock bottom when the problems of failing healthbottle took over.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
{{newreview|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and Love|rating=4'0.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah Nom, was born early in the twentieth century in the village 7% of Dai Waan English Literature GCSE students in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Uncle', who was only England study a book by a matter writer of months older than Ah Nom. They'd become friends as they grew older, but when his Grandfather returned after colour while only 7% study a long absence in America there as book by a distinct rivalry between the twowoman. '' Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended to take the boys to America to be educated. It was a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>}}''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
{{newreview|title=My Life|author=David Jason|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Born in North London in February 1940 during Otegha Uwagba came to the early UK from Kenya when she was five years of the Second World Warold. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, David John White once had a brief career as an electricianwith her father joining them later. Fortunately for the world of entertainment The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the public, he soon forsook the world best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of fuses and wires for that money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the stage and small screenfamily acquired a car. When he joined Equity For Otegha, they already had education meant a David White on their records, scholarship to a private school in London and after then a little quick thinking on the phoneplace at New College, he became David JasonOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891407</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=A Piece My Mess is a Bit of Danish HappinessLife: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Sharmi AlbrechtsenGeorgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sharmi Albrechtsen was Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a true Hindu-American princesschild. Obsessed with shoes and handbags and designer labels, She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she saw status would become anxious but such occasions were few and wealth as the only route far between. On a visit to happiness. But she wasn't happy enougha therapist, no matter how much designer gear she owned. And it wasn't until 1997as an adult, when she married was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her second husband, a Dane, and relocated to Denmark, it was suggested that she began to wonder if should write it was something lacking down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in herself, rather than her possessions, that was at Anxiety'' is the root of her problemsresult - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00EAINZM8</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The True German: The Diary of a World War II Military JudgeDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|authortitle=Werner Otto Muller-Hill and Benjamin Carter HettA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=WeAlzheimer've had diaries s is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of teenagers, opium addicts, drug smugglers, and a lot moreself. Some of them I have been optimisticdirectly affected by this cruel disease, happy things, and as have many not. Clearly World War II was not a place for Your memories and personality worn away like a terribly cheerful outlook, whatever statue over time affected the diaristelements. However sometimes it was not the done thing to be pessimistic, for example when It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you were in the huge German military and were publicly denigrating the dreamt-of Nazi successyour dignity. Such This is what makes Daniel Gibbs''corrosion of morale'' would mean you being put in front of memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a three-man military tribunal, neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and most probably sentenced for such treacherous behaviour. The startling thing about this book, however, is that it contains much that would certainly have been deemed has documented his journey in ''corrosion of moraleA Tattoo on my Brain'', yet it was written by one of the very military judges who served on those panels.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1137278544</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|isbn=0008333173|title=Hospice VoicesHungry: Lessons for Living at the End A Memoir of LifeWanting More|author=Eric LindnerGrace Dent|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on 'Hospice Voices'Masterchef' tells '. 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 stories time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her. I've often wondered about the last days woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of some fascinating people while it follows author Eric Lindner through his journey as Wanting More'' is a hospice volunteer stunning read which will make you laugh and a crisis break your heart in his own daughter's healthequal measures. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1442220597</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Lucky Me: My Life With - And Without - My MomSingle, Again, and Again, Shirley MacLaineand Again|author=Sachi Parker with Frederick StroppelLouisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in Los Angeles, raised in Tokyo, ''You can't be happy and schooled across Europe, Sachi Parker had already lead an eventful life before she turned 18fulfilled on your own. Add to the mix a secretive father with an explosive temper and a Hollywood icon for a mother and You are not complete until you have enough stories to fill find a bookman''.
And thatThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn's exactly t unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's doneusually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1592407889</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|title=Monkeys in my Garden: Unbelievable but true stories of my life in MozambiqueFrontpage|author=Valerie Pixley|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Valerie Pixley and her husband O'D live in Mozambique, amidst its rapidly disappearing forests. Monkeys in my Garden tells the story of what life is like in the Nhamacoa Forest and how they came to be there. It opens with a terrifying scene: armed bandits in their bedroom in the middle of the night. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00DUF1LXM</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSakinu Ahronglong|title=The Boy on the Wooden Box|author=Leon Leyson|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=This is the memoir of one of the youngest people on Oskar Schindler's famous list of Jews saved from the Nazis during World War II. It opens between the wars, with Leon's family living in the small Polish town of Narewka. There wasn't much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in the hopes of making a better life and when Leon and his siblings eventually join him, you can feel the wonder of a little boy new to the big city. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CWEHR2G</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Wicked Games|author=Kelly LawrenceHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sometimes you read The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a book that work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is supposed to be "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, and immediately question or whether it isn’t a true story loosely fictionalised and with a few character names changed, so is as the author doesn’t lose face if it’s not well received. blurb goes on to say ''Wicked Gamesrecollections, folklore and autobiographical stories'' is no such book, because you’re told from . It feels like the latter. It feels like the outset that it’s stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real life erotic memoirand true. And But memory is a fickle thing, while the author still and maybe poetic licence has some discretion regarding how much or how little she shares, you genuinely come away feeling like you’ve just taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read a startlingly intimate description of a real person’s private lifeit. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0753541718</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Cohu1544641923|title=The Wolf PitAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Up on It's tempting to think that the north Yorkshire Moors there’s a feature of the landscape known as the Wolf Pitdiplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It’s thought to It might be a medieval trap into which wolves were drivenprivileged, but as family connections tell me that it is far from luxurious. Now you 're not going to get close many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to itdo so, it’s difficult to locateyou know), marked only by a change in but the lightdiplomatic spouse, a slope of the ground. Will Cohu doesn’t concentrate on the pit but rather on nearby Bramble Carraccompanying baggage, the remote moorland cottage to which his grandparents moved in 1966well, almost on a whim and certainly with insufficient thoughtthat's an entirely different matter. George Brook was a manager at ICI in Billingham She (and Dorothy was an artist and musician. They’d been brought together by it still usually is a shared love of the arts but once installed at Bramble Carr and with little more than each other for company the marriage deteriorated into dark silence'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542358</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith Kerr0241446732|title=Judith Kerr's CreaturesOur House is on Fire: A Celebration Scenes of the Life a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Work of Judith KerrSvante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliable, but always impressiveThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. One Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. For decades sheIn such circumstances, it's been delighting our children (and grandchildren) but it still came as something of natural to seek a surprise solution close to discover that she would be ninety in June 2013. To celebrate thishome, Harper Collins have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but eventually, it became clear to the family that of the they were ''creaturesburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' - the characters in her books and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life. It is, though, far more than just an autobiography with If they were to find a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabiliaway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gregg Wallace191280493X|title=Life on a Plate: The AutobiographyComing of Age|author=Danny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I remember the early days of ''Masterchef'' when members of the public practiced certain dishes until they couldn't get them wrong He began writing novels and then presented them to be judged. Once it got past poetry at the point where you could be reasonably certain that there wouldn't be a major disaster with ''no'' food on the table age of twelve, but it all got rather boring and finally faded. It had was to take him a reincarnation though, largely fronted by chef John Torode and greengrocer Gregg Wallace. Gone are the days when people said ''Greengrocer?'' as though they were referring further forty-eight years to some lower life form and it's generally acknowledged realise that Wallace is a he wasn’t very good anchor (and better as he's grown in confidence) and at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he has remains a great palateshining example of hope over experience... But where did he come from?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409143910</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview
|author=Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Wakefield
|title=Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Kurt Vonnegut: Letters'' is a fascinating tome of personal correspondences between one of the greats in American literature and the several individuals and institutions whose paths he’d crossed. Written from the early forties up until 2007, the year of Vonnegut's untimely death, these letters enable readers to understand the workings of the mind behind classics such as ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' and ''Cat's Cradle''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582937</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Neil Ansell|title=Deer Island|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Neil Ansell volunteered in the 1980s to work for an organization that provided support for the homeless. These homeless were the people other shelters would reject for various reasons (drink, drugs, etc.) but the group Neil worked for were ''This a little different to most similar charities. Due to this Neil experienced some memoir from someone you have never heard of the worst case scenarios of being down and out in London, and along the way befriended many interesting - but ultimately ill-fated people. To escape and recover from a life full of brief friendships, poverty and untimely death Neil travelled to the Isle of Jura off the West coast of Scotland. Jura came to be a special place for him and of all places in the world it was the one most in his heart. Deer Island is Neil’s account of his life in the 1980s and his discovery of Jura; it is, in effect, his love song to the island that has been his sanctuarywill feel like you have.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908213132</amazonuk>''
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kristine Barnett190874572X|title=The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius Letters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The tutor stands Back at the front beginning of the university classcentury, frantically scribbling equations I went on the large whiteboard in front of himholiday to Nepal. He is well respected by his students; an expert in several fields, including general relativity, string theory, quantum field theory I met a wonderful Finnish woman and biophysicswe became sort-of-friends. In fact, he recently unveiled I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a brand new theory later one that may put him in line for a Nobel PrizePaula told me I really had to read Tove JanssonOh I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and did that I forget to mention that he is just 14 years old?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145627</amazonuk>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.
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Dawson1908745819|title=Pigs in Clover: Or How I Accidentally Fell in Love with the Good LifeSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Simon Dawson really had no intention of leading Sometimes when people suggest that you read a life of self-sufficiency - he accidentally fell into the beginnings of certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it ''. Mostly we take them at a New Yeartheir 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 Eve party which was a little too noisy for him rare experience. People who are sensitive to be completely certain what hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was he was agreeing totold why. But even then there was no need for it to go too farThe blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself. '' After all, this manOlder. Less tethered. That's heart was in London and he was an estate agent - not a member bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the profession whose place at natural world, of those aspects of the top poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of the opprobrium ladder was only made wobbly after a serious PR campaign all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on behalf of journalists and politiciansit. But his wife It was determined that she couldn't stand being a property solicitor any longer and written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path 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 Londonquickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285019</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Arrowsmith-Young1906852472|title=The Woman who Changed Her BrainWild Child: How We Can Shape our Minds and Other Tales of Cognitive TransformationGrowing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Imagine feeling like a stranger For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in your own bodyhis narrative, unable to comprehend the world around you. Symbolsstory of a very unusual childhood (yes, words and numbers swirl in an unintelligible mix on the page and make no sense at allvery years that made him the amazing man he became). Activities The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that others perform the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with ease are a struggle for you, leading to deep feelings of frustrationmany exciting moments. This What I most enjoyed was the challenge feeling that Barbara-Arrowsmith-Young faced daily as many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a result of her complex learning disabilitiessatisfying clunk. Her intense feelings of despair even caused her to attempt suicideSeemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563584</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Grant1999811402|title=Bageye at the Wheel: A 1970s Childhood in SuburbiaPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=34.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Growing up It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as one of it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the few black children in Luton in best results. The answer would be something along the 1970s, Colin Grant was in awe lines of 'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his fatherA levels, always known as Bageye. In this memoir of his childhooddid an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, he looks back at his own early years finally got into medical school and the impact his feckless dad is now an A&E consultant (part- and his friendstime). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', or sparsbut that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, such as Summer Wearwhich seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, Tidy Boots, Anxious and Pioneer but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - had on himthat's the one. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552396</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|author=Malcolm Philips|title=Jobsworth: Confessions of the Man from the Council|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Local government isn’t what it used Move on to be. People say this with regret, but reading Malcolm Philips’ memoir you will probably be left with the impression that this is a Very Good Thing. Because fun as it may have been to be working in the council in the 60s and 70s, if this entertaining account is anything to go by, it was also an awful shambles. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909183156</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Biography Reviews]]