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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)0241636604|title=The Diary of Lena MukhinaTrading Game: A Girl's Life in the Siege of LeningradConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If life as you were to bring up an image of a girl of school-leaving age is hard enoughcity banker in your mind, think about it when you're stuck in a great city under a horrendous siegeunlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Lena Mukhina's diary only covers half A hoodie and jeans replaces the 800pin-odd days stripe suit and his background is the nightmare in Leningrad lastedEast End, but so palpably singular were the circumstances that it feels like one is given the clearest insight into what it where he was likefamiliar with violence, courtesy of these pagespoverty and injustice. I've There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been there and never felt the ghost of the siege in the modern St Petersburg, anything like (for example) to the ruination London School of Warsaw had lived onEconomics. But Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a dreadful time this wasfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. At the peak times of Nazi oppression and aerial bombing, the city lost 2 or 3 residents' lives ''every minute'' of the day on averageHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. The city It was his ability at what was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is essentially, a place where it can – and does here – snow in Junecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Without giving too much of the diet awayEventually, it's notable that later on Lena dreams of having this turned into permanent employment as a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or catstrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margery Kempe and Anthony Bale (editor)1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Book Secret Life of Margery Kempea Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Born around 1373Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Margery Kempe grew up in 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 of good standing friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - her Father serving as with so many students - been his dream since he was a mayorchild. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A 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 member saviour of parliamentthe country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Whilst no records remain Well, those hours-long speeches of her childhood, it is unlikely that Margery would have received any his were kind of formal educationtaking his time away. She was 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, howeversuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, taught religious textsand not liked for his successful photography business, which may well have set success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the way for party to ease some of the visions she would encounter later heat, but in life.this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0199686645</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Esterly1035025299|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey Went to London, Took the Heart of MakingDog|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David EsterlyNina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet itbeen at Victoria's not smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in this memoirthat conducive to writing, but at the same time as there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's lifealways something smallholding happening - as you might expect. 'Carvers are starvers,' The other side of the decision was sealed when a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterlyvery reasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edzard ErnstChristopher Fowler|title=A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding TroubleWord Monkey|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Professor Edzard Ernst was born It's the first of August in Germany not long after the end middle of World War II and grew up with guilt about what had happened a cool wet summer in the years before he was born as well as an insatiable curiosity - with the two East Anglia. I decided not being entirely entirely unconnected. He also developed an attitude of speaking his mind - as an early challenge to his step-father about swim at the death of six million Jews pool in the course favour of the war provedgoing to my beach hut. In his teens he wasn't determined The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to become do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a doctor - he had a hankering ) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to be a musician - despite do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the fact that it dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was the family business, so ' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to speaklaugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, but came round to the idea and practiced in various countries before settling in Exeter as Professor of Complementary Medicine you know he actually is at the universitythat point, because he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845407776</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
}}
{{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''. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedyBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Oscar & LucyI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=With When the film about Alan TuringDalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn'The Imitation Game'' getting rave reviews and award nominations rightt really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, left that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and centreat core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the sterling work done by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII truth as it is quite high , in our minds. But Enigma wasn't the only code broken and Turing wasn't the only one doing secret but heroic workearly 21st century. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095646968X</amazonuk>1526644827
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Millergareth_steel|title=The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My LifeNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Andy Miller and his wife both worked and they had I don't often begin my reviews with a three-year-old sonwarning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Despite Stories of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the fact that Miller was an editor companion volume you've been looking for . As a London publisher he felt TV show the author would argue that he'd 'lostAll Creatures'' reading from his lifelacked realism, as do other similar programmes. He seemed to acquire a lot of books, but making time Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading them was an entirely different matter- I agree with him. With the help of his wife He says that he developed a 'list of betterment' - initially a limited number of great books which he determined s written it to read inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but eventually it became fifty great books doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and two not so great, which he was going to master over the space of a year. He was re-integrating books into everyday lifeeating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00QJV7OAI</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane HawkingDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Travelling to InfinitySpeedy: The True Story Behind the Theory of EverythingHurled Through Havoc|rating=3.54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Travelling How to Infinity maps summarise the tapestry life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a rich and complex lifepithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.
Jane Hawking, the first wife of acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawking, reveals the inner-workings of their life together. Reflecting on the meteoric rise of her husband alongside his physical deterioration, she charts the path of their marriage and family throughout the highs and lows of their circumstance. As asserted by the author herself this story could indeed belong to any English family of the era. What sets this one apart, however, is the fame and publicity of one family member, the widely celebrated, Stephen Hawking.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883660</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|Dave is an author=Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan|title=Tsunami Kids: Our journey from survival to success |rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=On Boxing Day 2004, when many of us were celebrating the Christmas holidays with our families, eating leftover turkey, reading books an artist. An inspirational speaker and enjoying time with loved ones, a huge tragedy was unfolding on the other side of the worldprofessional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The Boxing Day Tsunami killed over 230son of a Lutheran minister,000 peoplehe's struggled with a controlling father, and caused widespread devastation run away to large parts of Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, join the Maldives and Somalia. The Forkan family - Mum, Dad, and four of their children, were in Sri Lanka, circus (not a spur of the moment choice of destination that ultimately proved to be tragic. The parentsmetaphor), Kevin and Sandratrained horses, were killed in the flood. The childrenpainted caravans, orphaned, injured designed and without any possessions, traveled the 200 kilometres back to a citypainted theatre sets, where they contacted elder siblings and were swiftly flown back to hit rock bottom when the UKbottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782433570</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=Helen Macdonald|title=H is for Hawk|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=When I saw Helen Macdonald speak at ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a nature conference, she recounted writer of colour while only 7% study a conversation with book by a Samuel Johnson Prize judgewoman. S/he had remarked that Macdonald's was three books in one: a memoir of grief after her father's unexpected death, a biography of T. H. White, and an account of falconry experiments with Mabel the goshawk. Macdonald quipped that the description made her book sound like washing powder, but it ''The Bookseller''s accurate nonetheless, and explains why the book won the Samuel Johnson Prize (the first memoir to do so) and is shortlisted for the Costa Biography award.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097008</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021
{{newreview|author=Dylan Thomas Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and Peter Bailey|title=A Child’s Christmas in Wales|rating=4nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later.5|genre=Children's Non The family was hard-Fiction|summary=Christmas time growing up in a Welsh seaside town working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was magical for Dylan Thomas, always snowy and full a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of adventureanything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. From attempting For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to extinguish house fires with snowballs to hippo footprints a private school in the snow his childhood in the snow was London and then a time of wonder and pure joyplace at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444013467</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Marsh0571365884|title=Do No Harm: Stories My Mess is a Bit of Life, Death and Brain Surgery: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=54
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=We've all heard Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the phrase 'bed were comfortable: it's not brain surgery' was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but what is it really like such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to operate on someone's brain in the frightening knowledge that a small sliptherapist, a slight error can have the most devastating consequences for the patientas an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with death probably not being the worst? Henry Marsh her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Fellow Bit of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley/St Georgea Life: Adventures in Anxiety's. If anyone knows what it's like then Henry Marsh is the man result - or so we are given to tell youbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178022592X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer KlinecDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in IranTattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Jennifer Klinec Alzheimer's is the daughter a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of Hungarian immigrant parents who ran an automotive factory in southwest Ontarioself. She learned early on to be self-sufficientI have been directly affected by this cruel disease, even enrolling herself in boarding schools in Switzerland as have many. Your memories and Dublinpersonality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. After graduation she moved to London, made a pile It seems as an investment banker, if nature wants that final victory over you and opened her own cookery schoolyour dignity. At age 31, though, she decided to travel to the Iranian city of Yazd to learn Persian dishesThis is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. She met Vahid, 25, Daniel Gibbs is a military veteran neurologist who was diagnosed with an engineering background, in a park Alzheimers and he introduced her to has documented his mother for cooking lessonsjourney in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844088235</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.''
{{newreview|author=Marion Coutts|title=The Icebergstereotypical 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: A Memoir|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=he knows that he'Something has happenedll be a farmer. A piece of news It's not always the case though. We have 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 diagnosis that has the status deep love of an event. The news makes a rupture with what went beforeanimals. Her original intention was that she would become ' With these plainDr Jackson, unsentimental words Coutts begins whale scientist' and she was well on her devastating yet mysteriously gorgeous account of way to achieving this when her husband Tom Lubbock's decline and death from life changed on a brain tumourfamily holiday to the Lake District. Shortlisted for the Costa Biography award She saw a lamb being born and longlisted for the , although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer'Guardian'' First Book Awardlacked the kudos of her original intention, it was also she knew that she wanted to be a finalist for shepherd. With the Samuel Johnson Prizedetermination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782393501</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wendy Cope0008333173|title=Life, Love and the ArchersHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a rule, poetry does not appeal to me - at school it was something to be learned and recited, regardless of merit or meaning and I came to dread those lessons - but there are two exceptions. I love John Dryden's m always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on ''Absalom and AchitophelMasterchef'' for its irreverence - and Wendy Cope, because she speaks to me in words I can understand about matters which concern me. I discovered her when my daughter gave me a copy of {{amazonurl|isbn=0571167055|title=Serious Concerns}} and her humorous poems tempted me You know that you're going to read some get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the more serious contenttime. I was smittenYou also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in front of her. Over the years I've followed with interest what she has had to say often wondered about such matters as copyright the woman behind the media image and the chance to review ''Life, Love and the ArchersHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' was far too tempting to missis a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444795368</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=A Tour of Bones: Facing Fear Single, Again, and Again, and Looking for LifeAgain|author=Denise IngeLouisa Pateman|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=American-born Dr Denise Inge was an expert on seventeenth-century mystic poet Thomas Traherne, mother to two daughters, and wife to an Anglican clergyman. Her husband's appointment as Bishop of Worcester saw them move to a townhouse adjacent to Worcester Cathedral – 'You can't be happy and attached to a charnel housefulfilled on your own. Whatever to do with You are not complete until you find a basement full of bones? An even more pressing question was what to do with her fear of the death they represented, especially when Inge was diagnosed with inoperable sarcoma late in the writing processman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472913078</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|title=Darling MonsterThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952|author=Diana Cooper|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Though she is perhaps little remembered these days except as the mother of writer and historian John Julius Norwich, Lady Diana Cooper it was one of simply the towering figures adults in society her life between the wars and for much of the period before advising her death in 1986.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009957859X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pamela O'Cuneen|title=Hummingbirds in My Hair: Adventures of a Diplomatic Wife in the Caribbean|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Pamela O'Cuneen was what is known in the business as a 'diplomatic wife': the spouse of a diplomat sent abroad to represent his countrywhat they thought would be best for her. Itwas reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's generally unpaid and extremely hard work - I've always thought of it as one of usually fairly young) is rescued by the original BOGOF dealshandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. When we first meet Pamela she and her husband, KJ, have been transferred from their beloved Africa Few girls are lucky enough to Suriname, or be brought up ''Suri-where?without'' as people always responded when it was mentioned to themthe expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''useda belief is a choice'' to be Dutch Guyana on the Caribbean coast of South America and there are few people who would think of it in terms of a holiday destination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373637</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Hitler's Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler's BodyguardSakinu Ahronglong|authortitle=Rochus MischHunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am proud to declare an interest not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all things Holocaustup, one of or whether it is as the key areas of which was blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the last days of Hitler – latter. It feels like the Downfallstories he tells about his experiences as a child, if you likeas an adolescent, way before youtube satiristsas an adult are real and true. So this book, from the man who for some unspecified years was the last eye-witness to have been in the Fuhrerbunker at the end of the Nazi regime, was always going to be But memory is a great read. It remained that even after the foreword dismissed its own bookfickle thing, pointing out differences and maybe poetic licence has taken over here to the canon of thought about the timings etc of April/May 1945, and declaring the author somewhat naïve in not being so aware, circumspect there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and authoritative about the major points of WWIItherefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848327498</amazonuk>1999791282
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Diary of a Mad Diva|author=Joan Rivers|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=The late Joan Rivers was, without a doubt, a character. Actress, comedian, writer, director, presenter, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue and no holds barred persona. This was the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425269027</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1544641923|title=Life on AirAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=David AttenboroughSandra Aragona|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I was one of It's tempting to think that the generation who grew up when David Attenborough was a giant among presenters of wildlife programmes on television, diplomatic life is privileged and anything with his name attached was a must-watchluxurious. At the timeIt might be privileged, I had no idea but family connections tell me that he was also one of it is far from luxurious. Now you're not going to get many ambassadors telling you what it's really like (it's not ''diplomatic'' to do so, you know), but the pivotal characters in diplomatic spouse, the development of broadcastingaccompanying baggage, well, having been controller of BBC2 and director of programming for BBC TV for several yearsthat's an entirely different matter. These days, he She (and it still usually is probably best remembered for writing and presenting the nine ‘Life’ series, a comprehensive survey of all life 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on the planet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908524</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=The Last EscaperOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Peter TunstallMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=''The Last Escaper'' opens differently to many Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the great escape biographies that were released soon after the war as it is told some 70 years laterparenting of their two daughters. Peter Tunstall was an RAF pilot who was shot down Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and spent many her sister, Beata, then nine years as a Prisoner Of War across occupied Europeold, including in Colditzstruggled with what was happening. He lived through the warIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but also lived through many decades of peaceeventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. Will these years of the relative quiet life lesson the tales of bravery and dare doing of the war? Of course not!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071564923X</amazonuk>If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=191280493X|title=The AnimalsComing of Age|author=Christopher Isherwood and Don BachardyDanny Ryan
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Christopher Isherwood is a writer whose work was often (in fact nearly always) biographical, ''He began writing novels and one who was always very open about his personal life. Interest in poetry at the life age of Isherwood seems twelve, but it was to have been rife recently, with take him a film about Isherwood and Bachardy released in 2008further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, an adaptation of Isherwood's book 'A Single Man' released in 2009, and he remains a BBC adaptation shining example of hope over experience...'Christopher and his Kind' released in 2011, as well as the seemingly countless revivals of 'Cabaret'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700827</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview
|author=Rick Stein
|title=Under a Mackerel Sky
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Rick Stein was born if not to wealth then certainly to privilege. He was raised on an Oxfordshire farm and spent holidays at the family's home in Cornwall. His parents were gregarious and intelligent and he was one of five children who led the sort of open-air life that country children did in those days before we worried about stranger danger. He enjoyed school and loved Cornwall, where he gained a reputation as he got older for giving riotous parties in a barn on the Cornish property. It was idyllic - until the day that his father (who was bi-polar) committed suicide. Stein's reaction to this was to head to the Australian outback where he worked in a variety of jobs (some more palatable than others) and finally came back to England, via America and Mexico.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091949912</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|title=Me After You|author=Lucie Brownlee|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=People die all the time. I’m not trying to be crude, they just do. It’s the circle ''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of life, or some less Disney-fied sentiment. And if everyone whose partner or parent died wrote a book about it, well, to say that would be less than good would be a severe understatement. For a book on such a theme to be worth reading, it has to but will feel like you have a pull, a twist, something to make you look twice. In Lucie’s case it’s the fact that her husband Mark was only 37 years old when he died. And not only that, he died during a bit of nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Talk about going out with a bang.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555832</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ellie Laks190874572X|title=My Gentle Barn: where animals heal and children learn to hopeLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a child Ellie Laks was abused, but not only did she suffer Back at the hands beginning of her abuserthe century, she also had to endure parental indifference to what was happening I went on holiday to herNepal. Her only relief came through animals I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of- and even then she had to cope when the animals were taken from herfriends. As an adult she discovered I can't remember if it was on that she had holiday or a real talent for healing animals - and later one that they helped her Paula told me I really had to heal tooread Tove Jansson. In a brilliant leap I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of intuition she realised The Summer Book, and that if I eagerly awaited the animals could help her to heal they could do ''Sort Of'' translations of the same for others rest of Jansson's work and so the Gentle Barn was born - a place where animals were brought devoured them as soon as a place of safety and where disadvantaged children and special needs groups I could use as therapyget my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584883</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|title=Any Other Mouth|author=Anneliese Mackintosh|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=With a title like ''Any Other Mouth'', you know from the outset that this is, shall we say, a rather niche book. It’s not all about orifices, though. Partially autobiographical, this is the messy, ludicrous, wildly entertaining story of a girl who’s just a little bit different. Ok, make that a lot different.Frontpage|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908754575</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908745819|title=My Outdoor LifeSurfacing |author=Ray MearsKathleen Jamie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Sometimeswhen people suggest that you read a certain book, a seemingly insignificant incident in they tell you ''this onehas 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 youth can have far-reaching and profound consequencesa rare experience. Life is punctuated with pivotal moments that can completely alter People who are sensitive to hearing a course book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of events. Ray Mears recalls such the author considering ''an incident when aged sixolder, he opened an encyclopaedia and saw less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not a picture bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of cavemen for the first time. A few months laternatural world, of those aspects of the same volume was sitting on the edge his deskpoetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and substance most of all, when suddenlyabout connection. Of course, this book had my name on it started . It was written for me. It would have found its way to slideme eventually. Mears reached out I am pleased to grab have itfall onto my path so quickly...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444778218</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Rakoff1906852472|title=My Salinger YearWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Joanna Rakoff was twenty three when she took a job as assistant to For Ian Mathie fans there is good and bad news. Ian has come up with the missing link in his narrative, the story of a literary agent in New York. She'd not long left graduate school very unusual childhood (and her 'college boyfriend'yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became) and her dream was to become a poet. The job was for experience and for income - her parents were somewhat dismissive of bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the positionbook is published posthumously. As always, pointing out that it 's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was what used to be called a secretary - but there was a bonus which Rakoff had not anticipated, or even appreciated when she first heard the feeling that many of it. The agency might be stuck the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in the past - ''Wild Child'' with Dictaphones and typewriters rather than computers - but its main client was J D Salingera satisfying clunk. Rakoff knew Seemingly all that's now left in the name - obviously - but she had never read one of his booksdrawer is unpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408830175</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynne Martin1999811402|title=Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the WorldPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley|rating=4.5|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=Lynne and Tim Martin had known each other decades ago but when we meet them theyIt's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails''ve only been married for a short time. There: originally I thought that as it's just one thing though - theyloosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not ready going to settle down, despite get advice on what to plant when and where for the fact that they're what might best results. The answer would be called something along the lines of 'upper middle agedtry it and see'. Their roots are in the US - both have adult children there Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and the Martins have a house in California is now an A&E consultant (part- but they want to travel and not just as touriststime). They want I found out that there's an awful lot more to see the world as what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't really what the locals see it and to experience what itbook's like to live thereabout. Lynne describes them as not being wealthyThere's a lot about rock & roll, but they decide which seems to sell their homebe the real passion of Hartley's life, invest but it didn't actually fit into the money and become entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'home? Yep -freethat's the one. It's an autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00J0CRNKE</amazonuk>
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