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[[Category:New Reviews|Autobiography]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Leask0241636604|title=MiracleThe Trading Game: The extraordinary dog that refused to dieA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5

|summary=Amanda Leask has been obsessed 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 dogs all her life violence, poverty and it's injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been an obsession which needs to the world London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a lot facility with numbers which most of it's attitudes to dogs to change for the betterus can only envy. She's not daunted by the obstacles: she's simply determined to do all He also realised that she possibly can most rich people expect poor people to make the world a better place for dogsbe stupid. Amanda lives It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with her husband Tobias, son Kyle and more than twenty rescue and sled dogs near InvernessCitibank. Very niceEventually, you're probably thinking. Wouldn't we all like to have that sort of lifestyle? But hold on this turned into permanent employment as a minutetrader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785032550</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Kalanithi1529395224|title=When Breath Becomes AirLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=At the age of thirty six Paul Kalanithi seemed to have Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a glittering career - GP and life - ahead of him. He had degrees Rowlands didn't want to follow in English literaturehis footsteps, human biology and history and philosophy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities, as well as particularly when he considered the American Academy of Neurological Surgerystrain that being on-call put on his father's top award for researchlife. His reflections on medicine had been published in the ''New York Times''. The ''Washington Post'' as well as the ''Paris Review Daily''. It had been hinted, as When he was seventeen he came to took the end opportunity of ten years training to be doing work experience with a family friend who was a neurosurgeon, that he'd have vet and was convinced this was the pick of the jobs on offerjob for him. There Before long, he was just one nagging problemat Liverpool University. Well there It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was more than onea child. He had severe back pain and If anything, he knew that he was unwell. He had stage four (terminal) lung cancer'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847923674</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edith MorleyEdel Rodriguez|title=Before and AfterWorm: Reminiscences of a Working LifeA Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=Edith Morley was born We're in Bayswater childhood, and we're in 1875 Cuba. The revolution has happened, and wasn't overly keen on being Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a girlCommunist, although she found the late Victorian conventions restrictive rather than repressiveand not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Her descriptions Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the life which young women (or even women happiest of any age) were expected places here, an uncle refusing to lead is exceptional in be the way that it shows the tedium and good soldier the limitations. She had one great good fortune in that her father country demanded (a surgeonespecially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-dentistCommunism skirmish, such as Angola) and well-read mother believed in the benefits of a good education father being watched and watched, and not liked for boys ''and'' girlshis successful photography business, success being frowned upon. After spending two years in Germany as part of her education she went on to get an 'equivalent' degree from Oxford University (which is all that was available to women at The mother gets the couple jobs with the time) and then party to become ease some of the first female professor in England heat, but in 1908this sultry island country, at Reading University.it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909747165</amazonuk>1474616720

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Forster1035025299|title=My Life in HousesWent to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5

|summary=Love them or loathe them, the houses we live in have a way of defining our lives. Author Margaret Forster decided Nina Stibbe is returning to take this idea London for a stage further when writing her autobiographysabbatical after being away for twenty years. Instead of putting herself centre-stage, she allows the houses She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that she has lived in conducive to tell her story instead. From humble beginnings in a council-house on the notorious Raffles estatewriting, we see Margaretas there's fortunes improve always something smallholding happening - as her writing career blossomsyou might expect. Student digs in Oxford, The other side of the decision was sealed when a shared house on Hampstead Heath, a villa in the Algarve and room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a remote cottage in the Lake District all have their time in the spotlight; but it soon becomes clear that only one very special house can earn the most precious title: HOMEreasonable rent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593971</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim QuillenChristopher Fowler|title=Inside Alcatraz: My Life on the RockWord Monkey

|summary=It sounds like something from 's the first of August in the middle of a Hollywood moviecool wet summer in East Anglia. A group I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of young prisoners make a daring escape from prison going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and go on the runI decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, cleverly evading capture thanks I realised it was because (a) I wanted to quick wits finish reading this book and creative thinking(b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. After managing to cover some distance No spoiler alerts, the men began to feel dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was'smart, confident – and quite comfortable,'' thinking that they had managed to outwit the policehis first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. A rude awakening with gun There is something very strange about being made to the head one morning proved otherwise. The circumstances of their escape meant laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that their capture would lead to a long incarceration in one of the most notorious prisons in the world: Alcatraz. ''Inside Alcatraz'' he is the story of one of those mendying, Jim Quillenand you know he actually is at that point, and his long road to redemptionbecause he does. He did.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784750662</amazonuk>0857529625

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Malala YousafzaiKit De Waal|title= I Am MalalaWithout Warning and Only Sometimes|rating= 54

|summary= ''She's a phenomenon'' is my OH's response As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to any mention of Malala. I can't disagree on some level, but what 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 proves is that a memoir focussing on another she the author’s formative years as a teenager living in a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is just from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by and marrying a girlblack man. One voice among manyThis intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. It's just that she decided Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to speak louder than most. We know about Malala because she got lucky. She got lucky because when she got shot by the Taliban there were people nearbyher race, doctors who got her to a hospital, class and then luckier still because when her condition worsenedgender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, nearby there were western doctors with access to western facilities and she was flown the kind of anger only a child can express to the UK for treatmenttheir parents.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780622163</amazonuk>1472284852

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Guy Martin1638485216|title= When You DeadBlack, You Dead|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary= It's a little depressing when a 34 year old is publishing his second autobiography, but that's what this book isWhite, and Martin proves heGray All Over: A Black Man's certainly not short on material. The author, for those of you who don't know, is a mechanic who dabbles Odyssey in TV presenting Life and motorcycle racing, though it's the latter for which we he will be most well-known.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753556669</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewLaw Enforcement|author=Bee Rowlatt|title=In Search of Mary: The Mother of all JourneysFrederick Reynolds|rating=3.5

|summary=As a university student at Glasgow, Bee Rowlatt first encountered the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft through her epistolary travel narrative''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn'Letters from Norwayt matter''. This book is her homage to Wollstonecraft as well as  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 attempt to pinpoint why this particular work has meant so much to her over the years and helped her form her own ideas about feminism and motherhoodexception. From Norway to Paris and then San Francisco, Rowlatt follows in Wollstonecraft The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's footsteps neck is not one which I'll ever forget and asks everyone she meets how modern feminism and motherhood can coincidethe protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. By using There was a Dictaphone, she is able to recreate her dialogues exactly, making for lively, conversational prosebacklash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883784</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana MellyBjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=Strictly Ballroom: Tales from the DancefloorI May Be Wrong|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn'Crosswords and Sudoku will help but t really matter how the rest of the best way to avoid dementia is world responds to take up ballroom dancingyour book.'' Diana Melly heard these words at a conference organized by I know, having read the Alzheimer's Society. It was a subject close to her heartbook in question, as she had recently lost her dear husband George to lung cancer and vascular dementia. The reason that ballroom dancing is so effective at warning off the ageing process is because it requires a form of coordination Lindeblad would disagree with that effectively rewires the brain; activating the cerebral cortex and hippocampusthought. The lecture piqued Diana's interest He knows (and soon she was signing up for lessons at a local dance class. Little did she know core so do I) that this would open up a whole new it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to her; a world of sequinsthis book, heelsbecause it tells the truth as it is, glitterballs and lifelong friendsin the early 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780722540</amazonuk>1526644827

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A P McCoygareth_steel|title=Winner: My Racing LifeNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel

|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=In any walk I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories of a vet's life there are people who are universally known by their first names alone. In flat racing, everyone knows who have proved popular since 'Frankie' is All Creatures Great and in National Hunt you need say no more than Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'A.P.' Legend is an over-used word but definitely not when it comes to the achievements of Tony companion volume you'A.P.' McCoy. He's ve been champion jockey an unprecedented twenty times and his career record of 4,348 wins may never be beatenlooking for. In fact, it's tempting to say As a TV show the author would argue that it will ''neverAll Creatures'' be beatenlacked realism, as do other similar programmes. He's won Gareth Steel says that the Grand National, the Irish Grand National, two Cheltenham Gold Cups book is not suitable for younger readers and won the Champion Hurdle three times- after reading - I agree with him. Unusually for a jockey He says that he's also been BBC Sports Personality of the Yearwritten it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. He achieved all this by the age of forty one It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when he retired from racingyou would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409162397</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucie BrownleeDave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Life After YouSpeedy: Hurled Through Havoc

|summary= It was February 2012 when Brownlee's husband Mark, age 37, dropped dead in How to summarise the middle life of sex. They were staying at her mother's house Dave Letterfly Knodererv in advance a pithy sentence to kick off a review of her grandmother's funeral and trying to conceive their second child. Four years earlier Mark had suffered an aortic dissection, but his health had been stable since. Although there was little doubt in her mind that Mark died instantlymemoir? Do you know, she performed CPR while her three-year-old watched from the doorway, then called the policeI really don't think I can. Almost before she knew it, they were all in the midst of planning a second family funeral: discussing flower arrangements, cremation and charity donations. How did it come to this?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753555840</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|Dave is an author=Dan Marshall|title=Home Is Burning: A Memoir|rating=3|genre=Autobiography|summary=Dan Marshall thought he had and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a perfect lifeprofessional horseman. He lived in Los Angeles, where he worked for And a cutting-edge public relations firm and had an attractive girlfriendrecovering alcoholic. SureThe son of a Lutheran minister, his mother, Debi, had non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but she had been living with it for 14 years and seemed no worse than ever. Cancer was normal for their family; it didnhe't interfere s struggled with Marshall's favourite activitya controlling father, 'acting like run away to join the circus (not a spoiled white asshole.' When his fathermetaphor), Bobtrained horses, was diagnosed with ALSpainted caravans, howeverdesigned and painted theatre sets, it was a different story. All five siblings in this Sedaris-like clan would have to pull together to help Bob cope with and hit rock bottom when the ravages of Lou Gehrig's diseasebottle took over.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00Z70VHXM</amazonuk>B0965V3LLN

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phyll MacDonald-Ross and I D Roberts0008350388|title=Bandaging the BlitzWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=''Why would anyone want To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to know about mebe seen as less desirable, dear?less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money''by Otegha Uwagba ' she said'0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

Everyone has an interesting story Otegha Uwagba came to tell. Yet how many life stories actually make it into printed form, perhaps because the individuals involved did not feel that anyone would be interested in their lives? This UK from Kenya when she was almost the case for Phyllis Macdonald-Ross, who served as a nurse in a busy London hospital during the Blitzfive years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was only thanks to her determined grandson and devoted husband that she finally decided to put mother who came first, with her memoirs down on paper and submit father joining them for publicationlater. The result is an exciting family was hard-working, principled and emotional coming-determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of-age story about money although this did not translate into a young nurse entering her training during one shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the most turbulent times family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in British historyLondon and then a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559911</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Bruce Hugman0571365884|title= Out My Mess is a Bit of Bounds|rating= 4|genre= Autobiography|summary= Author Bruce Hugman has been a school teacher, probation officer, smallholder, university lecturer, PR Professional, is an international communications consultant and teacher Life: Adventures in healthcare and patient safety. Having nursed two partners through the final stages of AIDS, and survived the 2004 Asian Tsunami. A varied and interesting life then – and it is the first thirty years of it that Hugman chooses to concentrate on here. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1508423709</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAnxiety|author=Alison Pick|title=Between GodsGeorgia Pritchett

|summary= Alison Pick's paternal grandparents escaped Czechoslovakia just before Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the Holocaust by bribing monsters under the Nazis for visas to Canada; bed were comfortable: it was the rest sort of the family died in Auschwitzlife where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. They spent their whole lives trying On a visit to pass a therapist, as Christians, and Pick's father, tooan adult, when she was reluctant completely unable to have anything to do speak about what was wrong with Judaism. Pick only learned he her it was Jewish through suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a conversation overheard when she was 11Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472225090</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ClarkeDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Low Life: The Spectator ColumnsA Tattoo on my Brain|rating=43.5

|summary=There Alzheimer's is a story disease that back in 1997 there were three deaths at about the same time slowly wears away your identity and God had taken the shift at the pearly gates to do the paperworksense of self. Princess Diana came first and was quickly followed I have been directly affected by Mother Teresathis cruel disease, as have many. Stories of their good works flowed out Your memories and God hated to admit it but he was little wearied. Still it was personality worn away like a statue over time affected the end of his shift... but then another soul appearedelements. Jeffrey Bernard! It was with relief seems as if nature wants that God dashed to the bar to get the first round infinal victory over you and your dignity.This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable.. There might have been high jinx in heaven but back on earth ''Life'' Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was not so clear cut diagnosed with Alzheimers and even Taki Theodoracopulos was a little worried. He wrote has documented his journey in ''High Life'' for the Spectator, but where would that be without its counterpoint, ''Low LifeA Tattoo on my Brain'' which had been written for years by Bernard? Fortunately there was an able replacement waiting in the wings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373912</amazonuk>1108838936

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tom Sperlinger1529109116|title= Romeo and Juliet in PalestineCall Me Red: Teaching Under OccupationA Shepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= AutobiographyLifestyle|summary= Towards ''I want the end image of a British farmer to simply be that of Tom Sperlingera person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don's first book, he says education can open peoplet think that is too much to ask.'s eyes, making them aware 'that we make assumptions all of  The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the time, without even knowing they are assumptionsland 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'Romeo s not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and Juliet in Palestinebrought up on the Wirral: Teaching Under Occupationshe'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she' is d always had a fine example deep love of this belief in learninganimals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, an assumption-shattering book that offers a new perspective whale scientist' and she was well on Palestinian her way to achieving this when her life not seen changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the news or in kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the papersdetermination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782796371</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elena Dunkle and Clare B Dunkle0008333173|title= Elena VanishingHungry: A Memoir of Wanting More|author=Grace Dent|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary= There’s a voice I'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the 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 time. You also ponder on how she can look so elegant with all that good food in Elena’s head, front of her. I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and it’s harsh. 'You’re a failure,' it says. Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'You’re a fat flabby mess.' And she agrees, she is both of those thingsa stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1452121516</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=1504321383|title=Ingrid von Oelhafen Single, Again, and Again, and Tim TateAgain|titleauthor=Hitler's Forgotten Children: My Life Inside the LebensbornLouisa Pateman|rating=4.5

|summary=''You see that name that credits the author of this book? Forget it, itcan's not accuratet be happy and fulfilled on your own. (I donYou are not complete until you find a man't mean Tim Tate's workmanlike, journalistic ghost writing, more of which later.) The narrator of this book did change her name by deed poll  This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to something like Ingrid von Oelhafen some time ago, but not exactly how she wantedbelieve. She grew up as Ingrid von Oelhafen, although that It wasn't unkind: it was simply the name of her father, who was so desperately absent, adults in being over a generation older than his wife, with whom he was separated. She might well have had her mother's maiden name if life advising her parents had divorced – and indeed her mother did move on as to have a second family, and was terribly distant herself – young Ingrid what they thought would plead and plead be best for her company while in a remote children's home, and a lot of family secrets were not passed down at opportune times. Oh, and legally, due to what little documentation It was to be seen, such as immunisation record cards, Ingrid was not Ingrid at reinforced by all, but Erika Matko. Through this book, we find she was not blood-kin with her brother, her step-brother was to die, those fairy tales where the girl (she was not blood-kin with her sister, but was her brother's, – oh, and even in this day and age you usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can still find a changeling foundlinglive happily ever after. Such incredibly convoluted family trees Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the fault of the Lebensbornexpectation 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>1783961201</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair McGuinnessSakinu Ahronglong|title=Half a World Away: Surviving the Move to a Land Down UnderHunter School

|summary=Sometimes you read about The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a particularly exciting time in an authorwork of fiction. That's life but later you find yourself wondering how they're doing, how life worked out for thempossibly misleading. Since I read [[Round am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the Bend: From Luton blurb goes on to Peru to Ningaloosay ''recollections, a Search for Life After Redundancy by Alistair McGuinness]]about eighteen months ago I've often wondered how he folklore and Fran were doing in Australia and I was delighted when autobiographical stories''Half . It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a World Away'' landed on my deskchild, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. When we left Ali But memory is a fickle thing, and Fran they'd had an exciting maybe poetic licence has taken over here and eventful year during which they'd travelled through Central there and South America maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and then on to Africa, but they were planning to settle down in Australiatherefore more people will read it. Don't worry if you haven't read ''Round the Bend'' as both books read well as stand alones and you can always go back to the first book later, can't you?More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00XIVXB68</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian McMillan1544641923|title=Neither Nowt Nor Summat: In search of the meaning of YorkshireAmbassadors Do It After Dinner|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=Ian McMillan, poet, radio presenter, poet in residence at Barnsley Football Club The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and professional Yorkshireman, is worriedSvante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. It has crossed his mind that he might not be ''Yorkshire enough''Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, given that his father was not from God's Own Countythen nine years old, but struggled with what was a Scot by birthhappening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a series of discursions on the subject of Yorkshire he attempts to distil the essence of the county and solution close to understand what being a Yorkshireman means. To this end we accompany him through towns and citieshome, the Cudworth Probus Clubbut eventually, Ilkley Moor and elicit contributions from Mad Geoff it became clear to the barber, family that they were ''burned-out people on a kazooburned-playing train guard and four Saddleworth council workers in search of a mattressout planet''. Amongst othersIf they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. All of Yorkshire life is here. Including Yorkshire puddings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959950</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mary Hazard191280493X|title= Sixty Years a Nurse|rating= 4.5|genre= Autobiography|summary=“Sixty Years a Nurse” is the remarkable true story Coming of Mary Hazard, who travelled from Ireland as a naïve teenager in 1952 to start life as a nurse in an NHS hospital. From a strict Catholic background, Mary's lifestyle choice had alienated her family, her mother in particular, who viewed the whole decision as doomed to failure. However, Mary proved her mother wrong and went on to become one of the longest serving nurses in the NHS with an interesting and varied career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000811837X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAge|author=Elizabeth Swados|title=My Depression : A Picture BookDanny Ryan

|summary=If you have ever suffered from depression you'll find 'He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it very difficult was to explain take him a further forty-eight years to other people how you're feelingrealise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience... You're not feeling '  'just a little bit down''. A treat or This a dollop memoir from someone you have never heard of positive thinking - but will not miraculously cure feel like youhave. You're definitely not swinging the lead, but suffering from a legitimate illness which deserves to be recognised. Elizabeth Swados is a long-term sufferer from severe depression: she's also a talented storyteller and has told her the story of how depression feels for her - complete with drawings, which fill in those gaps which words can never fill for any sufferer from depression.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1609806042</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Red Szell190874572X|title=The Blind Man of Hoy: A True StoryLetters from Tove|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)|rating=3.5

|summary=Redmond Széll was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) Back at age 19. It's now 26 years since he got the life-changing newsbeginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. Although not completely sightless – he sees shadows I met a wonderful Finnish woman and shapes – he is registered blind and walks with the stereotypical white stickwe became sort-of-friends. This hasnI can't stopped him from pursuing his hobby of rock-climbing, though, both indoors remember if it was on climbing walls and on Britain's cliffsthat holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove Jansson. I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The culmination of his climbing obsession came in 2013Summer Book, when he became and that I eagerly awaited the first blind person to climb the Old Man ''Sort Of'' translations of Hoy, the 449-foot cliff off the Orkney Islands rest of ScotlandJansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910124222</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vesna Goldsworthy1908745819|title=Chernobyl StrawberriesSurfacing |author=Kathleen Jamie|rating=45

|summary=A Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain book, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or not, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didn't like the book about . That's a woman from a war-shredded country, rare experience. People who discovers she has breast cancer…Not are sensitive to hearing a bundle of laughsbook calling your name, one would assumerarely get it wrong. One would be wrongIn this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''Chernobyl Strawberriesan older, less tethered sense of herself.'' is Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, amongst other thingsof those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, very funnyand substance most of all, about connection. Of course, this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quickly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524472</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Kemp1906852472|title=Caring for ShirleyWild Child: Growing Up a Nomad|author=Ian Mathie|rating=45

|summary=John Kemp's wife, Shirley, suffered from dementia and loss of coordination and for eight years he was her full-time carer as she was unable to walk unaided (well, she ''could'' - but it was likely to result in a serious fall) and took care of all her most personal needs. Probably the most heart-breaking part of this is that Shirley didn't recognise John as her husband - apart from 'give us a kiss', the question 'where's John?' was usually the first which sprang to her lips in any situation. Although she could often have quite an affable disposition she was capable of kicking and biting when she was being 'encouraged' to do something which she didn't want to do.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1479374245</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Michael Pronko|title=Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Adapting a Buddhist metaphor, Michael Pronko declares that 'writing about [Tokyo] is like catching fish with a hollow gourd.' In other words, it For Ian Mathie fans there is an elusive good and contradictory place that resists easy conclusionsbad news. Anyone who Ian has seen come up with the Bill Murray film ''Lost missing link in Translation'' will retain his narrative, the sense story of a glitteringvery unusual childhood (yes, bewildering place the very years that Westerners wander through in a daze. A long-term resident but still a perpetual outsider, Pronko is perfectly placed to notice made him the many odd and wonderful aspects of Tokyo lifeamazing man he became).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00PDH4KVA</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Derek Niemann|title=A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime Germany|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devilbad – well it's Dictionary to include the following hardly news two years later – ''family: noun; place where the greatest secrets are kept''. The Niemann family is no exception. It was long known that grandfather Karl was in Germany during the Second World War, people could easily work that out from the family biographybook is published posthumously. Yet little was spoken ofAs always, apart from him being an office-bound workerit's beautifully written, either in logistics or financewith many exciting moments. Since What I most enjoyed was the War two feeling that many of three surviving siblings had relocated to the Glasgow environs, and there was even a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (questions in Ian Mathie''family: noun; place where the worst things s later books are spoken answered in the best way'')Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. What was a surprise to our author, and many of his relatives, was Seemingly all that things were a lot closer to the former than had been expected, for Karl was such an office worker – for the SS. With a lot of family history finally out of the closet of silent mouths, and with incriminating photographic evidence revealed 's now left in unlikely ways, the whole truth can be known. But this drawer is certainly not just of interest to that one small familyunpublishable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erwin Mortier and Paul Vincent (translator)1999811402|title=Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of HoursPainting Snails|author=Stephen John Hartley

|summary=A chateau in the country. So farIt's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, a fine life behind but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. Just 65 years The answer would be something along the lines of age'try it and see'. 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 is now an A happy collection of three successful children&E consultant (part-time). Alzheimer's. You work I found out what's the one bummer in that circumstance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270213</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lena Mukhina and Amanda Love Darragh (translator)|title=The Diary of Lena Mukhina: A Girlthere's Life an awful lot more to what goes on in the Siege of Leningrad|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=If life as a girl of school-leaving age is hard enough, think about it when Major Trauma Centre than you're stuck in a great city under a horrendous siege. Lena Mukhinall ever glean from ''Casualty''s diary only covers half the 800-odd days the nightmare in Leningrad lasted, but so palpably singular were the circumstances that it feels like one is given isn't really what the clearest insight into what it was like, courtesy of these pagesbook's about. IThere've been there and never felt s a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the ghost real passion of the siege in the modern St PetersburgHartley's life, anything like (for example) but it didn't actually fit into the ruination of Warsaw had lived onentertainment genre either. But Did we have a dreadful time this was. At category for 'doing the peak times of Nazi oppression and aerial bombing, impossible the city lost 2 or 3 residentshard way' lives ? Yep - that''every minute'' of s the day on averageone. The city was desperate for fuel, and food – and this is a place where it can – and does here – snow in June. Without giving too much of the diet away, itIt's notable that later on Lena dreams of having a menagerie of small animals to live with – but no dogs or catsan autobiography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144726987X</amazonuk>