==Autobiography==
{{newreview
|author=Tony Fitzjohn
|title=Born Wild: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Passion for Lions and for Africa
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Maybe it's just my rock-chick nature but "Born Wild" feels a little clunky as titles go. Surely it should have been "Born To Be Wild"? Perhaps that phrase has been copyrighted and wasn't available. Or maybe Fitzjohn was deliberately referencing Joy Adamson's book "Born Free" – since much of the early part of his own time in Africa was spent with her husband George. "Born To Be Wild" would have been more accurate as well. Many of the animals we meet weren't born wild at all – though a good few of them got to live out the remainder of their days and die that way.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918911</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Judith Summers
|summary=Ian Mathie's association with Africa began when his father was posted to what was then Northern Rhodesia when Mathie was just four years old. School was in a convent and was run by German and Italian nuns and for a while he was the only white child amongst a couple of hundred Africans. Even when he was joined by others he was still part of an ethnic minority although he didn't realise it! He was taught in the local language and grew up with the local children. It was his home and was to be the centre of his life for decades to come.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955312418</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carole White and Sian Williams
|title=Struggle or Starve
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girls' and women's lives in South Wales between the wars. This is a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit
|title=Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In early 2005, a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day to day life in Baghdad, and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections there. May's detailed and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Bee, and a friendship develops between the two women. They tell each other about their work, relationships and family lives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141038535</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chinua Achebe
|title=The Education of a British-Protected Child
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gabriel Weston
|title=Direct Red
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Few people have the ability to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargon. Gabriel Weston is one such – and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours. She's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dana Fowley
|title=How Could She?
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the same. She was raped by her mother's partner and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of those.
Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse and organised much of it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Val Doonican
|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete Autobiography
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the 1960s, if Harold Wilson was the personification of politics and the Beatles the collective icon of youth culture, Val Doonican was similarly at the very apex of light entertainment. He may no longer have such a high profile – but he's outlasted them both. Over four decades he has refused to bow to passing fads and fashions, remained true to himself, and in the process he has never really put a foot wrong. As he says towards the end, 'When you find out what it is you do best, and what the public wants from you, then stick with it, and do it as well as you can.' With the possible exception of his contemporary and long-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult to think of another person in showbiz who comes across as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Aeronwy Thomas
|title=My Father's Places: A portrait of childhood by Dylan Thomas' daughter
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Aeronwy Thomas was six years old when she and her family came to settle after a nomadic existence at Laugharne, on the Welsh coast, in 1949. Dylan used to broadcast regularly on the BBC, and while he continued to travel to London regularly for the purpose (as well as to carouse with friends in his old haunts), somewhere off the beaten track was a more suitable working environment.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010056</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Palin
|title=Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Never meet your heroes,'' goes the old adage. ''Never read their diaries'' might be equally sage advice. That's probably why I didn't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero of my teenage years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075382177X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shirley Williams
|title=Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Who could resist a title like that? And is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent in libraries? The answer to the latter is no.
Shirley Catlin, as she was born, tells us in the early pages of this memoir that during her childhood her father encouraged her to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea house, right up to the ceiling. It was a secret between the two of them, as her mother, Testament of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken arms.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084760</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jose Saramago
|title=Small Memories
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Having been born in 1922 and lived through so much of the twentieth century, with an author's view of change and people, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced a lot. Civil Wars in the neighbouring Spain; the growth of his country - which still left it as western Europe's poorest. Here he allows us witness to his mind drifting through his childhood, in the country and in Lisbon, and provides a subtle and gentle memoir.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>
}}
