==Autobiography==
{{newreview
|author=Christopher Isherwood
|title=Diaries Volume 1
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In January 1939 Christopher Isherwood left England for America in the company of poet WH Auden. This hefty volume covers his diaries from that date until August 1960, when he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday. A 49-page introduction setting out the background leads us into the entries, which are divided into three sections – The Emigration, to the end of 1944; The Post-war Years, to 1956; and The Late Fifties. After these we have a chronology and glossary, or to put it more accurately a section of brief biographies of the main characters mentioned, these two sections comprising over a hundred pages altogether.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555824</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Burnside
|summary=Driving through northern California Steve Duno found a puppy by the side of the road. He was flea-bitten, tic infested, emaciated and suffering from an infection. His father was a Rottweiler and his mother a German Shepherd - both were guard dogs at the local marijuana farm. When Steve whistled the dog came to him and it's no exaggeration to say that in that moment his life changed. He'd always wanted a dog, but hadn't been able to have one as a child. There was a moment's indecision at the side of the road – and then Lou became Steve's dog.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330520024</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jim Perrin
|title=West: A Journey Through the Landscapes of Loss
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Where would you go if the love of your life, and your son, both died within a short few months of each other? Jim Perrin headed West - to the scraggly patches of land off Ireland, closer to the setting sun, nearer to the further horizon, beyond the noise, information and opinion of humanity. Of course, that question could also be answered in a more metaphoric way. Jim went inward, before coming outward. He suffered - "involuntarily, the tears have come. Who would have thought that death would release so many.." He also, although he would probably hate me for saying it, went on a "psycho-geographical ramble" - both in life, and in making this book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843546116</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=G Willow Wilson
|title=The Butterfly Mosque: A Young Woman's Journey to Love and Islam
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This memoir is told in the first person so straight away there is a connection with the reader. The story starts - not in Egypt - but in the USA. Willow (lovely name) says she's ''in the market for a philosophy.'' And in this search she is extremely thorough. She looks at mainstream religions - Christianity, Buddhism to name but two and puts them under the microscope, so to speak. She dismisses all of them before settling on Islam. It appears to offer what she is after, what she is looking for, that enigmatic thing. But also, there's some little twist which helps make her mind up. But not before she digs deep and seeks answers to complex and awkward questions. She reads and researches Islam and finds out surprising facts, which she shares with the reader. Willow is well-read and well-educated. She seems set for a good career of her choice on American soil. Why not settle for that? But she's set on travel to the Middle East come what may.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548283</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anna Del Conte
|title=Risotto with Nettles
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= People who are serious about food will know the name of Anna Del Conte. She's a serious writer about Italian food but not someone who has courted fame via the television screen. You'll have met her in places like 'Sainsbury's Magazine' or read some of her brilliant writing about the food of her native Italy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099505991</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Hutchinson
|title=Missing the Boat: Chasing a Childhood Sailing Dream
|rating=4
|genre=Sport
|summary=As a youngster in the nineteen eighties, Michael Hutchinson was passionate about sailing. He acquired a dinghy and crew, and spent his early years messing around on Belfast Lough. He learned to sail, race Mirrors and fling jellyfish accurately at passing competitors. In time, his salty daydreams became ambitious, encompassing the Olympic Games, America's Cup and Round the World yacht races. Trouble was, Hutchinson proved to be a deeply mediocre dinghy sailor, clocking up only one win in several seasons round the buoys. Although he was good enough at race tactics and seamanship, he lacked the sprinkling of gold dust that differentiates the very good performer from the brilliant. And so eventually, as is the way of sensible young men, he became disenchanted and stopped trying. Ironically, he then found he had a talent for cycling which took him as far as the Commonwealth Games.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552345</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Greg Baxter
|title=A Preparation for Death
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I've always been slightly wary of autobiographies which are written whilst the subject is still relatively young. They can often feel incomplete, particularly when you know the author is still successful in their chosen career. Frequently they are also written from an immediate perspective which time can alter thanks to hindsight.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141048433</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frances Woodsford
|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic Friendship
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and more. Meet, too, Frances Woodsford. She's reaching middle-age, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey and more. I suggest you do meet them, although neither ever met the other. Despite this they kept up a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60s. And as a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style comment.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter Beaumont
|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer. He joined the paper in 1989 and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of 'foreign affairs' that is better described as 'war reporting'. 'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years in the field. It is a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrapped.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gary Younge
|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Journalist Gary Younge’s book draws heavily on his articles for the Guardian newspaper, as he mentions in his acknowledgements, but it isn’t just a collection of his journalism. Who Are We? is partly a memoir and partly a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the politics and political impact of identity, including race, gender, language groups, religion, sexuality in various countries around the world. He sets out to explore 'To what extent can our various identities be mobilized to accentuate our universal humanity as opposed to separating us off into various, antagonistic camps?'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917036</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Jackson
|title=Moonwalk
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Michael Jackson's autobiography, based on tape-recorded conversations with his editor Shaye Ereheart, was first published in 1988. This new edition has an introduction by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records and his original mentor, and an afterword by Areheart about how the book was written. The main part of the book is a straight reprint of the original, with no updating at all. Intriguingly, although Gordy's four pages refer to is protégé in the past tense, calling him ''the greatest entertainer that ever lived', Areheart's writing, and also the cover, refer to him in the present. No reference anywhere is made to his untimely death.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547953</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Captain William Wells
|title=A Sailor's Tales
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Captain William Wells was born in New Zealand where his father ran a successful carpentry business, but his heart wasn't in following his father into the family firm or in most of the lessons at school. He was an enthusiastic sportsman but what enthralled him most were the ships sailing out of Wellington harbour, which he could see from his bedroom window. Without his parents' knowledge he applied for a scholarship which allowed six boys each year to travel to the UK and undertake their basic nautical training. Billy Wells, who previously had only got 2% in his English exam (his name was spelled correctly) had the second highest score in the country and was soon on his way to England.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095629040X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt MacAllester
|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's Kitchen
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, used to covering the horrors of war, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anne. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusual, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter of a century, trapped in her own private world of madness. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always at the centre of family life and with the help of Elizabeth David, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cooked.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Olga Alexandrovna, Paul Kulikovsky, Sue Woolmans and Karen Roth-Nicholls
|title=25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882, youngest child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and thus sister of the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II. Her first marriage to Prince Peter Oldenburg, who was probably gay, ended in an amicable divorce, and in 1916 she married Colonel Nicholas Kulikovsky. They escaped from Russia after the revolution, and settled in Denmark for nearly thirty years until, feeling threatened by Stalin’s regime, they moved to Canada. She outlived him by two years, dying in 1960.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906775168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Stewart
|title=Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Books about sailing fall into two sorts: those written by authors who know what they are talking about, (though sometimes they don't convey it too well) and those who don't have a clue, but like to think they do. Well, Chris Stewart may have started the book with a light and frothy touch as a novice sailor, but he ends up with the credentials of an Ancient Mariner.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003842</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Wolff
|title=The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdoch. Over four decades he's built News International into a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in the UK media is such that he's courted by politicians and has what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizen. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Neil MacFarquhar
|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''What are the chances of change in the Middle East?'' is the question central to this book. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length and breadth of the Islamic stronghold of the Middle East, I feel inclined to believe his in-depth assessment. In descriptive and reasoned terms, he identifies conservative forces which predominate in the region, primarily the religious and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernization. This discussion of attempts to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or the media, is strengthened in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations with particular reference to their readiness and motivation for change.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ronald Skirth and Duncan Barrett
|title=The Reluctant Tommy: An Extraordinary Memoir of the First World War
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Ronald Skirth was one of many young Englishmen of nineteen caught up in the First World War. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, was promoted to Corporal, and sent to the western front. Like most of his contemporaries, when he went he was an unquestioning servant of King and country, fighting for what he believed was right. On the battlefields of Flanders, one day he came across the body of Hans, a German soldier the same age, if not younger. The dead man's hand was clutching a photograph of his girlfriend, who could almost have been the twin sister of Ella, Skirth's own sweetheart. Like two of his friends who had just been killed, Hans had died as a result of the stupidity of others.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023074673X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lisa Lynch
|title=The C-Word
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In the beginning was the word, closely followed by the internet. The two combined to form the wonder that is blogging, and when that took off and people wanted a more concrete and permanent record, books quickly followed. Perhaps that's not ''exactly'' how the quote goes, but it's close enough. Breast cancer at twenty eight is not just scary and unusual. For journalist Lisa, it's downright inconvenient. But, when a stage three tumour bulges out of her boob, she decides to document her subsequent fight against the big C (or, as she affectionately calls it, ''The Bullshit'') online for all to see. The [http://alrighttit.blogspot.com/ blog] was a success, it garnered some famous fans ([[:Category:Stephen Fry|Stephen Fry]], among others) and a book offer followed. This is the result.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547546</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ngugi wa Thiong'o
|title=Dreams in a Time of War
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The interest in the lives of unfortunate children has created the
publishing phenomenon nicknamed 'misery memoirs'. Happily for readers
of Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s Dreams in a Time of War memories of the author’s often difficult childhood are presented as a tale of triumph and empowerment rather than anger and self-pity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553776</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gervase Phinn
|title=Road to the Dales: The Story of a Yorkshire Lad
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=As a teacher currently anticipating (I won't say looking forward to!) an OFSTED inspection, school inspectors aren't generally my favourite people. I'll make an exception for Gervase Phinn, though, as he's entertained me for many hours with his previous books on his time in the Dales doing the job. I was expecting his memoirs of his childhood to be equally entertaining – and feel slightly letdown, if I'm honest.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718149114</amazonuk>
}}
