Difference between revisions of "Newest Autobiography Reviews"

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[[Category:Autobiography|*]]
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mary McCarthy
|title=Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins
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|title=Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
|author=Gavin Francis
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=I know two books don't make a genre, but twice in recent years I have read autobiographical travelogues of men who felt too much was going on in their lives and their surroundings, and took themselves off to remote, isolated, extremely cold and inhospitable places.  One went to the shores of Lake Baikal, and shared his days hunting, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighbours.  Gavin Francis took himself south, to the edge of the Antarctic ice, to spend a year as a scientific doctor.  He wasn't able to be completely as alone as some have been in the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before the week-long annual changeover of staff was through.  Francis ends up with a baker's dozen of companions, in a place where – apart from the ice, sealing things up – only two lockable doors exist.  You might think this was a large group of people for someone wanting to be alone, but the very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in the huge emptiness of the landscape is the main point of this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956596X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Harry Redknapp
 
|title=Harry: My Autobiography
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=Everybody with an interest in football knows who ''Harry'' is.  The cover of his book won't tell you who he is, but if you're not in the know it's Harry Redknapp - football manager and for many of us, something of a national treasure.  He's the manager who's seen it all, having started at rock bottom - a 70s Portakabin at Oxford City  - and risen to the heights of managing Tottenham Hotspur in the Premiership. At the same time he was the popular choice for the England Manager's job when Capello threw in the towel.  It's fair to say that Harry has lived his football life to the full and anyone buying this book will get their money's worth.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091917875</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Love, Nina
 
|author=Nina Stibbe
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When I began reading this book I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it.  I didn't quite know how to take the Nina from the title.  She's a twenty year old Nanny, employed by the editor of the London Review of Books and living near Regent's Park in North London. The book contains her letters to her sister, Victoria living at home in Leicestershire, and tell of the events and happenings in her life as a Nanny and then, going on, in her life as a student at Thames Polytechnic.  Initially it felt like she was name dropping - Alan Bennett lives over the road and drops in for dinner most days; the father of Will and Sam, the two boys she is nannying, is Stephen Frears; down the road lives Claire Tomalin and her partner Michael Frayn...and yet, given chance, you begin to see that she isn't awed by the notoriety of these people (indeed, she tells her sister that Alan Bennett was in Coronation Street!) and actually they are just the neighbours and so it is less important that Alan Bennett (AB as he's referred to in the book) comes around for dinner every night since he isn't there for fame value but rather for his own unique place in this rather crazy family life memoir!
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|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922765</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804271659
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Virginie Despentes
|title=Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time
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|title=King Kong Theory
|author=Penelope Lively
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Now aged 80, Penelope Lively, the Booker Prize-winning author of twenty works of fiction including ''Moon Tiger'' (1987) and ''How It All Began'' (2011), is increasingly conscious of death approaching. It may be true that, as concluded in [[Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes]], 'we cannot truly savour life without a regular awareness of extinction', but this memoir is less a ''memento mori'' than an agreeably scattered tour through Lively's life and times.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146380</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tony Benn
 
|title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Autobiography  
|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situation. He's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.''  I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?
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|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>
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|isbn=191309734X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Joan Didion
|author=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee and Howard Webster
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|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|title=Canton Elegy: A Father's Letter of Sacrifice, Survival and Love
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Stephen Jin-Nom Lee, known in his childhood as Ah Nom, was born early in the twentieth century in the village of Dai Waan in rural China. His father died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother, mother and 'Little Uncle', who was only a matter of months older than Ah Nom.  They'd become friends as they grew older, but when his Grandfather returned after a long absence in America there as a distinct rivalry between the two.  Then Grandfather revealed his reason for returning home - he intended to take the boys to America to be educated.  It was a wonderful opportunity and Ah Nom left the village and his mother not knowing when he would see either again.
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|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285736</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0007216858
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1787333175
|title=My Life
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=David Jason
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Popular Science
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|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography.  ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist.  I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0241636604
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
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|author=Gary Stevenson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in North London in February 1940 during the early years of the Second World War, David John White once had a brief career as an electricianFortunately for the world of entertainment and the public, he soon forsook the world of fuses and wires for that of the stage and small screen. When he joined Equity, they already had a David White on their records, and after a little quick thinking on the phone, he became David Jason.
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|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson.  A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice.  There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics.  Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy.  He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.  It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with CitibankEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780891407</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529395224
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|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet
 +
|author=Sion Rowlands
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Animals and Wildlife
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|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally.  His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him.  Before long, he was at Liverpool University.  It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child.  If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
|title=A Piece of Danish Happiness
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|author=Sharmi Albrechtsen
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon.  The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
Sharmi Albrechtsen was a true Hindu-American princess. Obsessed with shoes and handbags and designer labels, she saw status and wealth as the only route to happiness. But she wasn't happy enough, no matter how much designer gear she owned. And it wasn't until 1997, when she married her second husband, a Dane, and relocated to Denmark, that she began to wonder if it was something lacking in herself, rather than her possessions, that was at the root of her problems.
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|isbn=1474616720
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00EAINZM8</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1035025299
|title=The True German: The Diary of a World War II Military Judge
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|title=Went to London, Took the Dog
|author=Werner Otto Muller-Hill and Benjamin Carter Hett
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|author=Nina Stibbe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=We've had diaries of teenagers, opium addicts, drug smugglers, and a lot more.  Some of them have been optimistic, happy things, and many not.  Clearly World War II was not a place for a terribly cheerful outlook, whatever the diarist.  However sometimes it was not the done thing to be pessimistic, for example when you were in the huge German military and were publicly denigrating the dreamt-of Nazi successSuch ''corrosion of morale'' would mean you being put in front of a three-man military tribunal, and most probably sentenced for such treacherous behaviour.  The startling thing about this book, however, is that it contains much that would certainly have been deemed ''corrosion of morale'', yet it was written by one of the very military judges who served on those panels.
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|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsShe's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect.  The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1137278544</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Fowler
|title=Hospice Voices: Lessons for Living at the End of Life
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|title=Word Monkey
|author=Eric Lindner
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Hospice Voices'' tells the stories of the last days of some fascinating people while it follows author Eric Lindner through his journey as a hospice volunteer and a crisis in his own daughter's health.  
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|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia.  I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut.  The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either.  When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack.  No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis.  There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does.  He did.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1442220597</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857529625
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|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.
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|isbn=1472284852
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1638485216
|title=Lucky Me: My Life With - And Without - My Mom, Shirley MacLaine
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|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Sachi Parker with Frederick Stroppel
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|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in Los Angeles, raised in Tokyo, and schooled across Europe, Sachi Parker had already lead an eventful life before she turned 18. Add to the mix a secretive father with an explosive temper and a Hollywood icon for a mother and you have enough stories to fill a book.
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|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
  
And that's exactly what she's done.  
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''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1592407889</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.
|title=Monkeys in my Garden: Unbelievable but true stories of my life in Mozambique
 
|author=Valerie Pixley
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Valerie Pixley and her husband O'D live in Mozambique, amidst its rapidly disappearing forests. Monkeys in my Garden tells the story of what life is like in the Nhamacoa Forest and how they came to be there. It opens with a terrifying scene: armed bandits in their bedroom in the middle of the night.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00DUF1LXM</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and  Agnes Bromme (Translator)
|title=The Boy on the Wooden Box
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|title=I May Be Wrong
|author=Leon Leyson
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre= Autobiography
|summary=This is the memoir of one of the youngest people on Oskar Schindler's famous list of Jews saved from the Nazis during World War II. It opens between the wars, with Leon's family living in the small Polish town of Narewka. There wasn't much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in the hopes of making a better life and when Leon and his siblings eventually join him, you can feel the wonder of a little boy new to the big city.  
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|summary= When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CWEHR2G</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526644827
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=gareth_steel
|title=Wicked Games
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|title=Never Work With Animals
|author=Kelly Lawrence
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|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Animals and Wildlife
|summary=Sometimes you read a book that is supposed to be fiction, and immediately question whether it isn’t a true story loosely fictionalised and with a few character names changed, so the author doesn’t lose face if it’s not well received. ''Wicked Games'' is no such book, because you’re told from the outset that it’s a real life erotic memoir. And, while the author still has some discretion regarding how much or how little she shares, you genuinely come away feeling like you’ve just read a startlingly intimate description of a real person’s private life.
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|summary=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 have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753541718</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer
|author=Will Cohu
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|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc
|title=The Wolf Pit
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Up on the north Yorkshire Moors there’s a feature of the landscape known as the Wolf Pit.  It’s thought to be a medieval trap into which wolves were driven, but as you get close to it, it’s difficult to locate, marked only by a change in the light, a slope of the ground.  Will Cohu doesn’t concentrate on the pit but rather on nearby Bramble Carr, the remote moorland cottage to which his grandparents moved in 1966, almost on a whim and certainly with insufficient thought. George Brook was a manager at ICI in Billingham and Dorothy was an artist and musician. They’d been brought together by a shared love of the arts but once installed at Bramble Carr and with little more than each other for company the marriage deteriorated into dark silence.
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|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542358</amazonuk>
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Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over.
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|isbn=B0965V3LLN
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008350388
 +
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
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|author=Otegha Uwagba
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Politics and Society
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|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
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''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
|author=Judith Kerr
 
|title=Judith Kerr's Creatures: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Judith Kerr
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliable, but always impressive. One of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]].  For decades she's been delighting our children (and grandchildren) but it still came as something of a surprise to discover that she would be ninety in June 2013. To celebrate this, Harper Collins have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but that of the ''creatures'' - the characters in her books and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life.  It is, though, far more than just an autobiography with a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabilia.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old.  Her sisters were seven and nine.  It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them laterThe family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible.  There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvestedWhen Otegha was ten the family acquired a carFor Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
|author=Gregg Wallace
 
|title=Life on a Plate: The Autobiography
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=I remember the early days of ''Masterchef'' when members of the public practiced certain dishes until they couldn't get them wrong and then presented them to be judgedOnce it got past the point where you could be reasonably certain that there wouldn't be a major disaster with ''no'' food on the table it all got rather boring and finally fadedIt had a reincarnation though, largely fronted by chef John Torode and greengrocer Gregg WallaceGone are the days when people said ''Greengrocer?'' as though they were referring to some lower life form and it's generally acknowledged that Wallace is a good anchor (and better as he's grown in confidence) and that he has a great palate. But where did he come from?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409143910</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Wakefield
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|isbn=0571365884
|title=Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
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|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Kurt Vonnegut: Letters'' is a fascinating tome of personal correspondences between one of the greats in American literature and the several individuals and institutions whose paths he’d crossed. Written from the early forties up until 2007, the year of Vonnegut's untimely death, these letters enable readers to understand the workings of the mind behind classics such as ''Slaughterhouse-Five'' and ''Cat's Cradle''.
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|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child.  She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582937</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker
|author=Neil Ansell
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|title=A Tattoo on my Brain
|title=Deer Island
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Neil Ansell volunteered in the 1980s to work for an organization that provided support for the homeless. These homeless were the people other shelters would reject for various reasons (drink, drugs, etc.) but the group Neil worked for were a little different to most similar charities. Due to this Neil experienced some of the worst case scenarios of being down and out in London, and along the way befriended many interesting but ultimately ill-fated people. To escape and recover from a life full of brief friendships, poverty and untimely death Neil travelled to the Isle of Jura off the West coast of Scotland. Jura came to be a special place for him and of all places in the world it was the one most in his heart. Deer Island is Neil’s account of his life in the 1980s and his discovery of Jura; it is, in effect, his love song to the island that has been his sanctuary.
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|summary=Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908213132</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1108838936
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529109116
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|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
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|author=Hannah Jackson
 +
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Lifestyle
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|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
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The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have farmed for generations.  He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer.  It's not always the case though.  Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of animals.  Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District.  She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd.  With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.
|author=Kristine Barnett
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}}
|title=The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0008333173
 +
|title=Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More
 +
|author=Grace Dent
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The tutor stands at the front of the university class, frantically scribbling equations on the large whiteboard in front of him. He is well respected by his students; an expert in several fields, including general relativity, string theory, quantum field theory and biophysics. In fact, he recently unveiled a brand new theory that may put him in line for a Nobel Prize.
+
|summary=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 front of her. I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and ''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures.
 
 
Oh, and did I forget to mention that he is just 14 years old?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241145627</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1504321383
|author=Simon Dawson
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|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|title=Pigs in Clover: Or How I Accidentally Fell in Love with the Good Life
+
|author=Louisa Pateman
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Simon Dawson really had no intention of leading a life of self-sufficiency - he accidentally fell into the beginnings of it at a New Year's Eve party which was a little too noisy for him to be completely certain what it was he was agreeing toBut even then there was no need for it to go too far.  After all, this man's heart was in London and he was an estate agent - a member of the profession whose place at the top of the opprobrium ladder was only made wobbly after a serious PR campaign on behalf of journalists and politicians.  But his wife was determined that she couldn't stand being a property solicitor any longer and so they sold their flat in London and rented a property on Exmoor and Simon began a weekly commute - weekends in Devon and most of the week in London.
+
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your ownYou are not complete until you find a man''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780285019</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.  It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.  It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
|author=Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
 
|title=The Woman who Changed Her Brain: How We Can Shape our Minds and Other Tales of Cognitive Transformation
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Imagine feeling like a stranger in your own body, unable to comprehend the world around you. Symbols, words and numbers swirl in an unintelligible mix on the page and make no sense at all. Activities that others perform with ease are a struggle for you, leading to deep feelings of frustration. This was the challenge that Barbara-Arrowsmith-Young faced daily as a result of her complex learning disabilities. Her intense feelings of despair even caused her to attempt suicide.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563584</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sakinu Ahronglong
|author=Colin Grant
+
|title=Hunter School
|title=Bageye at the Wheel: A 1970s Childhood in Suburbia
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Growing up as one of the few black children in Luton in the 1970s, Colin Grant was in awe of his father, always known as Bageye. In this memoir of his childhood, he looks back at his own early years and the impact his feckless dad - and his friends, or spars, such as Summer Wear, Tidy Boots, Anxious and Pioneer - had on him.
+
|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading.  I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''.  It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true.  But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it.  More people should.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552396</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1999791282
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1544641923
|author=Malcolm Philips
+
|title=Ambassadors Do It After Dinner
|title=Jobsworth: Confessions of the Man from the Council
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|author=Sandra Aragona
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Local government isn’t what it used to be. People say this with regret, but reading Malcolm Philips’ memoir you will probably be left with the impression that this is a Very Good Thing. Because fun as it may have been to be working in the council in the 60s and 70s, if this entertaining account is anything to go by, it was also an awful shambles.  
+
|summary=It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious.  It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that 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 diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter.  She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909183156</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0241446732
|author=Anna Quindlen
+
|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis
|title=Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
+
|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=I first encountered Anna Quindlen when I read [[Life with Beau: A Tale of a Dog and His Family by Anna Quindlen|Life with Beau: A Tale of a Dog and His Family]]I'm a sucker for non-fiction books about dogs but what struck me was that the book could have been trite. Instead it was elegant, witty and with a real eye for detail and social nuance.  It was genuinely about life ''with'' Beau and what the family learned from him rather than - as so many such books are - what the family had done for the dogThe book struck a particular chord with me as our older dog was, we knew, on borrowed time (although her innate stubbornness kept her going for another two years) and Quindlen helped me to think about what Rosie had given us.
+
|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal.  Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughtersThen eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''.  If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955903X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mac Carty
+
|isbn=191280493X
|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on the Margate Sands of Time)
+
|title=Coming of Age
 +
|author=Danny Ryan
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for 'The Vagaries of Swing' was the BBC television series 'True Love' which portrayed a series of romantic encounters all set by the sea in his home town of Margate. But Carty has taken the original idea - about relationships between people - and run with it, extending ''love'' into ''passion'', say for cricket, or (at the other end of the scale) as a human encounter which ends in violence.  Whilst the television series might have been the catalyst for the book there was another and probably more compelling reason.  When his friend Mike died he realised that he had no one with whom to share his fund of stories about growing up in Margate, all of which had been revisited on a regular basis and usually over a pint. I've just read the result.
+
|summary=''He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
 
 +
''This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have.''
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=190874572X
|author=Rupert Christiansen
+
|title=Letters from Tove
|title=I Know You're Going to be Happy: A Story of Love and Betrayal
+
|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Kathleen Lyon, whose family were respectable and hard working but with no claim to celebrity other than a distant relationship to the [[The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham by Michael Jago|Earl of Clanmorris]] married Michael Christiansen, scion of a newspaper family, in a fashionable London church in 1948.  Both were talented and successful journalists and they were very much in love. ''I know you're going to be happy'', wrote a senior Fleet Street figure and Rupert Christiansen wryly points out that this was too tempting to fateThere were two children of the marriage and when Rupert was four and his sister Anna just a few months old Michael Christiansen announced to the family that a photographer from his paper would be coming to take pictures of them all that afternoon - and he then told his wife that their eleven-year marriage was over and he was leaving to live with his secretary.
+
|summary=Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was on that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had to read Tove JanssonI do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort Of'' translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721242</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1908745819
|author=Mollie Moran
+
|title=Surfacing
|title=Aprons and Silver Spoons
+
|author=Kathleen Jamie
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=At the tender age of 14, young Mollie Browne was forced to put her idyllic childhood behind her and embark on the world of work. Rebellious and strong-willed, young Mollie had no intentions of working in her grandmother’s shop as her parents had planned and sought to escape her small-town life in rural Norfolk. Fortunately for Mollie, a position was available for a scullery maid in a townhouse in Kensington. Would this free spirit manage to make the transition from carefree days climbing trees to working 15 hour sessions of repetitive, back-breaking toil?
+
|summary=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. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why.  The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.''  Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am.  Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and 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>0718159993</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1906852472
|author=Helga Weiss
+
|title=Wild Child: Growing Up a Nomad
|title=Helga's Diary: A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp
+
|author=Ian Mathie
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This seems to be quite a rare book, and I doubt if there will be too many further examples in the years to come. I don't mean to say that Holocaust testimonies are thin on the ground, for I've reviewed several on this site recently. I mean the fact that this is newly published and by an author who is still alive. There is something a little heart-warming to know that this lady was living and able to be interviewed by her translator in 2011, and presumably able to answer his editorial notes and queries.  Of course, that fact does highlight the selling point of this book – the author was a very young girl when WWII started.
+
|summary=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 very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in ''Wild Child'' with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921416</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1999811402
|author=Michael Jago
+
|title=Painting Snails
|title=The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham
+
|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris, volunteered to serve in the army at the outbreak of the Second World War, but his sight prevented front-line service and he joined MI5Prior to this he’d been a journalist, working on the '’Hull Daily Mail’’ before moving to Fleet StreetHe found a natural home in MI5 and a considerable talent for interrogationAt a time when spies are thought of as being flamboyant, he was the opposite - a small, bespectacled man who could easily blend into the backgroundHis greatest skill was that he was a patient listener. [[:Category:John Le Carre|John Le Carre]] has said that nobody who knew John and the work he was doing could have missed the description of Smiley in his [[Call for the Dead by John le Carre|first novel]]Le Carre was a junior colleague in MI5.
+
|summary=It'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, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results.  The answer would be something along the lines of '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&E consultant (part-time)I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't really what the book's aboutThere's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre eitherDid we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the oneIt's an autobiography.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849545138</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Biography Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 14:14, 16 December 2024

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Review of

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy

4star.jpg Autobiography

Mary McCarthy describes herself as an amateur architect, obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her burning interest in the past to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing. Full Review

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Review of

King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes

4star.jpg Autobiography

King Kong Theory is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays. Full Review

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Review of

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear. Full Review

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Review of

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse

5star.jpg Popular Science

I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book This is Going to Hurt, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. You Don't Have to be Mad... promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. Full Review

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

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Review of

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet by Sion Rowlands

3.5star.jpg Animals and Wildlife

Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer. Full Review

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

Went to London, Took the Dog by Nina Stibbe

4star.jpg Autobiography

Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent. Full Review

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Review of

Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler

5star.jpg Autobiography

It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed in, rain arrived, and I decided not to do that either. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did. Full Review

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Review of

Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal

4star.jpg Autobiography

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. Full Review

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Review of

Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement by Frederick Reynolds

5star.jpg Autobiography

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. Full Review

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Review of

I May Be Wrong by Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)

5star.jpg Autobiography

When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your book. I know, having read the book in question, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this book, because it tells the truth as it is, in the early 21st century. Full Review

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Review of

Never Work With Animals by Gareth Steel

4star.jpg Animals and Wildlife

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 have proved popular since All Creatures Great and Small but Never Work With Animals is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that All Creatures lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating. Full Review

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Review of

Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc by Dave Letterfly Knoderer

4star.jpg Autobiography

How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.


Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over. Full Review

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Review of

We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

5star.jpg Politics and Society

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

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

Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford. Full Review

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Review of

My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett

4star.jpg Autobiography

Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety is the result - or so we are given to believe. Full Review

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Review of

A Tattoo on my Brain by Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker

3.5star.jpg Autobiography

Alzheimer's is a disease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the elements. It seems as if nature wants that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Daniel Gibbs is a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and has documented his journey in A Tattoo on my Brain. Full Review

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Review of

Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey by Hannah Jackson

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.

The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where his family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of animals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition. Full Review

0008333173.jpg

Review of

Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More by Grace Dent

5star.jpg Autobiography

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 front of her. I've often wondered about the woman behind the media image and Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measures. Full Review

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Review of

Single, Again, and Again, and Again by Louisa Pateman

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man.

This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up without the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that a belief is a choice. Full Review

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Review of

Hunter School by Sakinu Ahronglong

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is as the blurb goes on to say recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should. Full Review

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Review of

Ambassadors Do It After Dinner by Sandra Aragona

4star.jpg Autobiography

It's tempting to think that the diplomatic life is privileged and luxurious. It might be privileged, but family connections tell me that 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 diplomatic spouse, the accompanying baggage, well, that's an entirely different matter. She (and it still usually is a 'she') can tell us exactly what goes on. Full Review

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Review of

Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis by Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

5star.jpg Politics and Society

The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were burned-out people on a burned-out planet. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. Full Review

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Review of

Coming of Age by Danny Ryan

4star.jpg Autobiography

He began writing novels and poetry at the age of twelve, but it was to take him a further forty-eight years to realise that he wasn’t very good at either. Consistently unpublished for all that time, he remains a shining example of hope over experience...


This a memoir from someone you have never heard of - but will feel like you have. Full Review

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Review of

Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)

5star.jpg Autobiography

Back at the beginning of the century, I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort-of-friends. I can't remember if it was on that 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 Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the Sort Of translations of the rest of Jansson's work and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands on them. Full Review

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Review of

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

5star.jpg Autobiography

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. That's a rare experience. People who are sensitive to hearing a book calling your name, rarely get it wrong. In this case, I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering an older, less tethered sense of herself. Older. Less tethered. That's not a bad description of where I am. Add to that my love of the natural world, of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that are about style not form, and 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. Full Review

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Review of

Wild Child: Growing Up a Nomad by Ian Mathie

5star.jpg Autobiography

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 very unusual childhood (yes, the very years that made him the amazing man he became). The bad – well it's hardly news two years later – is that the book is published posthumously. As always, it's beautifully written, with many exciting moments. What I most enjoyed was the feeling that many of the questions in Ian Mathie's later books are answered in Wild Child with a satisfying clunk. Seemingly all that's now left in the drawer is unpublishable. Full Review

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Review of

Painting Snails by Stephen John Hartley

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

It'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, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the lines of '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&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from Casualty, but that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the one. It's an autobiography. Full Review

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