|summary=To many of us, the very name Peake on the cover of a book will immediately suggest the creator of 'Gormenghast' and his family. We have had the occasional biography of Mervyn Peake from others, plus the recollections of his widow Maeve, and to join them, here is the story from another perspective altogether – that of their youngest child, daughter Clare.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780333854</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Roxy Freeman
|title=The Little Gypsy: A Life of Freedom, a Time of Secrets
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Roxy Freeman, born to a life of freedom and open roads, shares a gypsy caravan with her parents, brother and four sisters. As a child she may not have gone to school but from an early age her skills, suited to living off the land, surpassed those of her more traditional peers. However, her innocence is stolen from her by family friend, 'Uncle' Tony and her childhood becomes tainted by fear and secrets.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849833443</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot
|title=Dotter of Her Father's Eyes
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=If there's one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joyce's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with the same names too - James and Nora, both took to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but it's the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similarities, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now as more than able to produce a delightful graphic novel - [[:Category:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]].
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Holroyd
|title=A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Picture the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansion. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour of the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there was that tempestuous iconoclast, D.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. She, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends in the pages of annotated diaries which became ''A Book of Secrets''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Erica Heller
|title=Yossarian Slept Here
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life and living that is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creator, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt Whyman
|title=Pig in the Middle
|rating=4.5
|genre=Pets
|summary=
I'm so pleased I read this book. It's only the occasional writer who grabs me by the short and curlies with his observation of human nature, but accomplished children's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn
|title=Henry's Demons: Living with Schizophrenia. a Father and Son's Story
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=In February 2002 Patrick Cockburn was in Kabul, reporting to The Independent on the fall of the Taliban. While he was there he called his wife Jan at home in England, and was shocked to learn that their 20-year-old elder son Henry had been rescued by fishermen after coming close to death while swimming, fully clothed, in the icy waters of the Newhaven estuary. The police had decided that he was a danger to himself, and he was now in a mental hospital.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377033</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Lammy
|title=Out of the Ashes: Britain After the Riots
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Just about everyone in the country was shocked as pictures of the 2011 riots (which began in Tottenham and spread to other major cities in the UK) unfolded on our television screens. Everyone, that is, except David Lammy, MP for the area. He might not have known when it would happen or what would trigger the riot, but a year before, he said that it would happen. This wasn't a lucky guess: Lammy was born in Tottenham and brought up on the Broadwater Farm Estate as one of five children raised by his single-parent mother and he knows what's happening on the ground.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652674</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gillian Lynne
|title=A Dancer in Wartime: One Girl's Journey from the Blitz to Sadler's Wells
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=
At eight years old, Gill Pyrke was driving her parents crazy, as she couldn't sit still and was nicknamed ''wriggle-bottom''. Her mum took her to see the family GP and told him in great detail how annoying she was. The doctor asked if he could talk to Gill alone and put on some music. She started to dance around and climbed on to his desk. He prescribed ballet classes. She started off in a Bromley dance class where one of her classmates was later to be the famous ballerina Beryl Grey. This story is lovely and funny, and has lots of elements of a dream story, yet is told in a very down to earth style which makes it very convincing. The same could be said of the whole of Gillian Lynne's memoir of her early years, starting out on a brilliant career in dance.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185996</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jermaine Jackson
|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's Eyes
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=It is inevitable that the books we have already seen about Michael Jackson in the two years since his sudden passing will be merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet for those which comprise and are based on first-hand knowledge of his life and death, there will surely be few if any to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve Dennis.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jeanette Winterson
|title=Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=
I saw the BBC's 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit' a semi-autobiographical account of Winterson's childhood. This book's title is equally memorable and unique and we learn that it's a line Mrs Winterson said to the young Jeanette.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093452</amazonuk>
}}
