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Original poster

BEST EVER Autobiographies/Memoirs, What are your favourites????

82 replies

Uki · 27/04/2008 11:57

Hi

I admit I'm obsessed with Autobiograhies and memiors.

I've just finished

A Man called Dave- David Pelzer, excellent

Eat, Pray, Love- Elizabeth Gilbert- pretty funny

all time favs.
Desert Dawn - Waris Dirie
Fence around the Cuckoo- Ruth Park.

What are your favourites please?
Also Is Richard Bransons, losing my virginity , any good?

OP posts:
janeite · 27/04/2008 20:40

Oops - crossed posts! Great minds!

janeite · 27/04/2008 20:39

Isobel Allende's "Paula" and "My Invented Country" - amazing. Paula is about her daughter falling into a coma from which she never recovered and it is just exquisitely moving.

I quite enjoyed Madhur Jafrey's "Climbing The Mango Trees".

I was v disappointed by the John Peel, I must admit; too little John and too much of Sheila name dropping I thought.

lulu25 · 27/04/2008 20:39

(it is like a long letter to her daughter, who was sick and eventually died, about, er, where she came from, i.e. isabel's life)

sophiewd · 27/04/2008 20:38

Paula is fantastic

lulu25 · 27/04/2008 20:38

Isabel Allende - "Paula". Amazing.

fishie · 27/04/2008 20:38

janet hitchman, the king of the barbareens. is about growing up in care.

when hitler stole pink rabbit is super

lauren bacall's autob

wild swans v good for an insight into china but i wasn't completely gripped.

hmm no men.

ranting · 27/04/2008 20:33

John Peels' Margrave of the Marshes was very entertaining and not strictly an 'auto' biograpy but Rick Colemans Blue Monday about Fats Domino's life is a must read imo.

sophiewd · 27/04/2008 20:31

Peter Ustinovs is really interesting as well.

MargaretMountford · 27/04/2008 18:00

the Joe Strummer is very big and the author obv. was a good friend ( as he endlessly points out) - worth a read.. love the John Peel one - the family continue it really well...

TsarChasm · 27/04/2008 17:50

Ooh Joe Strummer appeals to me.

JPeel, yes I like that. To think his family had to finish though.

marina · 27/04/2008 15:10

Giles Smith - Lost in Music

Frank Muir - A Kentish Lad (might appeal to anyone feeling the loss of Humph at the moment, humour and outlook are not dissimilar)

Loved Siegfried Sassoon sophiewd - Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man is extremely funny, not what I expected tbh

Vera Brittain - Testament of Youth and Testament of Friendship (about Winifred Holtby)

James Aubrey's Brief Lives

MargaretMountford · 27/04/2008 15:06

TsarChasm - I loved The Moon's a Balloon - read it years ago,several times !
Biography of Joe Strummer is interesting and love Margrave of The Marshes - John Peel's...

MargaretMountford · 27/04/2008 15:04

oh and Alan Bennett's ...I love hearing about his mam

MargaretMountford · 27/04/2008 15:03

Toast - Nigel Slater

sophiewd · 27/04/2008 14:31

Siegfried Sassoons 2 memoirs are also good if you can get hold of them

suedonim · 27/04/2008 14:30

Any of the actor/writer Dirk Bogarde's memoirs, they're wonderful, if not altogether the unvarnished truth.

Original poster
Uki · 27/04/2008 13:22

WOW I haven't heard of many of these great. I was getting so flustered because i need to have another book in line to read after this one.

Don't know how i manage to read books at all, with 2 LO's but it does stop my brain turning to mush

any more???

OP posts:
marina · 27/04/2008 12:43

And actually, the older Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole gets, the more entertaining her satirical take on British life becomes

TsarChasm · 27/04/2008 12:40

David Niven 'The Moon's A Balloon' and then 'Bring on the Empty Horses'.

Clive James of course

I also read a good one about F Scott Fitzgerald once.

themildmanneredjanitor · 27/04/2008 12:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PatsyCline · 27/04/2008 12:37

Clive James is an old favourite and I had a great time reading Rupert Everett's book last year.

Alan Clarke's diaries are fab (even to a non-Tory voter).

I got a bit obsessed with historical diaries at one point - I loved Boswell, Fanny Burney and Pepys.

Patsy

Mercy · 27/04/2008 12:34

I'd forgotten that I've got KW's diaries too!

marina · 27/04/2008 12:29

Lorna Sage - Bad Blood
Hilary Mantel - Giving Up the Ghost
Robert Graves - Goodbye to All That
Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs

also love Joe Orton, Mercy - and Kenneth Williams' diaries are an interesting parallel read

Igotnewboots · 27/04/2008 12:25

Red China Blues-Jen Wong

Mercy · 27/04/2008 12:22

And Janet Frame.