Autobiography recommendations

[hennipenni]

Currently reading and enjoying Bob Mortimer and it’s got me in the mood for reading more autobiographies.
Any recommendations please? I need to fill my boots!

Bump

Let It Go, Dame Stephanie Shirley. Awesome woman.

George Melly: Owning Up, Rum Bum and Concertina, Scouse Mouse. Very funny, extremely well-written.

Peter O’toole
Loitering with intent.

There's one called Slipstream by Elizabeth Jane Howard that I loved. She wrote The Cazalet Chronicles and married Kingsley Amis before divorcing him for his alcoholism. She also had a lot of lovers and a really interesting life

Hungry - Grace Dent. We are very mixed ages in my book group and not all have English as first language but was very popular. It's really funny mostly but like the Bob Mortimer one, things that really take you aback.

It's an old one but Paul Gascoigne by Hunter Davies, written when he was in a good place. I'm not a football fan or anything but it was so addictive and he's very honest about his faults and not in a poor me way either.

Lowborn - Kerry Hudson. A bit like a British version of "Educated' (also brilliant).

I’ve enjoyed How To Be A Boy, The World I fell Out of and Lady in Waiting.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Albertine, Viv
So interesting and honest.

Acid for the Children by Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Had no idea about his young life.

How Not to be a Boy by Robert Webb, I could totally identify with Roberts rural childhood.

David Mitchell: Back Story, very funny and a beautiful love story.

I loved "Everybody died so I got a dog" by Emily Dean - heartbreaking but also very funny. "Educated" by Tara Westover is amazing. I also loved "Bookworm" by Lucy Mangan (if you read a lot as a child, this is a real trip down memory lane, as well as being a funny memoir). Another vote for "Hungry" by Grace Dent too.

Miriam Margolyes
Billy Connolly

Miriam Margolyes’ “This Much Is True” is very entertaining.

I also loved Chris Packham’s “Fingers In The Sparkle Jar”, in which he talks about his experience growing up with what was later diagnosed as Asperger’s. It’s really powerful, beautifully written, and has really stayed with me.

I "read" Miriam Margolyse as an audio book and I highly recommend it like that as she is such a good story teller.

Yes, same! Such a brilliant delivery. And when she swears to high heaven in her beautiful accent, it’s doubly funny. I wasn’t much of a fan before but have a huge soft spot for her now.

Richard E Grant 'With Nails' and'A Pocketful of Happiness'

Michelle Obama - becoming

Lily Allen

Just Kids by Patti Smith is amazing. As a teen she ran away to New York and met the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and it's the story of how they lived in New York's subculture while developing their art and establishing their careers.