Book picks similar to
Over My Dead Body: Forty Years on by June Opie


non-fiction
autobiographical
bev-s
science-and-medicine

Anatomy and Drawing


Victor Semon Pérard - 1928
    Explaining the subject in simple terms and with an extensive series of dynamic illustrations, the author identifies parts of the body and demonstrates a wide array of physical activities through his sketches.Following notes on proportion and drawing, chapters cover the human skeleton, head and neck, torso, arm, hand, leg, foot, and musculature. Numerous illustrations depict various views of these structures, movements of the human figure, as well as changes in the relative proportions of features at different ages.One of the best books in its field, Anatomy and Drawing helps demystify a complex subject by enabling students to visualize the muscles and bones under the skin, and covers just about everything a beginner needs to know about drawing the human anatomy.

Journals


Kurt Cobain - 2002
    His journals reveal an artist who loved music, who knew the history of rock, and who was determined to define his place in that history. Here is a mesmerizing, incomparable portrait of the most influential musician of his time.

A Kentish Lad: The Autobiography of Frank Muir


Frank Muir - 1997
    On programmes such as My Word! and My Music his distinctive voice became familiar to millions as he displayed an astonishingly well-stocked mind and a genius for ad libbing and outrageous puns. Later, working at the BBC and then at London Weekend Television, he produced some of the best television comedy of the 1960s and 70s. He has written highly successful books for children, and two bestselling anthologies of humour.Frank Muir recalls, in glorious detail, a happy 1920s childhood in the seaside town of Ramsgate, where he was born in his grandmother's pub in Broadstairs, and in London, where he attended an inexpensive but excellent school of a kind no longer to be found. He remembers his very first joke at the age of six, when he knew that his destiny was to make people laugh. He also knew from an early age that he wanted to write, but it took a childhood illness for him to discover that humour and writing could be combined. The death of his father forced him to leave school at the age of fourteen and work in a factory making carbon paper. Then, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RAF as an air photographer and his memories of the war years, as might be imagined, are engagingly different from the usual kind. It was during those years, with their rich fund of comic material, that he began his career as scriptwriter and performer. At his demob in 1945 he moved naturally to London and the Windmill Theatre, that remarkable breeding ground of talent where new comedians like Jimmy Edwards and Alfred Marks vied with nude girls for the attention of the audience. In story after story he recalls the lost world of London in the 1940s and early 50s, when the laughter and creative ideas seemed to explode out of post-war shabbiness and austerity. Then came the BBC, the legendary partnership with Denis Norden, and half a century of fulfilling the boyhood ambition of that Kentish lad. 'All I ever wanted to do was to write and amuse people.'

The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters


Charlotte Mosley - 2007
    As editor Charlotte Mosley notes, not since the Brontës have the members of a single family written so much about themselves, or have been so written about. The Mitfords offers an unparalleled look at these privileged sisters: Nancy, the scalding wit who transformed her family life into bestselling novels; Pamela, who craved nothing more than a quiet country life; Diana, the fascist jailed with her husband, Oswald Mosley, during World War II; Unity, a suicide, torn by her worship of Hitler and her loyalty to home; Jessica, the runaway Communist and fighter for social change; and Deborah, the genial socialite who found herself Duchess of Devonshire. Spanning the twentieth century, the magically vivid letters of the legendary Mitford sisters constitute not just a superb social and historical chronicle; they also provide an intimate portrait of the stormy but enduring relationships between six beautiful, gifted and radically different women who wrote to one another to confide, commiserate, tease, rage and gossip -- and above all, to amuse.

Your Life in My Hands: A Junior Doctor's Story


Rachel Clarke - 2017
    It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm.'How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person's life?In 'Your Life in My Hands', television journalist turned junior doctor Rachel Clarke captures the extraordinary realities of life on the NHS frontline. During last year's historic junior doctor strikes, Rachel was at the forefront of the campaign against the government's imposed contract upon young doctors. Her heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today's NHS is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's most vital public institution and a love letter of optimism and hope to that same health service.

Rants in the Dark: From One Tired Mama to Another


Emily Writes - 2017
    Her writing is often done then, and she offers her own often hilarious and always heart-warming experiences to other exhausted parents. She describes the frustrations as well as the tender moments of real parenting, as opposed to what you thought it was going to be like, or what well-meaning advice-givers tell you it should be like.A must-have for all new parents and parents-to-be.Emily's blogs have been wildly popular, as have her on-line columns with New Zealand Woman's Weekly and The New Zealand Herald.

Niv: The Authorised Biography of David Niven


Graham Lord - 2003
    Niv, according to his friends, was much the same off-screen. Both men and women were enchanted by his charisma, humour and joie-de-vivre. In addition to winning an Oscar for Separate Tables (1958), Niven was a polished writer, and published two volumes of lighthearted autobiography: THE MOON'S A BALLOON (1972) and BRING ON THE EMPTY HORSES (1975). Yet behind those twinkling eyes, Niv's life was punctuated by tragedy and he was often deeply unhappy. From the death of his father when Niven was five, to his mother's neglect and the stepfather he loathed, through to the death of his beloved first wife and his volatile and disturbing marriage to his second wife, Hjordis, tragedy and hardship were never far away. Graham Lord, using new material from Niven's private papers, manuscripts, unpublished stories and correspondence, has written a fresh, revealing, funny and poignant portrait of a brave and brilliant man. Fully authorised by Niven's family and drawing from dozens of interviews with stars, from Lauren Bacall to Roger Moore and Sir John Mills, NIV: the Authorised Biography of David Niven is a fitting tribute to one of Hollywood's greatest heroes.

Lolly Scramble: A Memoir of Little Consequence


Tony Martin - 2005
    Choosing to ignore his many dubious achievements in the world of Australian show business (Martin/Molloy, The Late Show, a short-lived but torrid affair with Sharon on Kath & Kim), New Zealand-born Martin instead recalls dozens of tiny life-changing moments that, frankly, could have happened to anybody.In damning personal testimony spanning nearly forty years on both sides of the Tasman, Martin wreaks havoc as an apprentice props man in amateur theatre, attempts to corrupt his school’s ‘weird religious kid’, tries vainly to seduce an unwilling babysitter, turns an entire tour bus against him, battles an addiction to Donkey Kong, seeks to master the art of ‘kerning’ under the tutelage of a tyrannical Geordie, and is forced to donate an unfeasible amount of blood in an attempt to save his own life.Lolly Scramble is a light but flavoursome assortment from a man who appears to have learnt very little from his many mistakes. Tuck right in, but don’t eat them all at once or you’ll spoil your dinner.

Allez Allez Allez: The Inside Story of the Resurgence of Liverpool FC, Champions of Europe 2019


Simon Hughes - 2019
    He takes them to Chapel Street, where the club’s business is determined, and to America, where it is owned. He takes them into Anfield, where many of the most important moments are defined, and he takes them on to the pitches of the Premier League and the Champions League, as we revisit how Liverpool stormed their way to the top of the Premier League this season.

Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words


Andrew Morton - 2004
    "Startlingly candid".--People. Includes never-before-seen photographs.

Life Among the Savages


Shirley Jackson - 1953
    But the writer possessed another side, one which is delightfully exposed in this hilariously charming memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont. Fans of Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Cheaper by the Dozen, and anything Erma Bombeck ever wrote will find much to recognize in Shirley Jackson's home and neighborhood: children who won't behave, cars that won't start, furnaces that break down, a pugnacious corner bully, household help that never stays, and a patient, capable husband who remains lovingly oblivious to the many thousands of things mothers and wives accomplish every single day."Our house," writes Jackson, "is old, noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books." Jackson's literary talents are in evidence everywhere, as is her trenchant, unsentimental wit. Yet there is no mistaking the happiness and love in these pages, which are crowded with the raucous voices of an extraordinary family living a wonderfully ordinary life.

Uncomfortably Numb: a memoir


Meredith O'Brien - 2020
    Then it spreads. Even though an MRI finds a “mass” on her brainstem, it takes two more years for Meredith O’Brien to learn what is causing that numbness. Months after her 65-year-old mother dies from a fast-moving cancer, weeks after her father is hospitalized and she experiences an unexpected job change, she learns she has multiple sclerosis.Suddenly, Meredith, a married mother of three teens, has to figure out how to move forward into a life she no longer recognizes. Reimagining her life as a writer and an educator, as a mother and a spouse, she has to adjust to the restrictions MS imposes on her. It is a life, altered.

Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns


Kerry Hudson - 2019
    The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. She scores eight out of ten on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. Twenty years later, Kerry’s life is unrecognisable. She’s a prizewinning novelist who has travelled the world. She has a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books. But she often finds herself looking over her shoulder, caught somehow between two worlds.Lowborn is Kerry’s exploration of where she came from, revisiting the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in Britain today and whether anything has changed. She also journeys into the hardest regions of her own childhood, because sometimes in order to move forwards we first have to look back.

What was I Thinking


Paul Henry - 2011
    It will keep you entertained for hours. It's the very unusual story of Paul Henry - from his eventful childhood to his adventurous career in journalism to his recent outrageous comments on television which divided the country.A natural-born story teller, Paul spins many great yarns in this book. It's fascinating insight into his complex character. He's surprising -- he doesn't adhere to any prescribed set of beliefs. He's bold -- he set himself up as an international news correspondent working out of his Masterton lounge. And he's versatile -- turning his hand to running a cafe, running for Parliament and running from terrorists.

This is Gail


Gail O'Brien - 2016
    In 2008, inspirational surgeon Chris O'Brien published his bestselling memoir of his battle with brain cancer, NEVER SAY DIE. But he wasn't the only person in the O'Brien household with a powerful story to tell. Since Chris passed away in 2009, his wife Gail has gone on a journey of her own: from a busy surgeon's wife and mother of a picture-perfect family to a widow in her mid-50s, grieving not only her husband but also her son Adam, who died as a result of epilepsy a short time after Chris's death. Yet in the midst of her grief, Gail discovered resolve and strength deep within herself. When Chris was alive, Gail was the woman behind the great man. But after his death, she stepped forward to make her own mark on the world. While coming to terms with both a public and private loss, Gail took on Chris's legacy as steward of the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse cancer centre, navigating the often bruising politics of boards and committees to ensure his vision was realised. She also went back to work as a physio after being out of the workforce for 20 years, while still holding her shattered family together. She reinvented herself and found that she could survive and even thrive in a world without her soul mate. A moving, inspiring, deeply poignant and often joyous story of family, love and loss - and ultimately, about finding your purpose in the world.