Book picks similar to
Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin by Judith Tannenbaum
prison
memoir
poetry
biography
Ronnie
Ronnie Wood - 2007
For more than three decades since then, Ronnie, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts have formed the core of the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history. This book is Ronnie's autobiography, and like the band it can only be talked about in superlatives: it's simply one of the biggest, most outrageous, most extraordinary and most fun rock 'n' roll memoirs ever to be published.From early 1960s Britain, when acts like The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who and The Rolling Stones crisscrossed the country's club scene in clapped-out vans, barely making ends meet but having the time of their lives, through to the global mega stadium concerts of the 21st century (in 2006 the Stones played live to more than two million people in Rio), Ronnie takes us on a journey through his life and through rock history. Filled with unforgettable characters and truly eye-popping stories, his autobiography reveals Ronnie the husband, father, grandfather, artist and rock star the way you have never seen any rock star before.
Ronnie
is an up-front and personal look at life as a Rolling Stone, from the inside, and at the Stones as the rest of the world has never seen them. After
Ronnie
, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll will never be the same again.
The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir
Pam Ayres - 2011
Yet they lived by the green in the village of Stanford in the Vale, where everything you needed was within walking distance and the sound of motorcars was rarely heard. Then reaching her teens, Pam realised how few opportunities she had. At fifteen she started working for the civil service. Pam knew she had to reach out for more, and sought it first in the WRAF. But it was some time before she discovered the unique talent that would make her one of Britain's best-loved comics. Containing Pam's much-loved combination of humour and poignancy, The Necessary Aptitude is a beautifully written memoir of growing up in the country in post-war Berkshire.
Dick Bremer: Game Used: My Life in Stitches with the Minnesota Twins
Dick Bremer - 2020
Millions of fans have enjoyed Bremer’s observations, insight, and magical storytelling on television broadcasts. Now, in this striking memoir, the Minnesota native and lifelong Twins fan takes fans behind the mic, into the clubhouse, and beyond as only he can. Told through 108 unique anecdotes–one for each stitch in a baseball–Bremer weaves the tale of a lifetime, from childhood memories of the ballfield in remote Dumont, Minnesota, to his early radio days as the “Duke in the Dark,” to champagne soaked clubhouses in 1987 and 1991, and his encounters with Twins legends ranging from Calvin Griffith and Harmon Killebrew, to Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek, to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Game Used gives fans a rare seat alongside Bremer and his broadcast partners, including Killebrew, Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris, Jim Kaat, Tom Kelly, and other Twins legends.
On the Edge
Charlie Carroll - 2010
It's the perfect job - so why is he so bored? This is a shocking but humorous diary of life in a world most of us never see.
Harvest of Yesterdays
Gladys Taber - 1976
Taber shares memories of her childhood in the Southwest and Mexico as well as her married life and early pursuit of a writing career.
Bermondsey Boy: Memories of a Forgotten World
Tommy Steele - 2006
Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele .
In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz.
Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born .
From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.
Something Quite Peculiar
Steve Kilbey - 2014
Best known as the lead singer and enigmatic front man, songwriter, bassist of The Church, Steve has experienced both amazing international success and all the excesses that go with it, as well as a well known heroin addiction that delivered some very dark times. The Church has been a significant and constant influence on the Australian music industry and readers will be keen to hear from one of the industry's most successful, creative and long-standing key protagonists. Kilbey is Australian rock and roll royalty and for the first time this is his story. Come inside the world of Steve Kilbey singer songwriter and bassist of one of Australia's best loved bands, The Church. From his migrant ten pound pom childhood through his adolescence growing up during the advent of The Beatles, Dylan and The Stones to his early adventures in garage bands and neighbourhood jams. His misadventures with a full time job and a 9 to 5 life and wild adventures with The Church as they conquer Australia and then the world. The tours. The records. The women. And then the heroin addiction which enslaved him for ten long years. Then the two sets of twins he fathers along the way and branching off into acting, painting and writing. From snowy Sweden to a cell in New York City, from Ipanema beach to Bondi, Kilbey stumbles through his surrrealistic life as an idiot savant that will make you smile as well as want to kick him up the arse. After coming out the other side his tale is simply too good not to be told. Narrated with unusual and often pristine clarity we and with much focus on his considerable musical talent.
Before the Year Dot
June Brown - 2013
Autobiography
Whistle in the Wind: Life, death, detriment and dismissal in the NHS. A whistleblower's story
Peter Duffy - 2019
Charting his career pathway from auxiliary nurse and unskilled operating theatre orderly, he takes us through his progress to senior consultant surgeon and head of department. In 2015, and after blowing the whistle on a series of near misses, he reluctantly reported an avoidable death, cover-up and ongoing surgical risk-taking to the Care Quality Commission. Within months he was out of work and unemployed. Via avoidable deaths and errors, cover-ups, misuse of public funds, bullying, abuse and victimisation the author charts out in searing detail his demotion, punishments and exile from both family and NHS and the subsequent brutal legal process that followed his illegal dismissal. "Peter's love for his family and for what he does as a surgeon runs through the pages of this gripping book as he takes you on a journey to some of the darker areas of our NHS and legal system. As a society we need to face up to the appalling reality of what the NHS does to staff that speak up and how much public money it wastes fighting people that act in the public interest. Even a committed, award winning surgeon who transformed cancer services was not immune from attempts by the NHS to destroy him when he decided to stand up for patients and services. This is everyone's problem." Dr Chris Day, junior doctor and whistle-blower "As a fellow whistleblower in the same NHS Trust I recommend that everybody should read Peter's account. This is an incredibly important and unmissable portrayal of how toxic NHS management culture is harming patients and destroying the careers and lives of dedicated healthcare professionals. His bravery, dedication to his patients and commitment to exposing the truth is commendable. Read his book to learn the truth as to what is happening every day in NHS Trusts across the UK." Sue Allison, Morecambe Bay whistle-blower "Peter’s book has opened our eyes to a series of injustices that has not only destroyed his family life but revealed appalling wrong doings within the NHS. Our father was sadly a victim in a dysfunctional urological surgery department, where Peter was trying to make a difference against the odds. Our sincerest gratitude goes to a person who has tirelessly fought with passion, dignity and sheer determination against an organisation that wish to silence the honesty of a whistle-blower." Karen and Nicola Read, daughters of ‘Patient A’
Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me
Lucinda Franks - 2014
She’s a radical, self-styled hippie, and he is New York’s famous district attorney, a legal luminary of the establishment; she’s a prizewinning New York Times journalist who has chained herself to fences, bloodied draft files, and otherwise broken the law for her beliefs, and he is a secret iconoclast who could have put her in jail. Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me is the memoir of their triumph against the odds, their ongoing thirty-five-year marriage, a union between two people so deeply in love but so different—and with so many decades separating them—that their family and friends fought to keep them apart. Franks offers a confidential tour of their marriage, as well as the never-revealed, behind-the-scenes details of Morgenthau’s famous cases. We see a red-faced Ronald Lauder storm into Morgenthau’s office after the DA seizes a priceless Egon Schiele painting from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art; we witness the CIA dismissing Morgenthau’s discovery of the growing terrorist cell in New York that would become al-Qaeda headquarters. This is an unusually close look at the privates lives of two well-known people who have always refused to reveal themselves to the public.
Williams: A Different Kind of Life
Virginia Williams - 2018
The racing car constructor was on his way to Nice Airport on a spring afternoon in 1986 when he lost control of his car, suffering horrific injuries in a crash that left him a quadriplegic. For his wife, Ginny, the accident meant taking on new and unwanted roles as head of the household and family decision-maker, while also struggling to overcome the anger and grief she felt after the accident. In A Different Kind of Life, Ginny tells her story with honesty and humor, set against the glamorous backdrop of Formula One racing. She documents life before and after the devastating accident – from falling in love with Frank at first sight to learning how to cope with his needs after he became severely disabled but remained fiercely independent. A testament to the power of compassion and perseverance, A Different Kind of Life is a moving and inspirational story.
An Encyclopaedia of Myself
Jonathan Meades - 2014
Memory invents unbidden.’The 1950s were not grey. In Jonathan Meades’s detailed, petit-point memoir they are luridly polychromatic. They were peopled by embittered grotesques, bogus majors, vicious spinsters, reckless bohos, pompous boors, suicides. Death went dogging everywhere. Salisbury, where he was brought up, had two industries: God and the Cold War, both of which provided a cast of adults for the child to scrutinise – desiccated God-botherers on the one hand, gung-ho chemical warriors on the other. The title is grossly inaccurate. This book is, rather, a portrait of a disappeared provincial England, a time and place unpeeled with gruesome relish.
The LawDog Files: African Adventures
D. LawDog - 2017
But long before he put on the deputy's star, he grew up in Nigeria, where his experiences were equally unforgettable. In THE LAWDOG FILES: AFRICAN ADVENTURES, LawDog chronicles his encounters with everything from bush pilots, 15-foot pythons, pygmy mongooses, brigadier-captains, and Peace Corp hippies to the Nigerian space program. THE LAWDOG FILES: AFRICAN ADVENTURES are every bit as hilarious as the previous volume, as LawDog relates his unforgettable experiences in a laconic, self-deprecating manner that is funny in its own right. Africa wins again, and again, and again, but, so too does the reader in this sobering, but hilarious collection of true tales from the Dark Continent.
Too Many Reasons to Live
Rob Burrow - 2021
Rob Burrow is such a man – a pocket rocket of a player and a giant of a character. It has been a privilege to watch him play and to know him off the pitch. He is one in a million and his story is truly inspirational’
Clare Balding
‘I’m not giving in until my last breath’
Rob Burrow
Rob Burrow is one of the greatest rugby league players of all time. And the most inspirational. As a boy, Rob was told he was too small to play the sport. Even when he made his debut for Leeds Rhinos, people wrote him off as a novelty. But Rob never stopped proving people wrong. During his time at Leeds, for whom he played almost 500 games, he won eight Super League Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups and three World Club Challenges. He also played for his country in two World Cups. In December 2019, Rob was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, a rare degenerative condition, and given a couple of years to live. He was only 37, not long retired and had three young children. When he went public with the devastating news, the outpouring of affection and support was extraordinary. When it became clear that Rob was going to fight it all the way, sympathy turned to awe.This is the story of a tiny kid who adored rugby league but never should have made it - and ended up in the Leeds hall of fame. It's the story of a man who resolved to turn a terrible predicament into something positive - when he could have thrown the towel in. It's about the power of love, between Rob and his childhood sweetheart Lindsey; and of friendship, between Rob and his faithful team-mates. Far more than a sports memoir, Too Many Reasons to Live is a story of boundless courage and infinite kindness.
The Greek for Love: Live, Love and Loss in Corfu
James Chatto - 2005
Part memoir, part love story, part wildly scenic travel piece, 'The Greek for Love' is James Chatto's account of life on Corfu, recalling the idyllic lifestyle and hospitable reception of the islanders.