Memoir & Biography Archives - Page 4 of 6

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Dr Sparrow is back, coping with more bizarre, macabre and hilarious situations. Following his successful debut with Country Doctor, he once more guides us through the daily rounds of the weird and wonderful in his practice on the Devon/Cornwall border.

What would you do if faced with the unsuccessful resuscitation of the wrong patient, being held at gunpoint as a suspected terrorist or confronting a blind man who refuses to stop driving? And what about the little old lady who presents you with a supermarket bag stuffed with £20 notes? Add to this, jets crashing on the runway, fleeting glimpses of the Royal Genitalia and the haunting tale of the suicidal stranger and an abducted child – and you will start to have some idea of the unpredictable life of Dr Sparrow.

The Iris Trilogy

Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was one of the greatest British novelists and philosophers of the twentieth century. She read philosophy at Oxford where she met and later married John Bayley, a literary critic and fellow novelist. So began a forty-year, intense and unconventional but happy marriage, detailed in the classic bestselling memoir Iris. Despite Iris’ extramarital affairs with men and women throughout their long marriage – which John always suspected – their bond was unbreakable, and his memoir beautifully captures their child-like moments of bliss: walking in forests, swimming together in streams, and sharing hot cups of coffee on crisp mornings.

These are touching but poignant stories with the knowledge that Iris and her grand intellect would eventually succumb to Alzheimer’s disease. John would care for her singlehandedly for five years, the last of which he writes about in Iris and the Friends that also describes her peaceful passing. Finally, he reflects on his bereavement and the void that is left when a soulmate departs in A Widower’s House. All three books are told by the person who knew Iris best, with gentle humour – at times unbearably moving – in his portrayal of a remarkable woman.

Hitler’s Piano Player

Ernst Hanfstaengl was court jester, pianist, and foreign press chief for Hitler, he even claimed to have devised the chant of Sieg Heil, but when the two men fell out he fled to Britain, where he was interned and transferred to America. There he worked as the star of Roosevelt’s ‘S-Project,’ informing on 400 leading Nazis and creating a detailed psychological portrait of Hitler.

Through newly declassified documents, interviews with surviving family members and original writing by Hanfstaengl himself, Peter Conradi recounts a remarkable life.

The Sayings of Benjamin Disraeli

The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, British statesman and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – with a new foreword by Lord Lexden.

Disraeli was one of the least orthodox of Prime Ministers. He was an adventurer who fought his way to ‘the top of the greasy pole’ in a blaze of controversy, and became Queen Victoria’s favourite statesman. He was a novelist and a wit as well as politician. He was a brilliant orator. Like Byron he was both a romantic and a cynic. His aphorisms have become part of the discourse of political life.

This collection is based on his novels, letters and speeches. He was never dull, but he was fundamentally serious behind the firework display, and he had a lasting influence on the course of party history.

Seen by some of the founder of ‘one-nation’ conservatism, Disraeli is today one of the most co-opted political figures of history. For those seeking clarity on Disraeli’s views, this collection will confound and surprise.

The Great Cave Rescue

First came the awful news that 12 boys and their football coach were missing. Then came the flickering video of the boys found by a pair of British divers nine days later.

Monsoon rains had raised the water level in the cave system, and they were trapped in an air pocket, surrounded by rising muddy water, over two kilometres from the cave entrance. Expert British, Australian, American, Chinese, and other international divers joined the Thai Navy SEALs and hundreds of local volunteers to mount one of the most risky and complex rescue operations the world has ever seen.

South-east Asia correspondent James Massola recreates the drama, tension, and inspiration of the days in July 2018 when the eyes of the whole world were trained on a remote Thai mountain. Very little information about what happened inside the cave was released by the Thai authorities at the time, but through interviews Massola has managed to obtain extensive details of the nine long days the Wild Boars were on their own and during the rescue operation itself as well as background information about the boys and coach.

He writes about the pivotal role of the British Cave Rescue Council in leading the international effort, and determining the technical aspects of the rescue. He reveals how the Thai, British, US, Australian and other international divers worked together so smoothly, when even a minor miscommunication could have resulted in death or serious injury. And, most dramatically, he discloses the number of instances in which the rescue operation nearly went wrong.

Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

Why would a good person commit a terrible act?

Fifteen years ago, Jeannie’s relationship with a close friend ended in rape. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, recurring nightmares of the event that plagued her as a girl have returned. To process her conflicted feelings of betrayal and take back control, she resolves to face her trauma head-on by interviewing her rapist.

Through their transcribed conversations and discussions with her closest friends, Jeannie’s compelling memoir explores how the incident impacted both of their lives, while examining the culture and language surrounding sexual assault and rape. Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl is a necessary contribution to the wider conversation around sexual violence from a brave, new voice.

My Father’s Glass Eye

My Father’s Glass Eye is Jeannie’s struggle to honour her father, her larger-than-life hero, but also the man who named her after his daughter from a previous marriage, a daughter who died. After his funeral, Jeannie spends the next decade in escalating mania, in and out of hospitals – increasingly obsessed with the other Jeanne.

Obsession turns to investigation as she plumbs her childhood awareness of her dead half-sibling and hunts for clues into the mysterious circumstances of her death. It becomes a puzzle she she must solve to better understand herself and her father.

Jeannie pulls us into her unravelling with such intimacy that her insanity becomes palpable, even logical. A brilliant exploration of the human psyche, My Father’s Glass Eye deepens our definitions of love, sanity, grief, and recovery.

How Not to be a Doctor

The essential book on how not to be a doctor – and how to be a better one.

Drawn from his popular medical columns over the years, John Launer shares fifty of his best-loved essays, covering topics from essentials skills they don’t teach you in medical school to his poignant account of being a patient himself as he received treatment for a life-threatening illness. Taken together, the stories make the case that being a doctor should mean drawing on every aspect of yourself, your interests and your experiences no matter how remote they seem from the medical task at hand.

How Not to Be a Doctor combines humour, candour and the human touch to inform and entertain readers on both ends of the stethoscope.

A Wood of One’s Own

Touring the West Country in the late 1990s, Pavey found herself in the Somerset Levels. On seeing this expanse of reclaimed land under its wide, soft skies she was struck by its beauty and set-out to plant a wood, tree by tree. She bought four acres, and over the years transformed them into a haven where woodland plants and creatures could flourish; an emblem of enduring life in a changeable world.

Interwoven with Pavey’s candid descriptions of the practical challenges she faced are forays into the Levels’ local history, as well as thoughtful portraits of its inhabitants past and present. Accompanied throughout by her evocative hand-drawn illustrations, A Wood of One’s Own is a lyrical, beguiling and inspiring story; a potent reminder of nature’s delicate balance, and its comforting and abiding presence.

Effie

The scandalous love triangle at the heart of the Victorian art world. Effie Gray, a Scottish beauty, was the heroine of a great Victorian love story. Married at nineteen to John Ruskin, she found herself trapped in a loveless and unconsummated union. When her husband invited his protégé John Everett Millais away on holiday, she and Millais fell in love. Effie would inspire some of Millais’s most haunting images, and embody Victorian society’s fears about female sexuality.

Effie risked everything by leaving Ruskin. She hoped to find fulfilment as Millais’s wife, becoming a society hostess and manager of his studio, but controversy and tragedy continued to stalk her. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie’s family letters and diaries to reveal the reality behind the scandalous love-triangle. She shows the rise and fall of the Pre-Raphaelite circle from a new perspective, through the eyes of a woman who was intimately involved in the private and public lives of its two greatest figures. Effie’s charm and ambition helped to shape the careers of both her husbands. Effie is a compelling portrait of the extraordinary woman behind some of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

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