Medway Libraries Newsletter

The latest Medway Libraries Newsletter is focusing on autobiographies, and here you will find some fantastic recommendations, for Christmas gifts or otherwise.

 

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The Life & Times of….

The lives of the famous (and infamous), hold a particular fascination. We’re eager to get behind the public facade and understand the life experiences that have shaped them. An autobiography presents the possibility of discovering that the person is so much more than the media persona, that they may be just like us, and what they really think about the company they keep. The chance to get directly inside the authors mind and bring them closer to us is a tantalising prospect.

There are lots of ordinary people who have written amazingly interesting autobiographies following a life changing event, personal achievement or trauma. The writer may have found the process of explaining the event and their emotions therapeutic, or hopes the experience will help someone else.

Biographies, on the other hand, are written by someone else, with (authorised), or without (unauthorised) the subject’s permission. In the case of historical biographies, the author often spends years researching the subject in order to uncover the details that accurately represent the subject’s life and allow us to understand their role in history.

To get up close and personal with someone you ‘know’ join us in the autobiography area of any Medway Library or browse the website.

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Recommendations

We have hundreds of books in the genre, including the well known classics along with the most recent releases. Visit any of our libraries and browse the collection, or search our online catalogue. Many of our titles are also available as eBooks or audio books.

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Lady in Waiting: My Extaordinay Life in the Shadow of the Crown – Anne Glenconner

The remarkable life of Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret who was also a Maid of Honour at the Queen’s Coronation, (and is a character in The Crown this autumn). Anne Glenconner reveals the real events behind The Crown as well as her own life of drama, tragedy and courage, with the wonderful wit and extraordinary resilience which define her.

Anne Glenconner has been close to the Royal Family since childhood.

Eldest child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, she was described as ‘the greatest disappointment’ by her family as she was unable to inherit. Her childhood home Holkham Hall is one of the grandest estates in England. Bordering Sandringham, where the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were frequent playmates.

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Me – Elton John

The rock star’s gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader’ Sunday Times

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, which is also the subject of the smash-hit film Rocketman. The result is Me – the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time.

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

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Tall Tales & Wee Stories – Billy Connolly

In December 2018, after 50-years of belly-laughs, energy, outrage and enjoyment, Billy Connolly announced his retirement from stand-up comedy. It had been an extraordinary career. When he first started out in the late Sixties, Billy played the banjo in the folk clubs of Glasgow. Between songs, he would improvise a bit, telling anecdotes from the Clyde shipyard where he worked. In the process, he made all kinds of discoveries about what audiences found funny, from his own exaggerated body movements to the power of speaking explicitly about sex. He began to understand the craft of great storytelling too. Soon the songs became shorter and the monologues longer, and Billy quickly became recognised as one of the most exciting comedians of his generation. This book brings together the very best of Billy’s storytelling and includes his most famous routines.

 

 

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The Fear Bubble – Ant Middleton

Ant Middleton is no stranger to fear: as a point man in the Special Forces, he confronted fear on a daily basis, never knowing what lay behind the next corner, or the next closed door. In prison, he was thrust into the unknown, cut off from friends and family, isolated with thoughts of failure and dread for his future. And at the top of Everest, in desperate, life-threatening conditions, he was forced to face up to his greatest fear, of leaving his children and wife without a father and husband.

But fear is not his enemy. It is the energy that propels him. Thanks to the revolutionary concept of the ‘Fear Bubble’, Ant has learned to harness the power of fear and understands the positive force that it can become. Here Ant retells the story of his death-defying climb of Everest and reveals the concept of the ‘Fear Bubble’, showing how it can be used in our lives to help us break through our limits.

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Home Work: A Memoir of my Hollywood Years – Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton

In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir ‘Home’, the enchanting Julie Andrews picks up her story with her arrival in Hollywood, sharing the career highlights, personal experiences and reflections behind her astonishing career, including such classics as ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Victor/Victoria’, and many others.

In ‘Home Work’, Julie describes her years in Hollywood – from the incredible highs to the challenging lows.

Not only does she detail her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television; she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, moving on from her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards.

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The Beautiful Ones – Prince; edited by Dan Piepenbring

Prince was a musical genius, one of the most talented, beloved, accomplished, popular, and acclaimed musicians in pop history. But he wasn’t only a musician – he was also a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of his early records to the mythical landscape of ‘Purple Rain’ and the psychedelia of Paisley Park.

But his greatest creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, the greatest pop star of his era. ‘The Beautiful Ones’ is the story of how Prince became Prince – a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him.

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