Biography Books > E Biography Books > M

Advantages: Informative, educational, moving first-hand account of the Holocaust
Disadvantages: Would have liked a follow-up section, some apparent innacuracies

...Filip Muller in his book Eyewitness Auschwitz - Three Years in the Gas Chambers. This is the first time I have read someone's first-hand account of working in the gas chambers, and according to this book, he was the only one of the crematorium team to survive and publish his memories. Muller was born in 1922 in Sered, Czechoslovakia and was taken to Auschwitz in April 1942 aged twenty. Being male, young and fit, he was chosen to work in the building ...
...Western Europe in 1969 and Eyewitness Auschwitz was published in 1979. As far as I can tell, Muller is still alive and 85 years old. I can't find a record of his death online anyway. His book is 180 pages long and is split into five chapters, with a glossary and diagrams of the concentration camp and crematorium set up at the end. The first chapter is called No Return and explains how he came to arrive in Auschwitz and his early days there. Into ... Read review

Advantages: Well written, easy to read
Disadvantages: Nothing new, its all been written before

Madonna - love her or loathe her, it seems that everyone has an opinion about her. With a career that now spans over 25 years her rise to fame from the early days when she first arrived in New York, penniless but with huge ambitions has been well documented many times. Madonna - Queen of the world by Douglas Thompson could at first glance quite easily be dismissed as yet another regurgitated account of Madonna's rise to fame but from the sleeve notes ...
...that everyone claims to already know everything there is to know about. Madonna has given many interviews throughout her life. Usually these interviews are carefully timed to coincide with her latest project, be it a new album, movie, book or other project and the new image that compliments the project is always flaunted to its maximum effect. When it comes to being interviewed Madonna always calls the shots, so how can anyone really expect to know ... Read review

Advantages: A true life account of a terrible accident.
Disadvantages: You don't always get a happy ending in real life.

The book I will now review contains probably one of the worst nightmares any parent could anticipate, the fact is a biography detailing the entire scenario makes it even more difficult and heart wrenching to read. The book I will now review is "Shattered", by Mavis Marsh and ghost written by Andrew Crofts. The book starts with the awful words of the doctor that has done the pre assessment on Mavis's son Mathew - "Your son will be a cabbage for ...
...a vegetable, or what-ever you want to call him". From that awful statement the story goes back to Mavis's ( the mother, writer and teller of this somewhat frightening story), childhood, first detailing her parents life, from jobs and home life, through to her father serving in the war and the untold horrors he had witnessed. From this she went on to her school life, until reading further into the book I never quite understood the purpose for all ... Read review

Advantages: vivid and real
Disadvantages: none

"Cider with Rosie" has to be one of my most memorable, poignant and haunting reads. I discovered it when I was 16 in an English class whilst learning about descriptive writing and use of imagery. I didn't have to read it, I was just shown an example of his work, but it lured me in hook line and sinker and I couldn't put the book down. The book is an evocative memoir of his childhood growing up in a Cotswold village. He captures the time and the ...
...in such a manner that conveys reality - he paints a picture with his words and he excels in this art. I think the opening paragraph is simply magical, "I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began. The June grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before. It towered above me and all around me, each ... Read review

Advantages: Fun and honest book
Disadvantages: Would have liked to read more about family life

...make love to a blow up doll! The one downside to the book for me was the chapter where he talks about all the merchandise which Star Trek made and I did find this quite annoying but after a certain amount of pages I starting reading it with the humour it was meant to be written with and overcame the annoyance. There are several photos included in the book which show William through out his career and I find some of them very funny as he looks so ...
...this price he pickled it up for £10 in Tesco. The book was written by William Shatner with the help of David Fisher and was published by Sidgwick and Jackson, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Limited. There are a total of 342 pages and at the back of the book there is an index so if you are looking for any specific details you can use this to find them . A great fun and honest read. ... Read review