Biography Books > F Biography Books > A

Advantages: Well compiled, frank, moving and often amusing autobiography
Disadvantages: Sports fans will naturally find this more interesting but retains some general appeal.

...sums up this experience comes from the Irish Mail on Sunday. 'Whether you're a fan of the game or the man, his tale is a tale well worth reading. He may be a right b*****d, but miss him. Snooker misses him terribly.' Traditionally snooker in the United Kingdom has its roots entrenched in dingy, windowless halls where shifty characters rest their beer to play their shot, trying desperately to see the other end of the table through the thick clouds ...
...for their hedonistic exploits away from the baize. Without doubt Higgins, in his prime, was the wilder. It seems strange then that White, six times the losing finalist in the World Championships, put so little into his book regarding his career as a snooker great, choosing to allocate a disproportionate amount of pages to his binges and pub tales. Higgins, of course, has to include much of the same type of fare but to his credit he does a better ... Read review

Advantages: Dispelling any preconcieved ideas
Disadvantages: Reading how somebody can be so naive

Shhh…don’t tell anyone but I have a confession to make…I’ve just read Anthea Turner’s autobiography, and do you know I couldn’t put it down. There, confession over. I don’t know why it is that the public opinion of Mrs. Grant Bovey is so bad or why she receives so much detrimental press. I can understand that when she had an affair behind the back of her ex-husband, the D.J Peter Powell, that the press jumped ...
...the first and in no way will be the last woman to have an affair during an unhappy marriage. I could even understand the public perception of her when ‘those’ photos from her recent marriage were printed; even I, at the time, thought that having your wedding sponsored by a choccy bar was just a tad in bad taste. But, if you are an individual that likes to make up their own mind about a star then read this book, your preconceived ideas ... Read review

Advantages: Informative, interesting to read!
Disadvantages: None

This was an excellent book about the difficult life of a young chinese girl who was mistreated my her cruel stepmother. This book had me in tears reading it but i found myself unable to put it down, i cannot wait to read the sequel "Falling Leaves".I disagree strongly with droopy13's review as their is no whinging tone to the book it is merely an account of Adeline's childhood. Adaline did have a very understanding relationship with her grandfather ...
...approval from her father. She was not the only child in the household to be mistreated, as where all 5 of her mothers children though both her stepmother's children where spoilt rotten! Prime examples of this where when the dog killed her only friend , a pet duck named PLT and when she is sent to a boarding school during a war and was left there. This story is made even more heart-wrenching by the fact that it is completely true and is an excellent ... Read review

Advantages: Great inspirational reading
Disadvantages: Bit long winded when she laks about other race competitors

Black White and Gold is the biography written by 2 times Olympic champion, Dame Kelly Holmes. She starts the book in March of 2005 as she is sitting in a limousine driving towards the gate of Buckingham Palace. She is off to receive her Damehood and she says how surreal it felt and how she had to pinch herself to make sure it was really happening. She tells how she joked with the other people who were also their receiving their Damehood and Knights', ...
...to have the Queen place the sword on each of her shoulders, she tells them all she is going to kneel down anyway! As we all know she did not and she received her dame hood in the correct way! We are then taken back to her early years and she tells how when her parents found out she was pregnant and had split up from her boyfriend they did not want her to have the baby but she went ahead and when Kelly was born her mother was given the choice of ... Read review

Advantages: Funny, interesting and gossipy
Disadvantages: slightly boring in places

After watching multiple episodes of Britain's got talent, and quite enjoying the remarks made by Piers Morgan I decided to pick up one of his books. My brother had a copy 'Don't you know who I am?' so this was the obvious choice. The book consists of a number of diary entries around the time after his Mirror newspaper sacking, and evolves around his search for a new job, celebrity status and also I had no real idea of who Piers Morgan was except ...
...owing to a sacking. In this book Piers lifts the lid on his meeting with numerous celebrities ranging from top bench cabinet ministers to the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Sharon Osborne, all of which are thoroughly eventful. My favourite has to be his meeting with Sharon where he waits for her PR to go to the loo before asking her opinion of certain celebrities knowing that she would be more likely to slag them off without the PR present. Piers manages ... Read review