LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY LIFE
CLAIRE ALLFREE ROUNDS UP THE MOST REVEALING MEMOIRS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF 2019
ME
by Sir Elton John (Pan Macmillan) They don’t make pop stars like Elton John any more and they don’t produce celebrity memoirs like this one, either. Ghostwritten by Guardian pop critic Alexis Petridis, it’s pure, unvarnished Elton, a no-holdsbarred roller coaster of absurd excess, be it priceless gossip about pretty much everyone in the celebrity firmament to the time Elton demanded his record company do something about the weather. He’s candid about his body dysmorphia, drug addictions, depression and often terrible behaviour but also persuasive on just how fun being him can be. A rollicking read.
LADY IN WAITING
by Anne Glenconner (Hodder & Stoughton) Helena Bonham Carter apparently asked Anne Glenconner for a few tips on playing Princess
Margaret in the latest series of The Crown, which makes sense – Glenconner, daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, was HRH’s lady in waiting for more than 30 years. This outlandish memoir drips with royal tidbits (Lord Snowdon used to leave Margaret vicious little notes in her gloves) but it’s also insightful on the more damaging aspects of being a member of the British aristocracy. Sobering – and terrific fun.
MOTHER SHIP
by Francesca Segal (Chatto & Windus) A heart-tugging account of novelist Francesca Segal’s two-month stay in a neonatal unit following the premature birth of her twin daughters, this is one of the year’s most exquisitely written books. Unexpectedly funny, it’s also a pointed reminder of the selfless dedication of NHS staff who every day conjure miracles from the bleakest of circumstances.
LOWBORN
by Kerry Hudson
(Chatto & Windus)
Kerry Hudson endured a hand-to-mouth, peripatetic childhood, in and out of foster homes in between living with her loving but chaotic single mum. She would dream of overflowing toy boxes and a full fridge and now she is a successful novelist, at last able to live in a warm flat, anxiety hangs heavy over her account of those early years because of the fact she was able to escape them, when so many cannot. A frank, personal story of Britain’s impoverished hidden millions.
ON CHAPEL SANDS
by Laura Cumming
(Chatto & Windus)
When Laura Cumming’s mother was three years old she was kidnapped from a beach. She was found several days later, snatched not by a stranger but a relative. Cumming’s mother had recently been adopted and probing the reasons for this and its legacy is the purpose of this twisting literary mystery that also serves as a deeply moving love letter. Written by the Observer’s art critic, it’s excellent too on the way we all read, or try to read, old family photographs, desperately looking for clues.
YEAR OF THE MONKEY
by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury)
In the twilight of her career, punk’s original princess is reinventing herself as a memoirist of some distinction. This latest dispatch from a troubled year is shaped by both the illness of friends and the shadow of Trump’s looming presidency – it’s also heavily soaked in Smith’s obsession with dreams and portents. Yet it sings strong with her singular, itinerant, coffee-guzzling beat spirit. Essential reading for diehard fans.
FOR THE RECORD
by David Cameron (William Collins) Whatever you think of Chillax Dave, his autobiography, which includes the coalition years and his fateful decision to hold an EU referendum, is a useful road map to where we are and, to some extent, why we got here.
MY NAME IS WHY
by Lemn Sissay (Canongate) Forcibly removed from his Ethiopian mother not long after birth and dumped with an initially loving foster family, then within a brutalising care system, poet Lemm Sissay grew up with little sense of who he was. This memoir, of his attempt to persuade Wigan council to release the files detailing his years in care, is a tale of shameful abuse and gradual recovery, told with observational clarity and feeling.