Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1999-04-09
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.18
Review Once in a House on Fire / Picador:Given her start in life, it is all the more remarkable that Andrea Ashworth should have turned out to be an Oxford graduate with such a compelling memoir under her belt. Her father died when she was five, her mother was left, poor and isolated in 70s, depressed Manchester to bring up Andrea and her younger sister singlehandedly. Along comes a physically abusive stepfather who sets about dragging the young family into the pits of despair, petty crime and sordid poverty. But Ashworth writes an enchanting story that blends social history (the 70s are rendered with an acute eye for detail) with poetic intensity. She turns a child's uncomprehending gaze on the domestic horrors of working- class life when it is dominated by a vicious man and drunken, self-pitying mother. We know, as we listen with Andrea, that her mother has decided to leave her man when she puts Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" on the turntable. Unfortunately, we know, too, that she was kidding herself when said man comes home and twirls her round the front room to the sound of Motown disco. We know, because Ashworth makes us re-live her childhood by dint of her astonishing gift for storytelling. -Lilian Pizzichini.
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2007-04-02
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.46
Review The Stork Club: One Woman's Journey to the Front Line of Fertility Treatment / Corgi Books:
Publication date: 2008-08-29
RRP: £18.99
Price: £10.05
Review The Woman Who Censored Churchill / The History Press:
Publication date: 2008-05-19
RRP: £6.99
Price: £1.49
Review Manic: A Woman in Pain. A Life in Chaos. The Courage to Fight a Secret Madness. / Harper Element:
Publication date: 2007-09-03
Dewey code: 746.92092
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.41
Review Dior by Dior / V & A Publications:
Edition: Rev Ed
Publication date: 1991-09-26
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.05
Review The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens / Penguin Books Ltd:
Creator: Ann Wright
Publication date: 1984-05-01
Dewey code: 972.8100497
RRP: £14.00
Price: £12.30
Review I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala / Verso:
Publication date: 2008-08-07
Dewey code: 941.693092
RRP: £6.99
Price: £2.89
Review Even on Days When it Rains: A True Story of Hardship and Maternal Love / Ebury Press:
Edition: Open Market Ed
Publication date: 1999-03-04
RRP: £10.99
Price: £2.22
Review Desert Flower / Virago Press Ltd:Waris Dirie's story puts "rags to riches" to shame. The "Desert Flower" started life as one of 12 children of a Somali nomad family, a people with no written culture, where the basic unit of currency is the camel. Faced at 12 with the prospect of marriage to a 60-year-old man she didn't know, she broke all the rules and ran away, surviving a traumatic trek across the desert to end up in London, as a maid to the Somalian Ambassador. It was in McDonalds that her striking beauty was "discovered", leading to a career in modelling and another as an ardent campaigner against female genital mutilation (circumcision). As a novel it would be unbelievable, as Waris survives circumcision, rape, arranged marriage, a lion attack-you name it, she's lived through it. But the book is remarkable less for its deliberately dramatic set pieces, and more for its haunting evocation of the little-told life of Somalian nomads, seen from a child's telling perspective, where life centres on the beloved camels, the horrors of womanhood are still an exciting mystery, and the nights are filled with the smell of frankincense. Desert Flower is a recollection of such gentle beauty that "rags to riches" seems hardly appropriate. -Alan Stewart.
Publication date: 2004-09-15
RRP: £6.99
Price: £2.52
Review Jacqueline Wilson (All About) (All About) / Heinemann Library:
Publication date: 2008-06-02
Dewey code: 362.8297092
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.79
Review Reunited in the Desert / John Blake Publishing Ltd:
Publication date: 2008-10-03
RRP: £16.99
Price: £9.33
Review Girl in Blue: How One Woman Survived Fourteen Years in the Police Force / Macmillan:
Authors
- Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen
Publication date: 2006-04-28
Dewey code: 956.10408691
RRP: £8.99
Price: £4.40
Review Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (Seal Women's Travel) / Avalon Group:
Publication date: 2008-09-18
Dewey code: 909
RRP: £18.99
Price: £18.03
Review The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage (History of British Intelligence) / The Boydell Press:
Publication date: 1998-12-31
Dewey code: 345.7302523
RRP: £7.99
Price: £0.61
Review Celia, a Slave: A True Story / Avon Books:
Publication date: 2008-09-19
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.75
Review A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love and Faith: A Modern Woman's Search for Happiness, Fulfilment, and Her Very Own Mr.Darcy / Lion Hudson plc:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-07-03
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.50
Review How Do You Want Me? / Ebury Press:
Publication date: 2006-08-01
Dewey code: 973.931092
Price: £13.99
Review Bunny Tales / Running Press Book Publishers:
Authors
- Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1998-01-29
Dewey code: 823.8
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.39
Review The Life of Charlotte Bronte / Penguin Classics:
Publication date: 2006-07-01
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.73
Review Nightmare in Laos: The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a Communist Gulag / Maverick House:
| Models & Brands:
Once in a House on Fire, The Stork Club: One Woman's Journey to the Front Line of Fertility Treatment, The Woman Who Censored Churchill, Manic: A Woman in Pain. A Life in Chaos. The Courage to Fight a Secret Madness., Dior by Dior, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Even on Days When it Rains: A True Story of Hardship and Maternal Love, Desert Flower, Jacqueline Wilson (All About) (All About), Reunited in the Desert, Girl in Blue: How One Woman Survived Fourteen Years in the Police Force, Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (Seal Women's Travel), The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage (History of British Intelligence), Celia, a Slave: A True Story, A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love and Faith: A Modern Woman's Search for Happiness, Fulfilment, and Her Very Own Mr.Darcy, How Do You Want Me?, Bunny Tales, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Nightmare in Laos: The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a Communist Gulag |
