• This topic has 29 replies, 25 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by bigG.
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  • Recommend me a good autobiography please…
  • Kevevs
    Free Member

    I like reading about other people’s lives, probably cos my own is a bit boring! Loved Julian Cope’s Head On, and looking to read Richard Burton’s diaries. Not interested in cyclists, cos all they do all day is ride bikes. Writers, comedians and musicians seem to write the best ones? Cheers

    scud
    Free Member

    Anthony Kiedis from RHCP was a good one.

    If you want a really funny one, find Dom Joly’s, funniest thing i have read in a while

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Ive not read it, but I do read the Private Eye. And in all my years as a subscriber they have NEVER given a book a favourable review. Except for this one. So I might consider reading it one day.

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    Klunk
    Free Member

    the Diary of a Young Girl — Anne Frank
    the autobiography of malcolm x
    just kids — patti smith
    down and out in paris and london — george orwell
    papillon

    Klunk
    Free Member

    oh and any of the spike milligans

    Stoner
    Free Member

    down and out in paris and london — george orwell

    Just not when you’re “In between jobs”. It can be a bit depressing then 😉

    great book though otherwise. On my favourites list.

    Kevevs
    Free Member

    Some good stuff here, ta. Read Frankie Boyles recently (found it in a pub). Didn’t know he used to work in a Mental Health institution or work as an English teacher! No wonder he’s such a misanthrope!

    stever
    Free Member

    Just finished David Mitchell’s on holiday, that was alright, he writes a lot like he talks. Part way into Johnny Dawes now, very amusing if you’re at all into climbing.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Samuel Delany’s one is exceptional – The motion of light on water.

    About him growing up in New York in the 60s as a young, gay, black science fiction writer (and going on to be one of the best the field has ever seen).

    jamiep
    Free Member

    Alan Partridge, but in audiobook format!

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Alan Clark Diaries.

    Great read, very honest, quite sad towards the end.

    binners
    Full Member

    For shear out and out debauchery, this is brilliant

    Its really interestingly written. The same events are described by the different members of the band, one of whom saw it through a haze of smack, another coked out of his head, the other an alchoholic, and one addicted to prescription drugs. Needless to say, their perceptions of events are rather different. Its hilarious! Apart from people dying in drug fuelled car crashes

    oliverd1981
    Free Member

    Mr Blue by Edward Bunker. All other autobiographies will seem very tedious after that.

    Kevevs
    Free Member

    Yeah, read that one Binners. Brilliant stuff. Got a good list here now! 🙂

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    I know you said not cyclists because all they do is ride bikes, but Tyler Hamilton’s, which goes deeply into the LA years was a very good read, and surprisingly little about actual bike riding.

    camo16
    Free Member

    Groucho Marx – Memoirs of a Mangy Lover

    Less debauched than Mottley Crue, but with more jokes.

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    All three of Obama’s books. I read Chris Evans’ first one cover-to-cover on a flight to LA, second one is almost but not quite as good. I’ve got Lance Armstrong’s unread work of fiction cluttering up the loft if you want that?

    MSP
    Full Member

    The moons a balloon, David Niven

    Hollywood really was very different then, and the stars really were stars.

    andeh
    Full Member

    Not so much an autobiography, but a great book about a strange man, by another strange man.

    It’s about Hunter S. Thompson and his relationship with illustrator Ralph Steadman, by the way.

    mr-potatohead
    Free Member

    Kieth Richard ” my life in the beatles ”

    binners
    Full Member

    Frank Skinner’s is really good. He had a very, very interesting life before he made it onto telly. His stories of years spent gigging around working mens clubs are brilliant. One of the few books I’ve read that had my laughing out loud right through it

    DezB
    Free Member

    organic355
    Free Member

    rewski
    Free Member

    blake – peter ackroyd

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    +1 for Milligan, should be compulsorary reading in schools!

    Paul Carter – Don’t tell mum I work on the oil rigs, she thinks I’m a piano player in a whore house. The only book I’ve actualy wet myself laughing whilst reading. Possibly a bit low brow for STW, but very very funny.

    Eric Cantona’s is a good read, and Martin Johnson.

    Read Riss*, Taylor Hamiltons and Caverndish’s recently, all good too if you like the background behind why cycling is the way it is, very little bike riding in any of them (because they’re roadies, it’d be longer than the bible and contain more pain and suffering if they did).

    *maybe he’s a good guy, but quite probably a douche if you look at the book factualy (left his wife and family for a yopunger model, doped, lied, doped some more, lied, eventualy came out when someone thretened to put it beyond doubt) rather than his account.

    pondo
    Full Member

    If you want cycle-related, I love – love – Michael Hutchinson’s The Hour. And it’s a biography rather than an autobiography, but In Search Of Robert Millar is fantastic. As is the David Millar one – racing through the night? Or dark, or seomthing?

    verses
    Full Member

    Roald Dahl’s “Boy” and “Going Solo” are worth reading. The former reads more like one of his kids stories (not necessarily a bad thing) but the latter tells interesting tales of his time in the WW2.

    rickmeister
    Full Member

    John Simpson on the BBC has a couple of books out that I enjoyed reading, world events and leaders, turning points in history, he’s seen a lot of things…

    Haze
    Full Member

    Sean Yates?

    bigG
    Free Member

    Ranulph Fiennes – Mad Bad and Dangerous to know. It’s a cracking read, he is a bit of a nutter really.

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