Recommend me a good autobiography please…

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

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

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.

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

oh and any of the spike milligans

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.

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!

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.

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).

Alan Partridge, but in audiobook format!

Alan Clark Diaries.

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

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

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

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

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.

Groucho Marx – Memoirs of a Mangy Lover

Less debauched than Mottley Crue, but with more jokes.

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?

The moons a balloon, David Niven

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

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.

Kieth Richard ” my life in the beatles ”

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

blake – peter ackroyd

+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.

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?

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.

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…

Sean Yates?

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