Memoir
The woman I’m not – Nicola Sturgeon
Scotland’s former first minister spends most of her memoir telling us how different she is from her public image
Deception by stealth: the scammer’s long game
Swindled out of almost $100,000, Johnathan Walton warns of the insidious strategies lasting years of the really determined con artist
A road trip like no other – crossing America by Greyhound bus
Joanna Pocock made the journey in 2006, then again 17 years later – and was shocked by the environmental changes she witnessed
The shocking state of perinatal care in Britain
Theo Clarke gathers heartbreaking instances of infant mortality, medical malpractice and severe post-partum trauma in the nation’s maternity wards
Eat your way round Paris
Moving anticlockwise through the coil of arrondissements, Chris Newens samples the range of cuisines on offer and examines their histories
The importance of bread as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance
Two authors writing in response to the war use baking as a prism through which to view the country’s heritage and its defiance of Putin
Whatever happened to Caroline Lane? A Margate mystery
How could a feisty middle-aged woman suddenly vanish from the seaside town without trace? David Whitehouse set out to discover
There was no escaping the Nazis – even in sleep
Soon after Hitler came to power, a Jewish journalist, deprived of regular employment, began secretly recording her nightmares – and, as the terror increased, those of her fellow citizens
Tim Franks goes in search of what it means to be Jewish
In a thought-provoking family history, the BBC journalist addresses questions of identity – and to what extent we are products of our forebears
Putin’s stranglehold on the Russian press
Two former Izvestiya journalists describe how all but the bravest in the media have crumpled under pressure to toe the Putinist line
A life among movie stars can damage your health
So Dustin Hoffman tells the teenage Matthew Specktor as they share cigarette breaks at CAA, the Los Angeles talent agency they both frequent
Being stalked by a murderer was just one of life’s problems – Sarah Vine
At times one cannot believe what the Gove family endured during frontline government service, and politics gets much of the blame as Vine looks back over the wreckage
The Spectator letter that marked a turning point in gay history
Signing his real name (a brave decision for a homosexual in 1960), Roger Butler sparked a good deal of discussion on a ‘shunned topic’, which eventually led to a change in the law
Haunted by my great-grandfather’s second wife – by Alice Mah
An academic specialising in ecology, Mah traces her constant anxiety about the world to a ghostly Chinese forebear
Should family history, however painful, be memorialised forever?
What to hold on to and what to let go of is Samantha Ellis’s dilemma when trying to explain the complexities of their Judeo-Iraqi heritage to her young son
‘Sitting the 11-plus was the most momentous event of my life’ – Geoff Dyer
‘Everything else that has happened couldn’t have happened were it not for that’, says Dyer, in a funny, moving account of growing up in postwar England
Why are publishers such bad judges when it comes to their own memoirs?
Anthony Cheetham has been responsible for many bestsellers, but this guarded account of his career in the book trade won’t be one of them
The childhood terrors of Judith Hermann
The German writer recalls her grandmother’s collection of voodoo dolls and her father’s surreal invention of a stunted lodger living in the suspended ceiling
My obsession with ageing rock stars – by Kate Mossman
The music journalist describes a career spent interviewing the likes of Sting, Tom Jones, Brian May and Roger Taylor – each time feeling ‘something inside me ignite’
A David Bowie devotee with the air of Adrian Mole
Plodding through suburbia in Bowie’s footsteps, Peter Carpenter might be Sue Townsend’s hero incarnate – and there’s even an omnipresent friend called Nigel
Keith McNally: ‘Still craving the success I pretend to despise’
In a self-lacerating memoir, the restaurateur describes his many regrets, dislikes and feuds with celebrities, his longing for recognition and his love of family and friends
The grooming of teenaged Linn Ullmann
Ignoring her mother Liv Ullmann’s advice, 16-year-old Linn accepted the offer of a photo shoot in Paris in 1983 – and has been haunted by the experience ever since
A cremation caper: Stealing Dad, by Sofka Zinovieff, reviewed
Part grief-memoir, part macabre escapade, Zinovieff’s latest book is inspired by her own father’s bizarre strictures regarding his funeral
Cooking up a storm of memories – Bee Wilson’s kitchenalia
A baking tin, a toast rack and a soup tureen conjure poignant reminders of the past - while Wilson’s wedding ring is transformed into the world’s smallest pastry cutter
The satisfaction of making wine the hard way
An investment banker leaves the rat race to restore a neglected vineyard in the Loire, where he decides to do as much as possible by hand, from pruning the vines to pressing the grapes
