Jul
19
Autobiography: And Furthermore by Judi Dench
First Published in 2010
Click here to buy the book And Furthermore by Judi Dench (with free delivery)
Book Review:
This autobiography of Judi Dench’s career was a fun and easy read. As an actor myself, I loved reading about her stage productions and the different experiences, directors and actors she encountered. Dench comes across extremely down to earth and hard working actor with a playful sense of humour. I read the book with a mixture of envy and awe – Dench was actually fought over to play Shakespeare’s Cleopatra by two directors, Peter Hall and Terry Hands, who had both decided to direct the play at the same time!
Read more... (602 words, 7 images, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)
Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Book Reviews, Gifts, Inspirational / Spiritual, Light Reading, My Favourite Books, My Favourites, Non-Fiction, Plays Biography Drama Gift inspirational stories Light Reading London memoir Non-Fiction Women
Dec
08
Autobiography / Biography / Memoir / Non-Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
First Published in 2003
Click here to buy the book Mao’s Last Dancer (with free delivery)
Here’s Reading Like Rabbit’s first guest review by a good friend of mine, Naazli Somjee, who being such a fast reader, probably gets through more book than I do!
Thanks for your recommendation Naaz!
x Julie
Book Review:
A book you have to read is Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin! It is lovely, touching story about the author’s growing up years in China towards the end of Chairman Mao’s rule. He talks about the abject poverty of his childhood and his feelings for his family and the opportunities he is given. It could all become very melancholic but he writes with a combination of humour and matter-of-factness that you need to keep turning the pages till you reach the end. You will then feel the need to youtube the author to watch him dance, and go out and watch a ballet, and hug your parents all at the same time 
x Naazli
Online Bookstore and Book Review Site
-Reading Like Rabbits-
Posted in Authors, Autobiography, Biography, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Biography China memoir Non-Fiction
Dec
05
Memoir / Non-Fiction / Inspirational
First Published in 1998
Publisher: Random House
International Bestseller
Click here to buy The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (with free delivery)
Book Synopsis:
At the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief for French Elle, survived a massive stroke which resulted in locked-in syndrome. Paralysed from head to toe, but with his mind still as alert as ever, Bauby wrote this book with the help of Claude Mendibil. Mendibil would recite the alphabet to him and when she arrived at the letter he wanted, Bauby would blink. Blinking his left eyelid was Bauby’s only means of communication with the outside world. This book was literally crafted letter by letter. Read more... (630 words, 7 images, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)
Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Book Reviews, Inspirational / Spiritual, Non-Fiction Biography Death Freedom Grief inspirational stories memoir Non-Fiction
Jul
15
(5/5)
Non-Fiction / Memoir
First Published in: 2005
Publisher: Virago
Click here to buy Desert Children by Waris Dirie with free delivery
Book Synopsis:
Desert Children is about Waris Dirie and Corinna Milborn’s investigation into the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Europe. It is estimated that up to half a million girls and women have undergone or are at risk of FGM in Europe.
Presently, France is the only country that convicts offenders. What’s more the threat of female genital mutilation is not officially recognized by any European country as a reason for asylum.
Waris Dirie was a top model and UN ambassador. Her story, Desert Flower, of growing up in Somalia, enduring FGM at the age of 5, fleeing though the desert and being discovered as a model by Terence Donovan was an international bestseller. Read more... (1456 words, 8 images, estimated 5:49 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Biography Human Rights Immigrants memoir Morality Necessary Reading Non-Fiction Women
Jun
10
Memoir / Biography / Autobiography
First Published in 2010
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Sequel to Hirsi Ali’s autobiography Infidel (click here to read the book review of Infidel)
Hirsi Ali has also written The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
Click here to buy a book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (free delivery worldwide)
I have great respect for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Against the odds, she is standing up and speaking out for what she believes in. Ayaan’s journey in her first memoir Infidel is fascinating. And I have just got my hands on Nomad, her follow up memoir about her new life in America, based on my friend Vani’s email, which she has allowed me to publish:
Hi friends, Read more... (571 words, 1 image, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Biography memoir Non-Fiction
Jun
01
(5/5)
Autobiography / Biography / Memoir / Non- Fiction
First Published in 1999
Publisher: Hyperion
Oprah’s Book Club Selection
Click here to buy Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi (free delivery)
Book Cover Synopsis:
Malika Oufkir has led a split life. She spent her childhood days raised as a princess, but from the age of nineteen, she was imprisoned with her mother and siblings for the next 20 years.
Maika was General Oufkir’s eldest daughter. He was the closest aide of the King of Morocco, who adopted five-year-old Malika and brought her up as his daughter’s companion. Malika grew up in privilege and luxury, in the shelter of the court harem.
But on 16th August 1972, everything changed. General Oufkir was executed for attempting to assassinate the king. Malika, her mother, her five siblings, and two loyal friends were immediately arrested and imprisoned. Read more... (945 words, 8 images, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Inspirational / Spiritual, Non-Fiction Biography Grief inspirational stories memoir Morocco Non-Fiction
Jan
07
by Joan Didion
(4/5)
Non-Fiction / Autobiography / Memoir
First Published in 2005
Publisher: Knopf
Winner of The National Book Award 2005
and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and The Pulitzer Prize (Biography/Autobiography)
Click here to buy this book (with free delivery)
Book Synopsis:
In a second, Joan Didion’s life was thrown into turmoil when her husband John Gregory Dunne unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack in 2003. Not only was her husband of 40 years gone, but two days before his death, their daughter Quintana had been hospitalized after falling seriously ill. Life as Joan knew it had ended.
Joan’s grief leads her to a state of ‘magical thinking’, and Joan lucidly writes of her experience of that time in her life. A time when although she knew intellectually that John was dead, she found herself keeping John’s shoes for him. For when he returned. Read more... (631 words, 7 images, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Biography Death Grief memoir Non-Fiction USA
Jan
01
Infidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
(5/5)
Autobiography / Non-Fiction
First Published in 2007
Publisher: The Free Press
Click to buy this book (free delivery)
Book Synopsis:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is among today’s most controversial yet admired political figures. She made international headlines when her friend and colleague Theo Van Gogh was assassinated in the Netherlands for making the film Submission with Hirsi Ali. His Islamist murderer stabbed a note to his body threatening that Hirsi Ali would be next.
This celebrated writer of The Caged Virgin, and courageous champion of free speech has led an extraordinary life.
In her astonishing memoir, she tells of growing up in Somalia in a staunch Muslim household, to escaping an arranged marriage, to her intellectual re-birth in the Netherlands, to becoming a member of the Dutch parliament, and finally of her life under constant security protection because of her open critique of Islam. Read more... (371 words, 7 images, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Inspirational / Spiritual, My Favourite Books, Non-Fiction Africa Atheism Biography Freedom Immigrants inspirational stories Islam memoir Morality Non-Fiction Women
Dec
20
by Jeanette Walls
(5/5)
Memoir/Autobiography
First Published in 2005
Publisher: Scribner International
Click to buy this book (free delivery)
Book Synopsis:
The Glass Castle is an extraordinary memoir of a dysfunctional yet effervescent American family. Jeanette’s father is an intelligent, compelling figure, who educates his children on geology, physics and joie de vivre. However, more often than not, he was a drunk who was caustic and dishonest.
Jeanette’s mother was a free spirit who loved painting but hated conformity and the domestic life of raising children.
And so, Jeanette and her siblings grew up taking care of themselves. Jeanette became a successful writer in New York, a place where her parents eventually moved, choosing out of their own free will to live homeless.
In The Glass Castle, the behavior of Rex and Rose Mary Walls is shocking and unacceptable, yet at the same time, it is abundantly clear that they possess deep love and loyalty for their children. It is this contradiction that makes this memoir so gripping. Read more... (722 words, 7 images, estimated 2:53 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Gifts, My Favourite Books, Non-Fiction Biography Family Gift memoir Non-Fiction USA
Nov
28
a memoir by Malika Oufkir
(4.5/5)
Autobiography
First Published in 2006
Publisher: Miramax Books
Set in: France, USA
Freedom is the sequel to Oufkir’s Autobiography Stolen Lives
Click to buy Freedom by Malika Oufkir (free delivery)
Book Cover Synopsis:
Stolen Lives, Malika Oufkir’s intensely moving account of her twenty years imprisoned in a desert jail in Morocco, was a surprise international bestseller.
In her highly anticipated follow-up, Malika reflects on the life she lived before and during incarceration and how dramatically the world had changed when she emerged. Malika was born into extreme privilege as the daughter of the king of Morocco’s closest aide, and she grew up in the palace as companion to the Moroccan princess. But in 1972, her life of luxury came to a crashing halt. Her family was locked away for two decades. After a remarkable escape, Malika and her family returned to the world they’d left behind, only to find it transformed.
Read more... (782 words, 7 images, estimated 3:08 mins reading time)
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Biography memoir Morocco Non-Fiction
