SPIKE MAGAZINE

Reviewed by Robert O’Connor Life Magazine called Judy Collins the “gentle voice amid the strife” when it put her on its cover in 1969. The next year, her sublime voice brought the 18th-century hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ to the top of the pop charts. I

Reviewed by Robert O’Connor “I was born inside the movie of my life.” That sentence starts off Roger Ebert’s new memoir, Life Itself. The first chapter, ‘Memory’ – which is numbered zero in the table of contents – shows the great arc of

Reviewed by Declan Tan Opening with the familiar visions of snow from the likes of Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Dago Red (‘Bricklayer in the Snow’), Dan Fante kicks off, like Svevo and Arturo of his father’s novels, buried in an image of purest

Reviewed by Amanda Simms Suraya Sadeed’s memoirs begin with a dramatic recollection of smuggling $35,000 across the Afghanistan border beneath a burkha in 1998. What follows is a blend of autobiography, the history of the post-Soviet Afghanistan, as

Bible, manifesto, rant, autobiography, and instruction manual rolled into one. Reviewed by Vikki Littlemore Caitlin Moran’s How To Be a Woman, putting water on the fire of my own year-long hope, is far from a how-to guide to being anything. What

One morning Ryan Agius decided to shave off his facial hair. Feel the pain Dear Mustache, Today I write in response to your being splattered along the rim of my bathroom sink. I am responsible. As death will do, it has taken away much resemblance to

Chris Hall revisits J.G. Ballard’s childhood and finds the future in the past The opening of J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun (1984) has young Jim watching British war propaganda films with fellow choristers in the crypt of the Holy Trinity church

Like many of his generation Peter Weissman recalls the ‘60s as a halcyon period of his life and, like his peers, came of age during this revolutionary era marked by social, cultural and political change, relayed in the memoir, I Think, Therefore Who

An essay by Pedro Blas Gonzalez on the pleasures of the physical book and reading James Gould Cozzens, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and writer out of time On a recent trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my all time

Not Quite the Diplomat – Chris Patten See all books by Chris Patten at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Asia’s ability to compete on a global scale will remain severely hampered until the Northern Hemisphere’s better off nations loosen

David Remy The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee – Paisley Rekdal See all books by Paisley Rekdal at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Based upon journals kept during the author’s travels through Asia, the essays in The Night My Mother

Nathan Cain Last Words – William Burroughs See all books by William Burroughs at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com The works of William Seward Burroughs have always, even among those who think themselves the hippest of the hip, been considered

Robin Askew Who on Earth is Tom Baker? – Tom Baker See all books by Tom Baker at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com At the risk of turning into one of those dreadful thirtysomething nostalgia bores, the Tom Baker incarnation of Dr Who has a special