Prince Harry - Spare

 

Prince Harry - Spare 

4 ⭐

Genre: Memoir, Autobiography, Biography, Non-Fiction

Time: 15h 37mins

Narrator: Prince Harry 

Format: Audiobook

Publisher: Random House Audio/Audible  

Date Published: 10th January 2023 

 

Book Blurb: 

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn’t find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . .

For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

My Review: 

I had to listen to this, as I have seen so many excerpts from it all over social media after its release. So, I gave it a go. I also wanted to hear Prince Harry’s side of the story and not just tabloids. Honestly, it was interesting, and I am glad I listened to it rather than read it. I feel like if I read it, I would have DNF’ed it halfway through, as it felt so long whilst I was listening to it. It was way too long. Surely some things could have been edited out, as there was so much repetition.

That said, I did enjoy parts of this book and it was refreshing to hear Prince’s POV on everything that has happened and take a glimpse into his childhood and growing up. I mean I can’t relate to anything in this book, as I am not rich or royal, but it was nice to see that he experiences just as many emotions as anyone else is. It was also interesting to read about the pressures of being royal and privileged, as well as having your life covered by media 24-7.

Overall: It was an interesting read. I don’t think I need to cover anything else, since this book was covered and scrutinised in bits by people. I enjoyed listening to it. I also enjoyed learning about Harry and seeing his POV. I do think, however, that it was a very long book that could have used more editing.  

About the Author:

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, is a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist. He resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his family and three dogs.

https://princeharrymemoir.com

Viola Davis - Finding Me

Viola Davis - Finding Me 

5⭐

Genre: Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, Non-Fiction 

Pages: 304

Format: Hardback 

Publisher: Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton 

Date Published: 26th April 2022

 

Huge thank you to Tandem Collective UK and Hodder & Stoughton for sending me this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

Finding Me is Viola Davis' story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming, a true hero's journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless and spellbinding memoir that will capture hearts and minds around the globe.

IN MY BOOK, YOU WILL MEET a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

My Review: 

What an amazing memoir! I already loved Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder but after reading this book, I realised how amazing of a human being she is. I now have such a deep admiration for her! 

In parts, it was so hard to read about her challenging childhood and all the traumas she experienced through her younger years, but what amazed me the most was Viola’s determination, resilience and strength. This memoir allowed me to get a glimpse into her personal life, from a traumatic childhood where she and her family didn’t have food to eat for days, to her struggling to belong in Julliard as a Black acting student…In this book, Viola also talks openly about the film and acting industry and how hard is to get to the top. For me, this memoir was sad, and shocking yet at the same time very inspiring. It was so interesting to read how honestly Viola talks about struggling to find self-love until later in adulthood and how she felt like she finally belonged when on the set of How to Get Away with Murder.

The memoir starts from the very beginning, Viola’s hard childhood which was filled with abuse, lack of food, poverty, racism, living without hot water and being in a house infested by rats…It wasn’t pretty but even little Viola had that strong determination and passion to get out of poverty and become something bigger. Over the years she pushed herself to achieve that, even though the path was not always easy or straight. She had to go through so many obstacles and with that also had to find herself, especially start loving herself. This memoir is full of successes, changes, failures, courage, resilience, strength, love, wisdom and determination. It displays the ugly and the pretty of Viola Davis’s life from her birth up until now.

Overall: It is the best memoir I have read this year. I now love Viola Davis even more! She is such an inspiration for strength and resilience. I think this book should be on everyone’s bookshelf or their TBR. I will be definitely revisiting this book, but this time in audio format as Viola narrates the book herself, which I think would bring out some parts of the book even further and have a bigger impact on the reader. It is such an intimate, honest and raw memoir that left such a significant impact on me. 

About the Author:

Viola Davis is the only Black actor to have achieved the “triple crown” of acting, winning an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony for her work in film, television, and the theater. The New York Times named Davis one of the ten greatest actors of the twenty-first century. In addition to her acting work, she is an acclaimed producer and philanthropist. 

https://twitter.com/violadavis

Rebecca Donner - All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days

Rebecca Donner - All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler. 

5⭐

Genre: History, Non-Fiction, Biography, WW2, Memoir

Pages: 562

Format: Paperback

Publisher:  Canongate 

Date Published: 4th August 2022

 

Big thanks to Canongate for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment — a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution. Her co-conspirators circulated through Berlin under the cover of night, slipping the leaflets into mailboxes, public restrooms, and phone booths.

When the first shots of the Second World War were fired, she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her escape to Sweden, she was ambushed by the Gestapo. At a Nazi military court, a panel of five judges sentenced her to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler overruled the decision and ordered her execution. On February 16, 1943, she was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded.

Historians identify Mildred Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story has remained almost unknown until now.

Harnack’s great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on her extensive archival research in Germany, Russia, England, and the U.S. as well as newly uncovered documents in her family archive to produce this astonishing work of narrative nonfiction. Fusing elements of biography, real-life political thriller, and scholarly detective story, Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, survivors’ testimony, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, epic story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.

My Review: 

This book was amazing! So beautifully written and researched but so heart-wrenching and moving at the same time. It was one of the books that are just so hard to put down as it is written more like a novel rather than a biography. I also didn’t know much about Mildred Harnack but I am so glad I had a chance to read this book and her story. It was such an eye-opener for me. Such a great piece of non-fiction and going straight to the top of my non-fiction books read in 2022.

This story is about Mildred Harnack, an American woman who was at the heart of the German resistance movement against the Nazi regime during Hitler's rise to power and WW2. During this book, we follow Mildred’s life, which was brilliantly reconstructed from letters, people’s diaries, Mildred’s journals, and other historical documents. Readers follow Mildred’s story from her childhood in Milwaukee to her meeting her future husband Arvid, who is German. Then she moves to Germany with Arvid and starts her Ph.D. studies, alongside lecturing at the University of Berlin. However, as Hitler is slowly but surely rising to power through the 1930s, Mildred and Arvid find themselves losing their jobs, their freedom, and their old life. Thus, not seeing any other way, they both become very active figures in the German resistance against the Nazis. Mildred deeply intertwined in the resistance was leading double life, one being a good wife to a German and the second using leaflets, recruits, and the power of the written word to send a message to people about the true colors of the Nazi regime.

The whole book was so emotional but at the same time very interesting and eye-opening. Mildred although American fought for what she thought was right. Her efforts to help Jews, smuggle resistance leaflets, write articles against Nazis and Hitler, as well as, recruit people into the resistance were extraordinary but also very sad since it all did get her caught and executed. She didn’t use weapons and fear but she used words and truth to spread the message about the horrors of Hitler's Germany.

This book is a fascinating read and has it all, the horrors, the fights, the successes, and the losses of living in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. I strongly believe the beautiful writing just added a whole new atmosphere and made me as a reader feel like I am there and seeing events from the point of view of those different characters.

Overall: This book is definitely one of the best non-fiction books about WW2 I read. I am so glad I had a chance to read it and learn about such a brave, courageous, intelligent, and ambitious woman like Mildred Harnack. I believe that more people need to hear her story and thus will I recommend this book wholeheartedly if you are interested in WW2 and German resistance during the 1930s and 1940s. 

About the Author:

Rebecca Donner is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, published by Little, Brown. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days won the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the 2022 PEN /Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, the 2022 Chautauqua Prize, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the Plutarch Award. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days was also selected as a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2021, a New York Times Notable Book, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named one of the Best Books of 2021 by the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, and The Economist.

Rebecca Donner was recently awarded a 2022 Guggenheim fellowship. She was a 2018-19 fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York, is a two-time Yaddo fellow, and has twice been awarded fellowships by the Ucross Foundation. She has also held residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Vermont Studio Center. Donner is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and has taught at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, and Barnard College.

Born in Canada, Donner was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University. She is the author of Sunset Terrace, a critically acclaimed novel, and Burnout, a graphic novel about eco-terrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Bookforum.

https://www.rebeccadonner.com/rebecca-donner-bio

George Tomaziu - Spy Artist Prisoner

George Tomaziu - Spy Artist Prisoner (My Life in Romania Under Fascist and Communist Rule) 

5⭐

Genre: Memoir, Non-Fiction,  History, Biography  

Pages:  228

Format: Paperback 

Translated by: Jane Reid 

Original Language: French 

Publisher: Envelope Books 

Date Published: 3rd March 2022

Huge thank you to Envelope Books for the copy of this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

The Romanian artist George Tomaziu expected to be imprisoned for monitoring German troop movements during the Second World War. He also expected that, after the war and his release, he might be honoured for fighting Fascism. Instead, the new Communist government sent him back to prison and stranded him there, for 13 years. This is his memoir.

My Review: 

My first book from Envelope Books and honestly it was one of the most interesting and eye-opening books I have read in a while! Not only the book cover design was so beautiful and fitting for this story, but also the memoir itself is so emotional, poignant and so raw.

I know quite a lot about the history of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the Baltic countries but I didn’t know much about how Romania was involved in WW2 and how the country's political developments evolved after WW2. This book taught me so much and gave me great insight into the history and political changes before, through and after WW2 in Romania.

The book is a memoir written by George Tomaziu, a Romanian artist and it is his account of living under Fascist, Socialist and then Communist regimes. With his artistic nature, he loses all hope that his country will ever be free from Fascism during WW2, which prompts him to become a spy for the British Intelligence Services, sharing information about German movements across Romania. Years later just before the war finishes, he gets arrested for spying and sent to prison. However, his first time in prison under the Fascist regime is short-lived and he is released. Then political powers in Romania are suddenly changed and Tomaziu is arrested again but now under a Communist regime and sent for thirteen years to the hard labour Romanian gulag. The book follows his life through all these changes in political power, his life of being an artist and a spy and recounts his horrific time in the Romanian gulag.  

For me, the bit about his life in the gulag was just heart-wrenching and horrid. Tomaziu talks about physical and mental torture, hunger, malnutrition, and being treated like an animal and not a human being. He saw so many of his friends and cell mates die from the terrible conditions, torture and illnesses in the gulag. He also talked about how he managed to keep his humanity and faith alive in such horrible conditions. All of this is not a light read and some parts are very disturbing and dark but it is also an eye-opener into what happened inside the Iron Curtain countries. It is a very important read and account of real life and real atrocities that happened not too long ago.

I was amazed by Tomaziu’s bravery and strength in times of torture, constant humiliation and hunger. He fought hard as he wanted to one day see his country free from Communism and the atrocities that came with it.

Overall:  Such an important book that everyone should read, especially to learn what happened behind the Iron Curtain and in Eastern Europe not too long ago. Especially this book is important in the light of current events that are happening in Eastern Europe and shows us whether we can learn from our history and people who lived through all the hard parts of it as George Tomaziu did. It is important to not forget the history and this book is a real and honest account that reminds us of the horrors of Fascism and Communism. Definitely, a book that I will not forget for a long time and I am so glad I had a chance to read it!

 

About the Author:

George (Gheorghe) Tomaziu was a Romanian painter, illustrator, memoirist and poet. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest. Spy Artist Prisoner is his memoir about living under the rule of Fascism and Communism in Romania before, during and after WW2. 

https://the-history-avenue.eu/2022/05/14/spy-artist-against-the-system-george-tomazius-life-in-communist-romania/

Baek SeHee - I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

  

Baek SeHee - I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

5 ⭐

Genre: Biography, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Mental Health, Self-Care, Health, Mind and Body, Korean Literature

Translated by: Anton Hur 

Original Title: 죽고 싶지만 떡볶이는 먹고 싶어

Original Language: Korean 

Pages: 208

Format: eARC on NetGalley 

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK)

Date Published: 23rd June 2022

Huge Thank You to Bloomsbury UK and NetGalley UK for a copy of eARC to read and review! 

Book Blurb: 

Baek Se-Hee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her - what to call it? - depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, and overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal.

But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness.

My Review: 

I really loved this book!  It is the first self-help book that I loved, actually enjoyed reading, and didn’t DNF’ed.

Firstly, it’s part memoir, featuring the author’s therapy sessions, where she is trying to find out why she is how she is, depressed, unhappy, with low self-esteem and always puts herself down. Secondly, it’s a part self-help book, where the author explains her mental health struggles without sugar-coating or glamorising it, whilst providing some explanation on different conditions and how it is possible to tackle them. The author also talks about how she is slowly overcoming her struggles, step by step and not always in a linear fashion, taking a few steps forward but in reality stumbling some ten steps backwards.

I love the honesty, the raw truth of mental health problems and how the author talks about her struggles, how she is not afraid to talk about her feelings too. I really liked how the book was so easy to read and felt really personal, like, I felt I was the one in the therapy room having the conversation with the therapist. I devoured this book in a few hours and would love to go back read it again and annotate, and add my thoughts (hopefully can do that once I get a physical copy when it's out). It was also so relatable, as most of the author’s struggles are so universal and some of us might face more than one in our everyday life.

This book is different but in such a good way, it stands out, as it's not your traditional ‘how to take care of your mental health’,  full of checklists and tips book. This book has a unique voice and true story, which makes it very raw and real, whilst teaching quite a lot about mental health from the perspective of our everyday life.

Overall:  I really think we need more books like this on mental health, as for me how the author bravely shared her feelings and thoughts on mental health conditions, made me think that more conversations like this need to happen in our communities and society to get over the stigma surrounding this subject. I can’t wait until it’s released, so I can buy a physical copy, re-read it and annotate it, and have it on my bookshelf to help me when I face hard moments in my life. It is translated so well, as writing just flows. It’s also so easy to understand, and there is some extra information provided, explaining Korean cultural nuances that the reader might not be familiar with.

Honestly, a book that is really worth a place on your bookshelf. 

This review was first published on NetGalley and can be found on:

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/book/252006/review/959200 

About the Author: 

Born in 1990, Baek SeHee studied creative writing at university before working for five years at a publishing house. For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays, and then I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, books one and two. Her favourite food is tteokbokki, and she lives with her rescue dog Jaram.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/baek-sehee/

Trevor Noah - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

 

Trevor Noah - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood 

 5 ⭐

Genre: Autobiography, Biography, Humour, True Story, Race.

Pages: 305

Format:  Hardback

Favourite Quote: 'You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all' (Page 5).

Book Blurb: 

One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother - a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life.

My Review: 

This is my first 5-star book of 2022 and honestly, I was completely in love with this book. It was so well written, I just couldn't put it down and will be definitely re-reading it in a near future. 

What I loved the most is that Trevor's childhood experiences, good or bad, were mixed together with snippets of the history of South Africa. It really helped me, someone, who is not familiar with South African history, to be able to understand his story and his experiences. 

I loved how this book wasn't a sugar-coated version of his childhood. The way he wrote it was really personal and all the way through the book, one minute I was crying and the next I was laughing. It was a definite emotional rollercoaster kind of book...

I knew Trevor Noah from his stand-up shows and always found him a funny and relatable comedian. His humour is not only funny but also teaches us a lot about race, languages, cultures, etc. This book, however, made me truly admire and respect him for always seeing the bright side and positivity even in the bleakest and hardest times.  

Overall: It is a MUST READ! For me, it covered some very serious topics, that I personally can relate to, including racism and wanting to be accepted and to belong somewhere. This book also gave me an in-depth view of how it was like to grow up in South Africa as a coloured person and made me realise that sometimes we take things in life for granted. This book showed the struggles, funny moments, determination of Trevor Noah, which is truly inspirational and admirable. Also, what I also admired is his love for his mum, especially for raising him to reach opportunities from a very young age.