About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Rob Henderson
Positive The Times (UK) A damning account of how children are being let down and a plea for us to do better ... His views may be unfashionable, but his perspective is an important one, shared with fierce intelligence and clarity.
Fern Brady
Rave The Times (UK) Nobody is spared in this brutal, funny and heartbreaking memoir about growing up with undiagnosed autism ... [Brady] deftly weaves facts about autism into her life story, with footnotes from psychological studies. It is testament to her skill as a writer that these passages bolster rather than weigh down her narrative. The pace is brisk and her deadpan humour makes the darkest material hilariously funny.
Chrysta Bilton
Rave The Times (UK) [Debra\'s] antics are described with deadpan humour and a wonderfully brisk pace ... The cast of characters that inhabited their lives could each be the subject of their own book ... shocking stuff, handled gracefully ... At this point I would have liked to have heard more of Bilton’s interior world, but the fallout is reported rather than examined ... After ten years of keeping her distance, Bilton, now 37, opened the door to 35 siblings, inviting them into her house, which she shares with her husband and two children. A string of people turned up in her living room with the same feet, dimples and propensity to leave phones uncharged, but this felt bland compared with what had come before. Which is why I am glad the book ends with her mother, now sober and a devoted grandmother, somehow on \'first name terms with Kamala Harris\' and still wearing bright red lips and nails ... This beautiful, warm, funny book is a testament to human resilience, forgiveness and humour. It is also a love letter to an extraordinary mother.
Oliver Burkeman
Rave The Times (UK) This book is wonderful. Instead of offering new tips on how to cram more into your day, it questions why we feel the need to ... Acting as a warm, funny, if slightly anxious and repetitive narrator, [Burkeman] quotes philosophers, psychologists and spiritual teachers on this issue of how to spend our lives ... My favorite kind of book is this one — a book that doesn’t offer magic solutions to life because there aren’t any. Instead, it examines the human struggle with intelligence, wisdom, humor and humility ... Reading this book was time well spent.