I have been getting interested in biographies recently, and have enjoyed the following:

"Kate Adie, reporting from the world's trouble spots, is so familiar to us that we all recognise her, but this book reveals much more about her eventful life. Raised in post-war Sunderland, where life was "a sunny experience, full of meat-paste sandwiches and Sunday school" Kate has courageously reported from all over the world since she joined the BBC in 1969. These memoirs encompass her reporting from, inter alia, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Tiananmen Square and, of course, the Gulf War of 1991. From the siege at the Iranian embassy which shot her to public acclaim, to an alarming encounter with a drunken Libyan army commander who shot her at point-blank range, the chaos and mayhem of desert warfare to Gracie Field's bizarre funeral, Kate has cooly kept us in touch through her reasoned and level reporting. Although an intensely private person, Kate Adie also divulges how, despite being sent to outlandish places at a moment's notice, she's maintained her interest in sailing, singing, theatre and friends who tolerated her strange hours, and what it's like to be a woman in a man's world. "

Enjoyable text. Not too hard going. Describes his rise to fame and dealing with Young Onset Parkinson's - in a realistic way, rather than 'Poor Me'.

I plan to read the following:

"On 13 November 2001, John Simpson and a BBC news crew walked into Kabul and the liberation of the Afghan capital was broadcast to a waiting world. It was the end of a sustained campaign against the Taliban, a campaign that Simpson had covered from the beginning, despite appalling difficulties and, often, great danger.

In this, his third riveting volume of autobiography, John Simpson focuses on how journalists set about finding the stories that make the headlines. Drawing on his own vast experience, he shows how news stories arise and are selected and developed, how the most improbable leads can result in a scoop and how weeks of work often never see the light of day. He discusses the frustrations of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or of missing a major news event by just one day. He talks about the mechanics of news gathering and describes reporters and television crews reach the places where news breaks, whether it’s smuggling themselves across borders disguised in burkas, spending a good deal of the licence fee on bribing local brigands or driving in dilapidated jeeps across dry river beds.

Simpson talks, too, about the pressures placed on journalists, both ethical issues and how to tackle them but also government interference, both from foreign governments seeking to suppress adverse news and from our own government. From occasionally bitter experience, he advises how best to tackle such pressures from higher authorities, be they cabinet ministers, hostile police forces in foreign countries or even from other parts of the media.

As with his previous books, News from No Man’s Land is rich in anecdote and filled with extraordinary encounters with remarkable individuals. From the revolution against Slobodan Milosevic to the toppling of the Taliban, this is quintessential Simpson: vivid, utterly absorbing and written with all the care and lucidity of his reporting style."

"Murray Walker is acknowledged worldwide as the voice of motor racing - and the man responsible for introducing millions of viewers to the previously inaccessible world of Formula 1. Here he tells the story of his incident-packed life. Murray Walker is seen as an institution in the sport. When the man who made famous the catchphrase "Unless I'm very much mistaken... I AM very much mistaken!!!" announced that he was retiring as ITV's Grand Prix commentator at the end of the 2001 season, the media reacted as if the sport itself was losing one of its biggest stars. His reputation for mistakes enhanced his reputation. He was the fan who happened to be given the keys to the commentary box - and never wanted to give them back. His high-octane delivery kept viewers on the edge of their seats, while his passion for talking about the sport he loved was matched by an all-encompassing knowledge gained through hours of painstaking research before every race. In his book he writes about his childhood and the influence that his father, British motorcycle champion Graham Walker, had on his career. Failing to match his father's achievements on the track, he made a successful career for himself in advertising which catapulted him to the top of his profession. An offer from the BBC to take over the commentary seat for their F1 broadcasts gave Walker his big opening, and it wasn't long before the infamous "Murrayisms" enlivened a sport which until then had been shrouded in a cloak of unfathomable technical jargon and mind-numbing statistics. Walker also talks about the biggest changes in the sport over the last 50 years, in particular the safety issues which came to the fore after the tragic death of Ayrton Senna. His partnership with James Hunt behind the microphone is the subject of some hilarious anecdotes, and he also gives his views on drivers such as Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard."