Thursday, 2 August 2012

One's life in print

Today's Hot Books section on Amazon contains the autobiography of Olympic diver Tom Daley (My Story, Michael Joseph, £16.99). I've often wondered what you need to do to get an autobiography published. The obvious thing would be to have lived a long life with lots of interesting bits in it, and to have accomplished something extraordinary. Like Steve Jobs perhaps, or Charles Darwin, or Keith Richards.



Then again, everyone has a book written about them these days. For comedians it's a way of proving they can be funny in print too. It gives musicians a chance to broadcast their party hardy ways, and the number of girls they knobbed. And as for politicians? They can finally explain what led them to make that one inexplicable decision that changed the country for ever (or got them fired. Or landed them on the cover of the Sun. Or any combination of the above).

So what makes a person ripe for an autobiography? I suppose 'a long life' isn't all that relevant after all. Justin Bieber has an autobiography and he's a whippersnapper. Anne Frank surely had a story to tell even though she was barely a teenager.  So I won't get all hung up on the fact that Daley is only 18 years old.

Daley has accomplished stuff too. I mean, he's up there on the diving platform right now, competing with the world's best. You could argue that winning an Olympic medal would be nice before you actually write your memoires, but then again, most of us never get this far. I'd brag a little too if I were him.

Right then. How about the 'interesting bits' in his life? I would imagine Daley's spent most of it in a swimming pool, going through the same grueling schedule every day, while his weekends were probably spent competing, also in a swimming pool. (I used to be a competition swimmer at an appallingly low level and even I had to spend most of my spare time in a swimming costume, dripping and shivering away. So there, I do know what I'm talking about.) Still, his life manages to fill 288 pages. I don't think I'll be reading them.

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