Love, death and The Blues Brothers: Rick O’Shea on life stories that will stay with you

From Richard E Grant’s tribute to his late wife, to the compelling tale of The Blues Brothers, here’s four of the most riveting memoirs and biographies on our shelves

Challenge from late wife: Richard E Grant. Photo: Gerry Mooney

Rick O'Shea

In 1990, when I was in fifth year, we went on our only foreign school tour, to a tiny spot of a town in the Netherlands called Valkenburg. Looking back with the ­cynical eye of adulthood, I’m sure it was some sort of scam.

The local attractions ­consisted of an empty cave system that could have been used as a nuclear bunker in the eventuality of World War III and a concrete bobsleigh run — no snow, a lot of speed, every chance of shattered skulls. Health and safety was a little lax in the early ’90s.