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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!-- Buckland -->{{Frontpage|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev[[image:Buckland_Zoo|rating=3.jpg5|leftgenre=Biography|linksummary=httpsBiographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that://www''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be.amazonWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''.coWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.uk/gp/product/1784701610?ie|isbn=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1784701610]]1804271977}}
{{Frontpage|author=Ian Penman|title=Erik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. It is divided into three sections: the first, an essay, the second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, his muse. |isbn=1804271535}}{{Frontpage|author=Jacqueline Feldman|title=Precarious Lease|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=[[The Man Who Ate title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, but few scant property rights. Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and marginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the Zoo: Frank Bucklandmargins of the margins of the margins''), forgotten hero Le Bloc was subject to the continual threat of natural history by Richard Girling]]eviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as a tragedy in this book. |isbn=1804271403}}{{Frontpage|author=Jacqueline Rose|title=Women in Dark Times|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''
|rating= 5
|genre= HistoryBiography|summary= It was inevitable that each Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the six wives philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of Henry VIII life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have left their mark visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in some way respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the places they lived sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Gros|title=A Philosophy of Walking|rating=5|genre= Politics and Society|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and visitedreturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This book straddles several categories; history, gazetteer or guide bookone had me in the first two pages, and collection of potted biographieswherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144567114X</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Terry BrevertonSharon Blackie|title= Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor DynastyIf Women Rose Rooted|rating= 4.5
|genre= Biography
|summary= Owen Tudor was I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|isbn=1912836017}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of those shadowy yet very important characters a Family and a Planet in medieval historyCrisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. While we may know little about him Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, or at least did not until this biography appearedthen nine years old, his historical importance can hardly be overestimatedstruggled with what was happening. Without him In such circumstances, there it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would have been no Tudor dynastyneed to be radical.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|amazonukrating=<amazonuk>1445654180</amazonuk>4|genre=Biography|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jenny Landreth1789017977|title= SwellRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating= 54|genre= Politics and SocietyHistory|summary= I love Jenny's own description Ronnie Williams was the son of her book Thomas Henry Williams (known as a waterbiography Harry) and I love her encouragement that we should each write our ownEthel Wall. This is more than just (I say ''just''!) a recollection of the authorThere's own encounters with water; itsome doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's also birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a history of women's fight for while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the right 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to swima very different lifestyle. That sounds absurd until you start reading about itOne thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.}}{{Frontpage|author=Patti Smith|title=Year of the Monkey|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, then it becomes seriousand unexpected moments. Not too serious though – because Jenny Landreth In a stranger's words, ''Anything is clearly a lover possible: after all, it's the year of the absurdmonkey''. Not a lover As Smith wanders the coast of book blurbs myselfSanta Cruz in solitude, I do always seek to give she reflects on a shoutyear that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-out to those who get on, as it dead right: the shifting political waters in this case IAmerica. |isbn=1526614758}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'m definitely with Alexandra Heminsley's gives Coleridge credit for being ''giggles-onthe first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the-commute funnyworld''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1472938941</amazonuk>When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of it. At the age of 24, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.
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|rating=4
|genre=History Biography|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame BovaryLord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor'Revolutionary Roads life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle'')s death in the Spanish Civil War. When she imagines to herself what the female version of that well-known historical figureManuel Mena, the carefree ''flâneur'Cercas'great uncle, might be, she thinks about women is the figure who freely wandered looms large over the worldbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great cities without uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to themwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael Jones1788037812|title= The Black PrinceFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating= 5
|genre=Biography
|summary= Generally known Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and shortly after his lifetime 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as Edward the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of Woodstocksociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, having been born at Woodstock Palace, Oxfordshirebut barely talked about in the UK, so the eldest son publications of King Edward III was arguably one these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the Kings that never was. At last we have a modern biography struggle for recognition and equality, leading to put him the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in his proper perspective1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784972932</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= David E HoffmanBuckland_Zoo|title=The Billion Dollar SpyMan Who Ate the Zoo: A True Story Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Cold War Espionage and Betrayalnatural history|author=Richard Girling|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary=With As a conservationist in Victorian England before the Cold War at its frostiestterm existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, there were few tougher locations for western intelligence agencies to try veterinarian and run an agent than 1970s Moscow. That makes the tale of Adolf Tolkacheveccentric sums him up perfectly, and any biographer is immediately presented with a Russian engineer who provided thousands of top secret documents colourful tale to the Americans right under the noses of the KGB, all the more incredibletell. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785781979</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kieron Moore and Rajesh NagulakondaWilliams_Captain|title=BuddhaCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: An Enlightened His Military Life (Campfire Graphic Novels)and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic NovelsBiography|summary=I don't do religion, but still there In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was something that drew me to this comic book. For one, in command of the whole Buddhist faith is still troops and convicts on board a little unknown ship sailing from Plymouth to meSydney, Australia: his wife and this young son accompanied him. He was certainly going not destined to be educational. Yeslive a long life, I knew some dying suddenly at the age of the terms it ends up using34 at Bangalore, but not others, such as bhikshu, and had never really come across the manleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards's life story. Yes, I knew he found enlightenment and taught death left his widow in a very pacifist kind of faith, but where did he come from? What failings difficult position: not only did he she have on his paththeir farm to manage, and but she was also responsible for the convicts who were worked the ones that joined him along the way?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182299</amazonuk>land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Arman Peacock_mountain|title= Into The Warrior Queen: The Mountain, A Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Daughter of Alfred the Great Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= AethelflaedMostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, the 'Lady of the Mercians'but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, was and we sell the daughter and eldest child of King Alfredmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Considering the scanty details of her life which So while, like most other people I have been handed down to posteritymy favourite genres, the author has done a very good job in presenting us with a portrait of her life and times.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662043</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kathryn Warner|title= Edward II: The Unconventional King|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= Edward II has come down to us as one of the worst English kings of all. With a reign filled by reliance on male favouritesfavoured authors, constant threats of civil warsand while, endless quarrels with his barons, unsuccessful military campaigns (including what was perhaps like most other people I read the worst English military defeat ever to take place reviews and follow up on British soil)what appeals, abdication and – so we are led to believe – I also have a brutal death in captivity third- the balance sheet is a pretty poor onestring to my reading bow: randomness. But is it the full story?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666723</amazonuk>
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