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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Alan Turing Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (Real Livestranslator)|authortitle=Jim EldridgeReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionBiography|summary=Alan Turing was one Biographies are often seen as the form of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last centurylife-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. He did pioneering work on computing I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and artificial intelligenceoffers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. He was also a hero In the first section of World War IIthis book, working in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley ParkTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, cracking German naval codes used but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to lethal effect organising Uknow how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar -boat attackswhy should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machineWell, 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. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>1804271977

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Cher: Strong EnoughIan Penman|authortitle=Josiah HowardErik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=43.5

|summary=Having looked at the title and sub-title, the latter being no more than the two-word title of one of her latter-day hits, I assumed this was going to be a fairly comprehensive This unconventional biography of the American singer. The sub-title, ''Strong Enough'somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, taken from one of her latter-day hit singles, reveals nothingexperimental and creative. Not until I had almost finished itIt is divided into three sections: the first, a little puzzled at it not being quite what I had expectedan essay, did I finally look at the blurb second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the back – at which point all became clear. This was not the full story of third, a showbiz career which has lasted close on half a century'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account of her 1975 TV variety showhis muse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654842</amazonuk>1804271535

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empress Dowager CixiJacqueline Feldman|authortitle=Jung ChangPrecarious Lease|rating=3.5

|summary=It’s easy The title of this novel refers to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as the focal point for her study 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 China’s tumultuous modern history. Cixi is a truly fascinating womanother squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped the course of historymassive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Cixi’s biography is not only Something like a fascinating read due to her own political machinationshaven for artists and marginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, but also because ''I live on the margins of the immense transformations that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration margins of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 to her death in 1908margins''), during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way Le Bloc was subject to the advent continual threat of eviction and the industrial agepressures 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>1804271403

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Bertie: A Life of Edward VIIJacqueline Rose|authortitle=Jane RidleyWomen in Dark Times|rating=54

|summary=Several ''The world of the main facts about King Edward VII (1841-1910) are reasonably well-known. Considered oversexed by his parents, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, he was blamed by the former for breaking the latter's heart and causing his early death with unconscious is not the news that he (Edward) had enjoyed himself with a lady antagonist of the night. He was notoriously unfaithful to his charming but prematurely deaf and lame wife Alexandrapolitical life, hated reading books and learning but became a first-class unofficial ambassador to courts and countries abroadits steadfast companion, and despite low expectations of others and poor health he made an excellent King for the last nine years of his life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575442</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

{{newreview|author=Anthony Summers|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of JFK|rating=4the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries.5|genre=True Crime|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy''Her historical and political backdrop is, thus, Anthony Summers has massively revised the textexpansive, updated yet she navigates it with the latest evidence intelligence and itan acknowledgment that feminism's been republished as ''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK'' which refers lengthy mission is a testament to the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come out. He said that it wouldits successes, but added the rider that ''it might and not be in your lifetimeits failures: ''. Fifty years on most the ongoing force of the people directly involved are now dead, but the truth has not officially emerged. In fact, itfeminism''s difficult to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents are due to be released in 2017, but, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf and given us this comprehensive book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldClaire Dederer|authortitle=Greg King and Sue WoolmansMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Possibly no assassination Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in history can have had such momentous consequences for a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the history old aphorism of separating the world as art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his wife Sophie in Sarajevoactions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the capital likes of BosniaWoody Allen, in June 1914Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. It was their killing which led directly to the outbreak of the First World WarHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, just six weeks laterrather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Red LoveCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Story of an East German FamilyAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Maxim LeoEdzard Ernst|rating=54

|summary=Chances are there have For over forty years, Prince Charles has been major disagreements an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and splits in your familycomplementary therapies. One black sheep might have supported the wrong football team. Some of you will be strictly ''Strictly''Charles, the rest The Alternative Prince''X Factor''. But probably nothing compares to what went on in critically assesses the Leo household over decades in Eastern Berlin. One of our authorPrince's grandfathers, Gerhard, was too Jewish and bourgeois to survive life in Germany, fled to Franceopinions, beliefs and came back a Communist having fought aims against Nazismthe background of the scientific evidence. His counterpart Werner ended the war with some semblance There are few instances of PTSD, his beliefs being vindicated and more or less landed in Communist Berlin due to facts his relentless promotion of administration, yet became a fully-fledged Party activist. Author's mother Anne worked as a journalist on the Communist mouthpiece newspaper, even if she managed treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to doubt things she was forced to write during the Prague Spring and more. Her husband Wolf – Werner's son – in reputation of a similar industry was involved in sort-man who is proud of Photoshopping for propaganda, and often sabotaged his own output. He was violent, awkward, but very anti-establishment. And if you can't see how having a nonrefusal to apply evidence-Communist in such a family in the heightened times of Cold War Berlin would bebased, you certainly will after reading this gripping collective biographylogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968516</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara A Perry1739805100|title=Rose KennedyLoving the Enemy: The Life and Times Building bridges in a time of a Political Matriarchwar|author=Andrew March

|summary=It's about fifty years since 'Loving the Enemy'' tells the assassination quite extraordinary story of President John F Kennedy and it was he (and particularly his death) author Andrew March's grandparents, who brought the Kennedy family first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the attention early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, a new generation. An earlier generation sensitive and thoughtful man, had been split about some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the virtues (or otherwise) of his father, Joe Kennedy, multi millionaire and United States Ambassador growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to Great Britain. But behind both of these men was mother separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and wife, Rose Kennedy and Barbara A Perry has produced connections that lasted for a superb biography using letters, diaries and other archived material recently made availablelifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068951</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Eminent ElizabethansWill Brooker|authortitle=Piers BrendonThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=''Eminent Elizabethans'' is in effect a descendant Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the author’s ''Eminent Edwardians'most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. The latterNow meet Will Brooker, a volume one of short biographies the thousands of four British iconic figures less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the early twentieth centurywords of her latest book she was reciting, was and her being in turn inspired by Lytton Strachey’s barbed a 'Eminent Victorians'black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), published in 1918but pulled Brooker, a debunking professor of four Victorian heroes whom cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the iconoclast Strachey wished rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to demonstrate had feet follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of claythe latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532638</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Sisters of the East EndMartha Leigh|authortitle=Helen BattenInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=3.5|genre=Historical FictionBiography|summary=Katie Crisp had never intended to become Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a nun. Raised by non-religious parentsslightly eccentric, her immediately recognisable upper middle class English family frowned upon organised religion and when Katie started secretly going to church. Her father is a Cambridge don, they strongly disapproved. When Katie ran to forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the aid complete correspondence of a stroke victimthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she had a vision that changed her his life's work. She saw herself dressed as a nun with Her mother is a large silver cross hanging from her neckconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. She decided to follow her calling and join Neither parent is hugely interested in the community practicalities of St John life. There is love in the Divine, house but also darker undercurrents that a group of Anglican nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery. She thus shed her old identity and became known as Sister Catherine Marychild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091951771</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jerry OppenheimerPolly Barton|title=Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson DynastyFifty Sounds|rating=34.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Back in 1885 three brothers were inspired by a speech by Joseph ListerWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the pioneer of antiseptic surgery, to create question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a range of surgical dressings while and if the world hadn't gone into melt- such things were previously unheard of - and down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this was the beginning of Johnson & Johnsonyear, providers of Band-Aids and baby powderbut I am not hopeful. It also brought phenomenal wealth And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the founders and a variety question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of trusts continued this down the years. The question in the first president of essay, which is on the company was Robert Wood Johnson. NFL fans will be aware of his great grandson, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as sound ''giro' 'Woody')– which she describes as being, among other things, owner of the New York Jets. In between the two - and afterwards - there are a string sound of tragedies and scandals which put ''every party where you in mind of the Kennedy dynastyhave to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0312662114</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=America's Mistress: The Life and Times of Eartha KittFrederic Gros|authortitle=John L WilliamsA Philosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary=Two quotes on I confess I picked this one up from the back library in my pre-lockdown forage of the dust jacket testify random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the power pages I have marked and public perception of Eartha Kitt during her lifetimereturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. Orson Welles once called her ‘the most exciting woman This one had me in the world’first two pages, while to the CIA she was ‘a sadistic nymphomaniac’wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857385755</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's InfernoSharon Blackie|authortitle=Michael HaagIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=EntertainmentBiography|summary=Here be spoilersI normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Not so much in Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to own copy before I've finished reading the latest [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbusterone I've borrowed. ItI want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring's not so much a page'life-by-page guide, changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but certainly serves as an educational clichés exist for a reason and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book of 2013I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Serving VictoriaOur House is on Fire: Life Scenes of a Family and a Planet in the Royal HouseholdCrisis|author=Kate HubbardMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Biographies 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. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and new of Queen Victoria, her husband talking and her children are plentiful enoughsister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. The vast majority of them are based In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to some extent on the diarieshome, memoirs and biographies of some of the most important figures who served herbut eventually, and Kate Hubbard has put these as well as supplementary archive papers it became clear to good use in presenting a thoroughly engrossing account of the royal household throughout the Queen’s lengthy reign. I might almost say ‘lively’, though family that could be an exaggerationthey were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. The court of Victoria may have been homely after If they were to find a fashion, but for the most part it was hardly livelyway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532239</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Sellers0648684806|title=What Fresh Lunacy is This?Clara Colby: The Authorised Biography of Oliver ReedInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=54

|summary=For rather more The path of his career than heClara 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, his family she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and closest friends might have likedthree brothers. Instead, the name Oliver Reed was she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a byword for boozegood education, brawls both in and all types out of laddish behaviourschool. As Sellers’ very full She was the only child in the household and remarkably objective biography reveals, it her childhood was a funny yet sad life all at onceglorious. For although he repeatedly played up to By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the image mid-west of the lovable rogue which he 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 createdten pregnancies, underneath seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the bad boy of popular legend he eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was at heart a professional actor who could always deliver a first-rate performance on the film set when requiredrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147210112X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Thompson1789017977|title=A Curious ManRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The Strange and Brilliant Towards a New Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not' Ripley after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Robert LeRoy Ripley Ronnie Williams was indeed a curious manthe son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. He throve on curiosity There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's 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 own and that of everyone elseage. By exploiting and never underestimating For a while, the public demand for trivia, and by being family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the right place at the right time just as the news 1929 Depression and broadcasting media were beginning five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to develop in America into the unassailable forces they were by the end of the century, a very different lifestyle. One thing he became one of 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 most successful men of the agearmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947204</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hermione LeePatti Smith|title=Edith WhartonYear of the Monkey

|summary=A prolific authorOn the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, Edith Whartonand unexpected moments. In a stranger's published output included over twenty novelswords, one a Pulitzer Prize winner''Anything is possible: after all, and 85 short stories, as well as poetry and books on interior design and travelit's the year of the monkey''. Born in As Smith wanders the United States coast of Santa Cruz in 1862solitude, she travelled extensively throughout Europereflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, and settled permanently in France where she died as it the shifting political waters in 1937America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845952014</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Simmons1912242052|title=I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard CohenO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=If you or I wanted ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to write a story about an imaginary figure who began as a novelist and poetfor work, then became acclaimed as a singer-songwriter in the swinging sixtiesminer, made and lost a fortunequarryman, became a monkshepherd or pack-horse driver, and returned but because he wanted to a musical career at an age when most mortals are well into retirement, for pleasure and found himself not only more popular than ever but also playing to the largest audiences in his entire life, it would be dismissed as total fantasyadventure. Nobody could make it up – His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and nobody needs toits literary consequences, because in a nutshell that is the life (so far) changed our view of Leonard Cohen, the subject of this biography and surely one of the music business’s most unique figuresworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549328</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J C KannemeyerGraff_Find|title=J.M. Coetzee: A life in writingFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee is described as probably the most celebrated and decorated writer throughout the English-speaking world. The author When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of sixteen published novelshandwritten notes from his journal, he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Booker Prize twicedidn't take much notice of it. At the same time he has guarded his privacy jealously, tending to decline interviews and requests to discuss his workage of 24, and refusing to collect prestigious awards in person. On one occasion he explained his absence by saying that he could not imagine Graff didn'anything better calculated to reduce me to misery'. One acquaintance claims to have attended several dinner parties at which t realise the gravity of the author pages he was a fellow guest and did not utter a single wordholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922070084</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vladimir Alexandrov1789016304|title=The Black RussianWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Until I Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this book I had could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never come across happen: even those who thought that the story of Frederick Bruce ThomasGermans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, 'that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Black Russian'way that it did, beforebut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It is 's an atrocity on a remarkable tale vast scale but made up of rags to riches, tragedy, success against the odds and subsequent failuretens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855196</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Moore1786893452|title=NijinskyThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=The name Nijinsky is synonymous with dance from Here in the last days of imperial Russia. I must confess to knowing little West, we see news reports about him until I read thisimmigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, the first biography some scaremongering about them. But all of him for nearly forty yearsthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and for me it was a surprise almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to learn the world and the situations that his career was so tragically briefrefugees find themselves in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686180</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diana Souhami|title=The Trials of Radclyffe Hall|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It is a coincidence 's rare that we find out the year 1928 saw journeys from the first appearance of two English novels which were denounced refugees themselves – and initially suppressed on the grounds of obscenity and their potential this is a rare opportunity to corrupt innocent readers – D.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness'. Lawrence's many novelsdo that, stories and poems are widely read todayin this intelligent, but Hall powerful and her works are hardly remembered except moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a minority. Diana Souhami has done her a service revolution in this generous yet deeply probing life of Iran, fleeing to America as a literary trailblazerten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Souhami0857058320|title=Greta Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and CecilAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=The story of ''Lord Of All the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden and the noted British photographer Dead'' is a curious one. Neither ever married, both were androgynous and bisexual, plucked their eyebrows, and had numerous short-term relationships. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant to pick up a pen even journey to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind uncover the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, author's lost ancestor's life and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help itdeath. It Cercas is significant that searching for the one picture of them together meaning behind his great uncle's death in the bookSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, taken in London in 1951Cercas' great uncle, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like a handbag.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diana Souhami|title=Natalie and Romaine|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=The main focus of the book is the relationship between Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks, two very well-off American lesbians figure who first met in Paris when looms large over the former was 39 and the latter 41book. It was the beginning of an often mercurial partnership which lasted He died relatively young whilst fighting for fifty yearsFrancisco Franco's forces. However, despite the author’s insistence, it is less a double biography than a survey of the Sapphic society life which centred Cercas ruminates on Paris why his uncle fought for much of this perioddictator. Barney, a poet, was a flamboyant character who used to say that 'living was The question at the first centre of all the arts' and often vowed this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to make 'my life itself into be a poem'. Brooks, a painter whose self-portrait adorns hero whilst having fought for the front cover, was the product of a difficult childhood, abused by her mother who far preferred her mentally unbalanced brother, often proclaimed sadly that 'my dead mother stands between me and life'. An aloof soul, she made a brief marriage with the homosexual John Ellingham Brooks but left him within a yearwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878826</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Wright1788037812|title=CirculationThe Fraternity of the Estranged: William Harvey's Revolutionary IdeaThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary='Circulation' by Thomas Wright is Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a biography of English physician William Harvey’s lifecrime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the story nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the 'birth of a theory'heterosexual Havelock Ellis. It takes Exploring the reader through time before, during margins of society and after studying homosexuality was common on the creation and completion of ''De Motu Cordis''European Continent, but barely talked about in which Harvey famously outlines the most comprehensive antecedent UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the mechanism scientific understanding of blood circulation as we know it today. The combination of the writer's aptitude for storytelling homosexuality, and beginning the intriguing life of the individual about whom he writes makes struggle for a fascinating read, allowing one to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life recognition and worksequality, mixed with briefer essays on subject matters ranging from the history of vivisection leading to the philosophical underpinnings milestone legalisation of Harvey’s worksame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552698</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon MorrisonBuckland_Zoo|title=The Love and Wars Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Lina Prokofievnatural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=This book is As a biography of and based largely on conservationist in Victorian England before the letters of Lina Prokofiev. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid in 1897term existed, she spent most Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of her childhood in New Yorkhis time. After making her stage debut as a soprano in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ under the name of Lina LluberaSurgeon, she met the Soviet composer and pianist Serge Prokofievnaturalist, best remembered for the children’s musical fable ‘Peter and the Wolf’. They married in 1924 veterinarian and for the first thirteen years of their marriage they lived in Pariseccentric sums him up perfectly, where two sons, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were born any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to them. Soon after moving to Moscow in 1936 their marriage fell apart. In 1941 he left her for a writer, Mira Mendelson, 24 years his junior, whom he married six years latertell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846557313</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yehuda Koren and Eilat NegevWilliams_Captain|title=Giants: The Dwarfs Captain Ronald Campbell of AuschwitzBombala Station, Cambalong: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput Troupe|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title of this book does of course carry a sense of irony, although we never quite know exactly how much. When a man of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania in the 1860s nobody was to know what would happen to his lineage – there was no clue then that he would father ten children, and seven of them would inherit his genetic dwarfism. But history has pieced together all that followed, including the careers those children had as a performance troupe, belting out showtunes to their own accompaniment, and acting in their own tragi-comic skits. And then having the limelight stolen from them by the Nazis, His Military Life and a transportation to Auschwitz. And then being surprisingly saved, and given what passed as a cushty life, fed and together, but tortured at the hands of the camp doctor, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues on what singled out his Aryan race's genetic destiny. I say the amount of irony is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – but he, the doctor, would have known. As one of the more ominous sentences you'll read all year has it – 'Mengele had plans for them'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Peter Ackroyd|title=Wilkie CollinsIvor George Williams

|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books over In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the last few yearstroops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, he has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as wellAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. This He was not destined to live a long life of , dying suddenly at the Victorian novelist is one age of the latter34 at Bangalore, the latest in leaving his series of 'Brief Liveswidow to raise their two young sons. Edwards'death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, which have but she was also included Chaucer, responsible for the convicts who worked the painter Turner and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]]land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary RaymondPeacock_mountain|title=3-Minute JRR Tolkien: Into The Mountain, A Visual Biography Life of The World's Most Revered Fantasy WriterNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock|rating=4.5

|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base as Tolkien Mostly we choose what books have gets transported into another medium, the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with the original, read because there is so little time and then to try and buy everything worthwhile with even a tenuous link to so many books… I can understand the object of their affectionsapproach, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwary. Such but I also think we sell ourselves short by it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind us, and we sell the sixmyriad lesser-filmknown authors short as well. So while, three-month long Blu-Ray box set is on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts of course like most other people I have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold the originalsmy favourite genres, and favoured authors, and so low can the quality of the spin-offs bewhile, there are some who will never be satisfied. But there remains like most other people I read the newcomerreviews and follow up on what appeals, freshly inspired I also have a third-string to find out more, and those at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide to [[:Categorymy reading bow:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=John Fisher|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!': A Life in Jokes and Pictures|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=I grew up watching Tommy Cooper, and watching my dad do impressions of Tommy Cooper. I thought he was hilarious (the real Tommy!) and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried and failed Move on to do magic tricks! This book is rather unusual as although it is a biography of sorts, giving information about Tommy's life and his history in the world of entertainment, it isn't text heavy, and so mostly Tommy's story is told through photographs [[Newest Business and pictures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]