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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsay Reade1788360702|title=Mr Manchester and the Factory GirlCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Story of Tony and Lindsay WilsonAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|genre=EntertainmentBiography|summary=Mr ManchesterFor over forty years, as Tony Wilson came to be known, could have Prince Charles has been the next John Humphrysan ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. Instead he ended up becoming ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the next Malcolm McLaren – orPrince's opinions, perhaps, a far less successful version beliefs and aims against the background of Richard Bransonthe scientific evidence. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English he became a trainee news reporter for ITN, and for much There are few instances of his life he worked as an anchorman for regional evening news programmes. Yet he is less remembered for this than for beliefs being vindicated and his championship relentless promotion of alternative music and punk rock, founding of Factory Records and involvement with the Hacienda Club. Although he loved treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the Beatles and folk music in general, he disliked much reputation of the contemporary music scene until he saw the Sex Pistols live in the summer a man who is proud of 1976his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654567</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bevis Hillier1739805100|title=The Wit and Wisdom Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of G K Chestertonwar|author=Andrew March

|summary=G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, best known as who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the creator early days of the clerical detective Father BrownNazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, seems to have slipped a little among sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the general reading publictime. Fred's estimation these days. This is surely unmerited, for attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he was just as versatile as did make friendships and hardly less quotable than the Victorian enfant terribleconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441179585</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosamund BartlettWill Brooker|title=Tolstoy: A Russian LifeThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Count Lev Tolstoy came from a privileged familyMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. He was born on 28 August 1828; unfailingly superstitious for Now meet Will Brooker, one of the rest thousands of his daysless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, he therefore adopted 28 as his lucky number. Like most young men from a similar backgroundwell, he joined and shows how 2021 drew the Russian armytwo closer and closer together. The Crimean war proved to be meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the making words of him her latest book she was reciting, and her being in that it developed his social conscience, opened his eyes to a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the conditions endured by those born author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a less lofty position in the social order than himselfprofessor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and impressed on him down the fervent belief rabbit-hole that everybody in Russia ought to have the chance to learn to read and writeis Jewell's diverse output. As a result Brooker decides he became 'd like nothing more than to follow her through a born-again repentant nobleman year in the light of having seen how the other half (or more than half) livedpublished author's life, he took working to make a long hard look at success of the world around himlatest title, turning into a rebel against organized religion and struggling with the authority of the state next in the processline. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. All And this was exacerbated by his travels throughout Europe shortly afterwards, in which he was impressed with is the comparative freedom he saw in other countries and then found the return to his homeland thoroughly depressing in the few years before the emancipation of the serfsresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681383</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves AzeroualMartha Leigh|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla BruniInvisible Ink: The True StoryA Family Memoir|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=In November 2007 the French President 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, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from forever clacking away on his second wife andtypewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonely's work. He accepted an invitation to a dinner party from Her mother is a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Bruniconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by Neither parent is hugely interested in the attentions practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a beautiful, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were marriedchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreview|author=Roland Huntford|title=Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out for the Antarctic. 'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership of Captain Robert Scott, while 'Fram' sailed with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The basic facts can be briefly summarized. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned home to a hero's welcome, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on the return journey. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they had died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Margerison|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The cover of this book tells the reader that these short ''bioviews'' or biographies can be read in 10 mins or so. This is one of a series within ''The Amazing People Club'' courtesy of the ''Amazing People Team''. There is a rather fulsome ''Author's Note'' followed by a one-page introduction. I was immediately struck by the fact that, given the various feats of these women, I was anxious to read about them - and not about Dr Margerison. Less is more. He goes on to say (by now I'm getting a bit tired of the smiling Margerison) that 'The stories are inspirational and can help you achieve your ambitions in your own journey through life.' All of this and especially that last sentence sits rather uneasily with me, I'm afraid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921629940</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina HastingsPolly Barton|title=The Secret Lives of Somerset MaughamFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=These days, W. Somerset Maugham seems to be something of an anachronism. In his heydayWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for much of a career which lasted from the end of the Victorian era to the 1950s, he was one of the most successful and widely read of all British writers, with his novels, short stories while and plays spawning more film adaptations than any other author. Yet over the last thirty years or so he seems to have slipped from favour, as if his preoccupation with the Edwardian England in which he grew up and his endworld hadn't gone into melt-of-empire settings are deeply embedded in an age we down I would rather forgethave visited by now. Moreover, as I may get there later this very comprehensive biography demonstratesyear, he was but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the most pleasant question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of individuals. The unhappy childthe question in the first essay, orphaned by which is on the time he was tensound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, afflicted with a lifelong stammer and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affectionamong other things, grew up the sound of ''every party where you have to lead a long and unhappy lifeintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew McConnell StottFrederic Gros|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story A Philosophy of Britain's Greatest ComedianWalking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This book has won several prestigious awards, 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 my expectations were raised before that I'd even opened can turn down the bookpages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. And of all the plaudits given on This one had me in the back coverfirst two pages, my favourite was Simon Callowswherein Gros explains why ' '(A) great big Christmas pudding of walking is not a book ...sport' Stott has researched his subject thoroughly. First up, there's a Grimaldi family tree, a Prologue, an Introduction and all this before you get to the story proper, so to speak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin DavidsonSharon Blackie|title=The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My SS Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced a GenerationIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Meet Martin Davidson. Now, when I start my reviews like normally say that, normally it you can tell how much a book means he's the main character, but he's not here. He's big in the world of BBC History documentaries, and grew up in the UK, half Scottish and half German, knowing that to me by how many of his older relatives lived through the Second World Warpages have corners turned down. Foremost among them was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, who would have been Perhaps an even greater measure of fighting age - in his 30s - during impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the Third Reich. Nothing much was ever said about Brunoone I's own history during the war, except for many inflammatory, rising comments by Bruno himselfve borrowed. It took the old man I want to die for the truth to be admitted by Martinavoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 's mother life- their forefather was in the SS.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sjeng Scheijen|title=Diaghilev: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Sergey Diaghilev was one of changing' – although it is definitely the towering figures in the artistic world of Russia, first two and indeed Europe, at only time will tell about the start of the 20th century. Born in 1872 the ambitious son of third – but clichés exist for a bankrupt vodka producer from Perm, reason and a mother who died a few days later probably from puerperal fever, by his early twenties he was on close terms with such names as Tolstoy, Zola, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. He worked his way into the ranks of the cultural cognoscenti at St Petersburg and launched the itinerant troupe which would become the Ballets Russes, playing to packed houses as far west as Britain and the United StatesI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681642</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Howarth0241446732|title=We Die AloneOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Consider taking a five day sail in a small fishing boat The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the height parenting of the North Sea from Shetland, to try their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and establishher sister, train and supply some potentially vital anti-German resistance in the farBeata, far north of occupied Norwaythen nine years old, your homelandstruggled with what was happening. Imagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended to landIn such circumstances, as galling proof that your intel is ages out of date. Ponder too the fact that you get reported it's natural to the Nazis due seek a solution close to the most ridiculous slight of fortune. All your colleagues are dead or capturedhome, but eventually, your equipment blown up with your trawler it became clear to keep it safe from Jerry hands, half your big toe has been shot off, and youthe family that they were ''re forced to go burned-out people on the run in one of Europea burned-out planet''s last, and coldest, wildernesses. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario is going If they were to getfind a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janet Soskice0648684806|title=Sisters of SinaiClara Colby: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden GospelsThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=Sisters The path of Sinai tells Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the story time she was just three-years-old but because of two extraordinarysome childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, Victorian women who unearthed an important early copy doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the Gospels from a remote monastery only child in Egyptthe household and her childhood was glorious. It hardly seems possible that they organised By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and executed such remarkable feats of unaccompanied travel during an age in which women's freedom life was hidebound by their status hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the inferior sexfamily. 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. Janet Soskice is well-placed as As the eldest girl, a feminist philosopher heavy burden would fall on Clara and theologian to explore their livesWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954654X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasha McElhone1789017977|title=After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband Ronnie and Father|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=What would you do if, without warning, your brilliant, loving, superman partner died from a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age of 43, leaving you with two young boys and a third on the way? Most of us would probably reach for the Valium and book a very long course of counseling. But Natascha McElhone couldnHilda't because she was already stretched, juggling s Romance: Towards a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young family. Coping as a single parent left no spare time for self-indulgence; within months she had a new baby as well. So she found her own way, grabbing instead at odd moments to write in her well-established diary. These short entries … e-mails, almost … to her dead husband form the basis of 'After You'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Peter Firstbrook|title=The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African FamilyWendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=The book jacket states that this is 'Ronnie Williams was the untold story son of an African family' Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and with a presidential photograph of Barack Obama, the book is certainly eye-catchingEthel Wall. Along with, IThere'm sure, millions of others, Is some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' and was charmed and blown away s birthdate: he claimed to have been born in almost equal measure1863, so I but he was keen to get started on this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stefan Klein|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history already many years older than Ethel and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientifiche might well have shaved a few years off his age. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is For a little unfair – can she cope with being analysedwhile, and the neuroscience we now know used family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best1929 Depression and five-year-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worseold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci One thing he did know inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Grove|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career this would be the envy of many a young bookwormstay with him throughout his life. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, He joined the children’s division of Penguinarmy at eighteen in 1942. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt MacAllesterPatti Smith|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenYear of the Monkey

|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalistOn the coast of Santa Cruz, used to covering Patti Smith enters the horrors lunar year of warthe monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anneunexpected moments. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusualstranger's words, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter of a century''Anything is possible: after all, trapped in her own private world it's the year of madnessthe monkey''. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always at As Smith wanders the centre coast of family life and with the help of Elizabeth DavidSanta Cruz in solitude, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cooked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Welch reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and Lucian Randall|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Redheads, they say, feel more pain than the rest of us. They may even have a layer of skin too few. However literally true this might beageing are faced head-on, as it certainly seems to be the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says shifting political waters in this excellent book, 'There's nothing between him and all the sensations the world has to give us'America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donald Spoto1912242052|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and HollywoodO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In his defence''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not in any way shape because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or form claim pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monacofor pleasure and adventure. It is an analysis of her film career: a consideration His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the "Hollywood years"world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MaloneyGraff_Find|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=I was When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a bit plastic folder of a patriothandwritten notes from his journal, even when it wasnhe didn't as fashionable as take much notice of it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting At the chance to personally slay the dragon in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag age of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist24, itGraff didn's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Dayt realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rogers1789016304|title=The Last ResortWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayMelanie 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 country many city during the war years ago, but has never been able only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to follow him out oftheir homeland, despite German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,Germans might reach the hyper-inflationcity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, and that the corruption Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the country. Insteadway that it did, but initial protests melted away as thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodgeorganisers became more circumspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Kidder|title=Strength in What Remains|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary= It'Strength in What Remains' is the inspirational account of Deogratias, s an atrocity on a man who has fled from the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south vast scale but made up of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out tens of fear and want thousands of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promisedindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay1786893452|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary='You have to learn to be hard menHere in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies world and the situations that refugees find themselves in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neck, such is It's rare that we find out the lifetime of difference between journeys from the two references. But refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that lifetime, as packed in this intelligent, powerful and varied as it moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was, is born in the pages middle of this evera revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-interesting and swiftlyyear-devoured bookold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela Thirlwell0857058320|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born in 1821 in Calais of a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in England, was one of Lord Of All the foremost Victorian artists. Throughout his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, and shared many of their same ideals, style and subject matter, though he never officially became a member of the group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Chris Skidmore|title=Death Javier Cercas and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked Ambition|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with the picture of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim to an assassin's bullet shortly after Indian independence, but knew little more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Shephard|title=The Surprising Life of Constance Spry|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention of the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps it was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made a celebrity of her, as it did of the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name but two. Even so, she enjoyed a remarkably successful career, and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' Anne McLean (let's make him Syd from now ontranslator) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five children, he was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Josephine Wilkinson|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michele Monro|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened to.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Caroline Moorehead |title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped

|summary=At school I remember spending ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a lot of time on journey to uncover the Tudors author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the early Stuarts – obviously meaning behind his great favourites of uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through figure who looms large over the intervening years until we reached another book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco''meaningful'' period – the Victorian eras forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of question at the fact that William wasn't in direct line centre of succession this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bakewell1788037812|title=How to LiveThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A Life of Montaigne The Fight for Homosexual Rights in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard BeckOriginally passed in 1885, the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about the next book for review. I'll allow myself to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only law that had made homosexual relations a smattering of interest crime remained in the subject matterplace for 82 years. Just occasionally But during this waytime, I stumble restrictions on a golden nugget so fascinating and wellsame-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewersex relationships did not go unchallenged. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Baldwin|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Due to the small amount of surviving personal sources, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life Between 1891 and times' than a life. In the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves1908, three books on the lack of data will be even more acute.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Roe|title=The Private Lives nature of the Impressionists|rating=4homosexuality appeared.5|genre=Biography|summary=In the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists They were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned written by the Salontwo homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the French equivalent of the Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds and critics came to view - and jeerheterosexual Havelock Ellis. When they held Exploring the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paint, smeared it onto yards margins of canvas, society and signed the result with several different names.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Will Birch|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ian Dury studying homosexuality was always one of common on the most individualEuropean Continent, even contrary characters but barely talked about in the musical world. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardomUK, he was no oil painting. During so the pub rock era, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to jazz-funk than rock'n'roll, and his songs extolled the virtues scientific understanding of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or California. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in the rock presshomosexuality, he was comparatively middle-aged. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark Simpson|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and beginning the Belles of St Trinian's|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when a more gentle humour was the order of the day. Yet the man hated struggle for recognition and did his best to avoid publicityequality, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed leading to know about him. How he would have fared twenty years later in the age milestone legalisation of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Crawford|title=The Bard: Robert Burns same- a biography|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own Bard, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils the equivalent role sex relationships in Scottish iconography more than adequately. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstrates, there is much more to the man than the wordsmith of 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda PorterBuckland_Zoo|title=Katherine The Man Who Ate the QueenZoo: The Remarkable Life Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Katherine Parrnatural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Katherine Parr As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was the last and arguably the most fortunate very much a man ahead of King Henry VIII's six wiveshis time. Apart from Anne of ClevesSurgeon, the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'naturalist, she was the only one to survive veterinarian and eccentric sums him. And while all six of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figuresup perfectly, this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David ClaytonWilliams_Captain|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from repeats on the UK Gold TV channelsPlymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and from occasional mentions in young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the context age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards'how great he would death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s convicts who would blossom into one of worked the great all-round stage actorsland. One year Two years later, he was deadshe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KistePeacock_mountain|title=SonsInto The Mountain, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's A Lifeof Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=Like Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoriaapproach, but John Van der Kiste has taken I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other wise people I have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her lifemy favourite genres, and favoured authors, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonwhile, servant or statesman' as promised by like most other people I read the title of the bookreviews and follow up on what appeals, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always I also have a man in her life who would, third-string to a greater or lesser extent, dominate hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Maureen Emerson|title=Escape Move on to Provence|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=In the 1920s two women, one American, one British, settled in the south of France, both for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood [[Newest Business and the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancé, a nephew of the American President. Drawn to Paris, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as a nurse during the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone house, the Castello, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 with a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historian. After the fall of the pound, it was hard for them to make ends meet in England, and they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]