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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan KennedyMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Oscar & LucyReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=With Biographies are often seen as the film about Alan Turing, ''The Imitation Game'' getting rave reviews form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and award nominations rightless personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, left and centreoffers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the sterling work done by the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is quite high in our minds, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. But Enigma wasnWhom 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?'t the only code broken '. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Turing wasn't the only Andreyev in such privileged detail that one doing secret but heroic workalmost feels unworthy of it. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095646968X</amazonuk>1804271977
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David LodgeIan Penman|title=Lives in WritingErik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=David Lodge Lives in Writing. So blares the cover of my edition, and it's not far wrong. When he's not entertaining us with his [[:Category:David Lodge|writing career]] (now in its third, more erudite and to me more serious stage, after the first third of comic light touches, before he found his metier – and fame with TV adaptations– with comedies about the social and sexual lives of academe) he's teaching about and around writing. When I was younger I also read around writing – literature books, in other words – and Lodge's were among those I turned to. So this book and its contents are a welcome step back down a very familiar road.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587769</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=The Prussian Princesses: The Sisters of Kaiser Wilhelm II|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Kaiser Wilhelm II is well known and not for the best of reasons and heThis unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's certainly over-shadowed his six younger siblings. John Van der Kiste's first biography was of his fatheradmittedly effusive personality: whimsical, Kaiser Friedrich III experimental and he has also written about Emperor Wilhelm II so he creative. It is well placed to write about divided into three sections: the three youngest children Kaiser Friedrich and Victoriafirst, an essay, Princess Royal. Originally he intended to write about Friedrich's the second daughter, but it quickly became obvious that the most satisfying biography an A- for reader Z encyclopedia on Satie and author - would be the third, a biography of Victoria'Satie Diary', Sophie and Margaret, their motherdocumenting Ian Penman's ''kleebatt'' or triothoughts surrounding Satie, as they were knownhis muse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00QKROC9W</amazonuk>1804271535
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah ChurchwellJacqueline Feldman|title=Careless People Murder Mayhem and the Invention of the Great GatsbyPrecarious Lease|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In The title of this accomplished literary biography Professor Churchwell expertly weaves together three guest lists- the Fitzgeralds novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and literary cast processes, but few scant property rights. Among mentions of New Yorkother squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, the sensationalist tragic murder victims and suspects Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of New Brunswickmassive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, New Jersey admirers and the careless characters detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and marginal members of F. Scott's novel using the Fitzgeralds' archivessociety (as one character, newspaper clippingsLe Général, literary scrapbooksrepeats throughout,diary entries and anecdotes to link ''I live on the stories and chronicle margins of the heedless hedonism margins of the 1920s. It is not only a meticulously researched tribute tracing margins''), Le Bloc was subject to the genesis continual threat of Feviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. Scott Fitzgerald’s plot skeletonWe follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, which he roughly sketched framed as a tragedy in pencil in the back of a this book, entitled Man’s Hope, but it also sparkles with sophisticated vocabulary fizzing with the effervescence of a glass of champagne providing new treats for the reader with each inviting chapter.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844087689</amazonuk>1804271403
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BatchelorJacqueline Rose|title=Tennyson: To strive, to seek, to findWomen in Dark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Most readers, if they were asked to name the ultimate poet ''The world of the Victorian age, would almost surely choose Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was Poet Laureate for over forty years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and inevitably her favourite versifier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950763</amazonuk>}} {{newreview |author=Zareer Masani |title=Macaulay: Britain's Liberal Imperialist |rating=4.5 |genre=Biography |summary=If Thomas Babington Macaulay unconscious is remembered at all today, it is probably for the historical writings to which he devoted himself during not the last few years antagonist of his political life. Yet earlier in his career, he was also a Member of Parliament, a government minister, and served for some years in Indiabut its steadfast companion, playing a major reforming role as a member of the governor-general’s council. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587025</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Campbell|title=Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=It hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must be rare indeed that a British political figure who never became Prime Minister is the subject of or deserves a biography comprising 750 pages of text. However, as John Campbell demonstrates in this volume, it is difficult to do justice to the life, times and career of Roy Jenkins in much less than that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087509</amazonuk>}}begin…''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel JonesClaire Dederer|title=Rupert BrookeMonsters: Life, Death and MythWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=43|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Rupert Chawner Brooke’s reputation as one Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the greatest or at least best-remembered war poets rests largely on his sonnet art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture'The Soldier'. Dederer's work is original and expressive. Perhaps it was English literature’s abiding loss The reader gets the impression that 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 output was so slenderart, and yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as his career was cut short so suddenlyshe calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Had he lived longer he would surely have developed Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a notable writerpersonal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781857164</amazonuk>1399715070
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amber Hunt and David Batcher1788360702|title=Charles, The Kennedy WivesAlternative Prince: Triumph and Tragedy in America's Most Public FamilyAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Kennedy dynasty is mainly known for the men who have come to political prominence: Jack Kennedy, Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the president who was assassinated in November 1963, his brother, Bobby, JackPrince's Attorney General who would be assassinated in June 1968 opinions, beliefs and Senator Edward Kennedy aims against the youngest of the nine children - the only one background of the brothers who would, as they say, live to comb grey hairscientific evidence. Not quite so much is known about the women who were brave enough to marry into the family There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and Amber Hunt and David Batcher his relentless promotion of treatments which have set out no scientific support has done considerable damage to give us some background on five of these women: Rose Kennedy the matriarch reputation of the family and wife a man who is proud of Joe Kennedyhis refusal to apply evidence-based, Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of Jack, Ethel, wife of Bobby and Joan and Vicki, the first and second wives of Teddy Kennedylogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762796340</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1739805100|title=The Mystery Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughterwar|author=Lucinda HawksleyAndrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a previous biographer once called her, Princess Louise was Queen Victoria’s unconventional daughter. Always popular with ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the public for her comparatively easygoing manner (thoughquite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, being royal, she was not averse who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to pulling rank)teach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, her forward-looking views on social issues, notably education a sensitive and votes for womenthoughtful man, and her artistic interests, she was certainly one had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the most interesting of her family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951549</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Frood|author=Jem Roberts|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=They say that you should never meet your heroestime. After reading 'The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and the HitchhikerFred's Guide attempts to the Galaxy' a.k.a. ''the Frood'' I understand why. I never heard the original radio series and I have quite deliberately shied away separate individual people from the Americanised film version (even if it does sell itself well by having Stephen Fry as ideology weren'the voice of the book' - I mean, really, in this day t universally successful but he did make friendships and age, who else?!)connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809437X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura ThompsonWill Brooker|title=A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord LucanTruth About Lisa Jewell
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Effie Gray Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of 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 words of her latest book she was born reciting, and her being in Perth in 1828a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and knew art critic John Ruskin from an early agedown the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. When Brooker decides he finally decided 'd like nothing more than to ask follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to be his wifemake a success of the latest title, she called off an engagement and happily acceptedstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715648578</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Victoria: A LifeMartha Leigh|authortitle=Invisible Ink: A N WilsonFamily Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Every few years Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, it seemsimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, we are presented with another generouslyforever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-sized biography 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 Queen Victorialife. How many times can another author follow Elizabeth Longford, Stanley Weintraub, or Christopher Hibbert to name There is love in the house but three, produce 500 pages or more and still say something new about her? Can the blurb’s claim also darker undercurrents that this shows us the sovereign ‘as she’s never been seen before’ really be justified? Fortunately it can, for even more than a century after her death, child does not fully understand but knows is there is still new material from previously unseen sources to add to what we already know about her.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848879563</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous: Everything You Need To Know About Everyone Who MatteredPolly Barton|authortitle=The WeekFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=To describe 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 book as unputdownable is a pretty bold claim to makewhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. Jeremy OAnd like Barton, I don'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week does just that in t know the foreword answer to The Lives the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the Famous and the Infamous, a collection of obituaries from question in the weekly magazine. Thankfullyfirst essay, his bold judgement which is largely spot on. For those unfamiliar, the sound ''giro'The Week'' collates the best offerings from print media outlets around the world– which she describes as being, condenses them into smaller chunksamong other things, adds a little the sound of its own commentary and creates a highly concise and entertaining look at the news''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091958660</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Golden ParasolFrederic Gros|authortitle=Wendy Law-YoneA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=If you look her I confess I picked this one up Wendy Lawfrom the library in my pre-Yone is described as a Burmese-born American authorlockdown 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 return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. That This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''Burmese-born American'walking is not a sport' might be an accurate description of her current citizenship, but it barely hints at the ethnic mix of her heritage, nor of her personal closeness (through her father) to her original homeland's struggle for freedom and democracy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555999</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Art of Neil GaimanSharon Blackie|authortitle=Hayley CampbellIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsBiography|summary=An early [[:Category:Neil Gaiman|Neil Gaiman]] book was all about Douglas Adams, and came out at the time he had a success with I normally say that you can tell how much a book of his own regarding definitions of concepts that had previously not had a specific word attachedmeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Gaiman himself Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one of those conceptsI've borrowed. I know what a polyglot want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is, definitely the first two and a polymath only time will tell about the third – but there should be a word clichés exist for someone like Gaiman, who can write anything and everything he seems to want – a whimsical family-friendly picture book, a behemoth of modern fantasy, an all-ages horror story, something with a soupcon of sci-fi or with a factor of the fable. He can cross genres – reason and to some extent just leave them behind as unnecessary, as well as cross format – he was mastering the lengthy, literary graphic novel just as I'real' books were festering in his creativity, and songs and poems were just appearing here and there. So he is pretty much who you think of as regards someone who m not sure I can turn his hands to anything he wishes. He is a poly-something, then, or just omni-something elsesuccinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781571392</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Thompson0241446732|title=A Corner Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations)a Family and a Planet in Crisis|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. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, 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 need to be radical.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0648684806
|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=In The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the early seventies Brian Thompson met Elizabeth Northtime she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, both of them part of failing marriages which would have died without any intervention on their partsshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. They became friendsInstead, they fell she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in love but they never felt the need to marry and would be together until Liz's death in 2010 at the age out of seventy eightschool. Both are authors - Thompson would maintain that North She was the better writer - only child in the household and North would perhaps have said that ''she'' should have made that clearher childhood was glorious. ''A Corner of Paradise'' tells By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the story mid- not west of the homes they lived 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 - but of childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the joy of their relationshipeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581868</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=GraceRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: Her Lives 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 while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned- Her Loves: The startling royal exposéout and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.}}{{Frontpage|author=Robert LaceyPatti Smith|title=Year of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Twenty-five years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out to be anything butOn the coast of Santa Cruz, one Patti Smith enters the lunar year of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed the Atlantic monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and married into unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the principality year of Monacothe monkey''. The ceremony As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in 1956 was hailed her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the shifting political waters in America. |isbn=1526614758}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the wedding of first person to walk the yearmountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but like the later because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and similar eventits literary consequences, it was not changed our view of the happiest of unionsworld''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|amazonukgenre=<amazonuk>191016738X</amazonuk>Autobiography|summary=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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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=One RiverWar and Love: Explorations A family's testament of anguish, endurance and Discoveries devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=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 Amazon Rainforestcity during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this 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 happen: even those who thought that the Germans 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 way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=The Ungrateful Refugee|author=Wade DavisDina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=TravelBiography|summary=As someone who has always enjoyed learning about Here in the AmazonWest, and with plans to travel to South America next yearwe see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, this book practically screamed at me to be reviewedsome scaremongering about them. AndBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, although a little tough going and long-winded in partsalmost always, I'm glad I had no matter how deep the opportunity investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to get lost in Davis' incredible work of non-fiction. Difficult to describe the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in terms of genre, this book combines history, politics, science, botany and culture. It is delivered through a biographical account of Davis' own travels s rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and as this is a memoir rare opportunity to Richard Evans Schultesdo that, an ethnobotanist well known for his in this intelligent, powerful and moving work and travels by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the Amazon and Wade Davis' highly regarded mentormiddle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592967</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her WorldLord Of All the Dead|author=Stefan KorneliusJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=You have ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to admire uncover the lady, this rather awkward author's lost ancestor's life and shy daughter of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholicdeath. His daughter studied with such intelligence and application that soon brought her academic success particularly Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistrythe Spanish Civil War. At the age of 26Manuel Mena, she obtained her doctorate and - in passing, it rather seems - her first husbandCercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the physicist Ulrike Merkelbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Her rise to power was rapid and took place through the period in which The question at the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry and dry sense centre of humour Angela Merkel’s personality this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the embodiment of the characteristic known in German as ''fleissig'' - hardworking, sedulous, diligent and assiduouswrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=Blazing StarThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Life and Times of John WilmotFight for Homosexual Rights in England, Earl of Rochester1891-1908|author=Alexander LarmanBrian Anderson|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of RochesterOriginally passed in 1885, was the ultimate 'live fastlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, die young' icon of the Stuart age, the seventeenthrestrictions on same-century embodiment of 'Hope I die before I get old'sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Restoration dandy, satirist Between 1891 and pornographic poet1908, he died a lingering death at three books on the age nature of 33, racked homosexuality appeared. They were written by venereal disease two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and alcoholismJohn Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. If he is remembered at all these days, except by those familiar with Exploring the history or literature margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the ageEuropean Continent, it is as but barely talked about in the James Dean or UK, so the Keith Moon publications of his day, a hellraiser whose poetry was heavily suppressed for many years by these men were hugely significant – contributing to the censors. In fact much scientific understanding of his verse was not published under his name until long after his deathhomosexuality, and as most beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of it was only circulated same-sex relationships in manuscript form during his lifetime and a good deal destroyed by his mother after his death, it is uncertain how much does still survive1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851093</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Buckland_Zoo|title=Dirty BertieThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: An English King Made in FranceFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Stephen ClarkeRichard Girling|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although he was Anglo-German by birth, so Stephen Clarke suggestsAs a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, King Edward VII Frank Buckland was very much a Parisian by natureman ahead of his time. As we would expect from the author of several lighthearted books on our Gallic neighboursSurgeon, including ‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’naturalist, this is not the most weighty or solemn biography of the King you will ever findveterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, but it and any biographer is certainly an entertaining, racy gallop through the life of its subjectimmediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890346</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Williams_Captain|title=JosephineCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: Desire, Ambition, NapoleonHis Military Life and Times|author=Kate Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Until reading this biographyIn March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, it had never really occurred Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to me just how shadowy live a figure the first wife of Napoleon Bonapartelong life, one of dying suddenly at the best-known European rulers age of the age34 at Bangalore, really wasleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. It may be common knowledge that her name was JosephineEdwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but few of us perhaps really know anything of she was also responsible for the woman behind convicts who worked the nameland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955142X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Into The Devonshires: The Story Mountain, A Life of a Family and a NationNan Shepherd|author=Roy HattersleyCharlotte Peacock|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=According Mostly we choose what books to the back of this book, ‘the story of the Devonshires read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the story of Britain’. That’s an extravagant claimapproach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it contains more than a germ of truth. Certainly one would be hard-pushed to find an aristocratic, nonand we sell the myriad lesser-royal British family who has more consistently been central to our history since medieval times, known authors short as this detailed chronicle demonstrateswell. From the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over in part by Sir William CavendishSo while, father of the first Earl, to the big business that their ancestral home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has now become, the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires like most other people I have often beenmy favourite genres, or helped toand favoured authors, contribute toand while, part of like most other people I read the fabric of Britain’s past reviews and presentfollow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554399</amazonuk>
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