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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jad Adams1788360702|title=GandhiCharles, The Alternative Prince: Naked AmbitionAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=Until I read this bookFor over forty years, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always Prince Charles has been a very shadowy figurean ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. I was familiar with ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the picture Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the loincloth-clad scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who fell victim is proud of his refusal to an assassin's bullet shortly after Indian independenceapply evidence-based, but knew little morelogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Shephard1739805100|title=The Surprising Life Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of Constance Sprywar|author=Andrew March

|summary=The very mention of ''Loving the Enemy'' tells 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 quite extraordinary story of herauthor Andrew March's grandparents, as it did who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name but twoNazi regime in the 1930s. Even soFred, she enjoyed a remarkably successful careersensitive and thoughtful man, and had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the woman behind growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the public face was no ordinary career woman, time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but quite an unconventional personalityhe did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rob ChapmanWill Brooker|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head The Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=In terms Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro authors I've never quite fulfilled his full potentialknowingly read. When measured against Now meet Will Brooker, one of the achievements thousands of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way shortless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. Yet This book starts with the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuittwo meeting each other, and overseasas well, particularly in Latin America and shows how 2021 drew the Philippinestwo closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, he the words of her latest book she was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports everreciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatraauthor events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, to whom he was often compareda professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, often said down the rabbit-hole that Matt was the only British singer is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he ever really listened 'd like nothing more than to.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|follow her through a year in the published author=Caroline Moorehead |title=Dancing 's life, working to make a success of the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin latest title, and struggling with the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years agonext in line. Jewell, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic warsdue diligence appropriately done, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotheragrees. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than And this is the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=A.Roger Ekirch Martha Leigh|title=BirthrightInvisible Ink: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=They say truth Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is sometimes stranger than fictiona Cambridge don, and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly forever clacking away on fact. So it was in his typewriter as he edits the case complete correspondence of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped''the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sir Walter Scotthis life's ''Guy Mannering'', and at least three others, all work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of which can point to life. There is love in the saga of James Annesley for inspirationhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KistePolly Barton|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious RevolutionFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=At school Where do I start? I remember spending could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a lot of time on the Tudors while and if the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of 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. And like Barton, I don't know the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through answer to the intervening years until we reached another question ''meaningfulwhy Japan?'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't She explains her feelings in direct line respect of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him question in the first place. Their successoressay, Queen Anne I remember simply which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself'tables'.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BakewellFrederic Gros|title=How to Live: A Life Philosophy of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about confess I picked this one up from the next book for reviewlibrary in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I'll allow myself have to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering of interest in go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the subject matter. Just occasionally this way, pages I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating have marked and well-written that return to its varying wisdom when I realise how lucky I am need to be a reviewer. Some books draw you in slowly. IThis one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''m so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David BaldwinSharon Blackie|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful If Women in the Wars of the RosesRose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Due to the small amount of surviving personal sources, any I normally say that you can tell how much a book which purports means to be a biography me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of a 15-century subject impact is almost inevitably going setting out to be more a buy my own copy before I'life and timesve finished reading the one I' than a lifeve borrowed. In I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the case of women who were sisters third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sovereigns or consorts themselves, the lack of data will be even more acutesure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe0241446732|title=The Private Lives Our House is on Fire: Scenes of the Impressionistsa Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the early 1860s a group parenting of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art worldtwo daughters. Their protests at being spurned by the Salon, the French equivalent of the Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparaginglyThen eleven-year-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds old Greta stopped eating and critics came to view - talking and jeer. When they held the first of their own exhibitions a few years laterher sister, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty'Beata, 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 of canvasthen nine years old, and signed the result struggled 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 what was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical worldhappening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut solution close to stardomhome, he was no oil painting. During the pub rock era, he and his groupbut eventually, it became clear to the Blockheads, ploughed family that they were ''burned-out people on a lonely furrow which owed more to jazzburned-funk than rockout planet'n'roll, and his songs extolled the virtues 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 press, he was comparatively middle-aged. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him If they were to find a permanent 'raspberry ripple'way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson0648684806|title=Alastair SimClara Colby: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=The mere mention path of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when a more gentle humour was the order of her family emigrated to the dayUSA. Yet At the man hated and did his best to avoid publicitytime she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed she wasn't allowed to know about himsail with her parents and three brothers. How he would have fared twenty years later in the age of a more intrusive pressInstead, she remained with her grandparents, one cannot but wonder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Crawford|title=The Bard: Robert Burns - who doted on her and saw that she received a biography|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own Bardgood education, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived both in and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils out of school. She was the equivalent role only child in Scottish iconography more than adequatelythe household and her childhood was glorious. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesBy contrast, there is much more to her family had become pioneer farmers in the man than mid-west of the wordsmith of 'Auld Lang Syne' United States and 'Weelife was hard, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Linda Porter|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Katherine Parr as Clara was the last to find out when she and arguably her grandparents eventually went to join the most fortunate of King Henry VIII's six wivesfamily. Apart from Anne of ClevesClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'had ten pregnancies, she was the only one to survive himseven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. And while all six of As the queens consort remain rather shadowy figureseldest girl, this biography gives the impression that she a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them alla rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Clayton1789017977|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on Ronnie Williams was the UK Gold TV channels, son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and from occasional mentions in the context of Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry'how great s birthdate: he would claimed to have been if only…' born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 301929 Depression and five-year-old sitcom favourite as Ronnie had to adjust to a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of the great all-round stage actorsvery different lifestyle. One year later, thing he did inherit from his father was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Sons, Servants his need to be well-turned-out and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step of using the men in her this would stay with him throughout his life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course He joined the most famous man army at eighteen in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by the title of the book, but he established a trend1942. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen EmersonPatti Smith|title=Escape 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 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 Year 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>}} {{newreview|author=Sushila Anand |title=Daisy: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickMonkey

|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the Countess lunar year of Warwick lived the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a colourful life by any standardsstranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey''. She was notoriously promiscuousAs Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try and provoke a royal scandal to shore up year that brings huge shifts in her parlous finances, life - loss and although she relished her lifestyle to the fullageing are faced head-on, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for as it the pioneer socialists shifting political waters in BritainAmerica.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Lewis1912242052|title=The Blind SideO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=SportArt|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Well, I knew it was about a boy who 'Oh Joy for me!'played'gives Coleridge credit for being ' American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be the background story, you know, like in ''Jerry Maguire''. So the first chapter seemed person to go on and on foreverwalk the mountains alone, and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled not because he had to the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oherfor work, as a young Africanminer, quarryman, shepherd or pack-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never aroundhorse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and whose mother was a drug addict adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and lost him to social services at a young ageits literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy HopkinsGraff_Find|title=Tommy's WorldFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of the poorerhandwritten notes from his journal, inner-city suburbs of Manchester. His father had quite a good job and there wasnhe didn't a lot take much notice of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughterit. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in At the form age of worldly goods. All that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgings. Even that tenuous security wasn24, Graff didn't to last for long – his mother died realise the gravity of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before the pages he was eight years oldholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin1789016304|title=Thomas HardyWar and Love: The Time-Torn ManA family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=I came Melanie Martin read about what happened to this biography having read three Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of HardyAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's novels, two quite recently, stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and some of his poetryseven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but knowing very little about him as only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a personcountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably 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 life escalate in these pagesthe 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts1786893452|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Born Here in 1734 in Lisbonthe West, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europewe see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historysome scaremongering about them. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving But all but one of them)those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious womanalmost always, she had no matter how deep the misfortune investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church world and state were vying for supremacythe situations that refugees find themselves in. Instinctively a supporter of It's rare that we find out the journeys from the old religion, with refugees themselves – and this is a humanitarian approach rare opportunity to state affairsdo that, she in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine born in the Greatmiddle of a revolution in Iran, and wore her crown rather reluctantlyfleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann0857058320|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film aroundauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. He was certainly one of Cercas is searching for the most recognizable characters of all with meaning behind his gap-toothed gringreat uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!Cercas'great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco'Hard cheese!', and best s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of all, this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>wrong side.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Tillyard 1788037812|title=A Royal AffairThe Fraternity of the Estranged: George III and His Troublesome SiblingsThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=King George III was Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the luckiest nature of English sovereignshomosexuality appeared. AmericaThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and then his sonsstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in that orderthe UK, gave him no end so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of griefhomosexuality, and beginning the last few years of his life were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked thatstruggle for recognition and equality, before these troubles arose leading to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in trying to control his siblings1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman Buckland_Zoo|title=Elizabeth's WomenThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: The Hidden Story Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of the Virgin Queennatural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=So many biographies have been written about As a conservationist in Victorian England before the life term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and times of England's longest-lived eccentric sums him up perfectly, and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there any biographer is anything new left to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through the women closest immediately presented with a colourful tale to hertell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James LeverWilliams_Captain|title=Me Cheeta|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Straight out Captain Ronald Campbell of the golden age of Hollywood comes the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its stars. There are scores to be settled, stars to be insulted, secrets to be hinted at none too subtley, and lost opportunities to be longed for. OhBombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and the star telling all? Well, for those of you who can't tell from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta - chimpanzee star of the Tarzan films.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Philippe Auclair |title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be KingIvor George Williams

|summary=Even today, London is a remarkable compromise In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the old and the new17th Regiment of Foot. As Alistair Duncan shows He was in this volumecommand of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, the city of Conan Doyle Australia: his wife and Holmes has changed – yet young son accompanied him. He was not changed. There have been destined to live a handful long life, dying suddenly at the age of books 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in the past on 'Holmes's London'a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but this is she was also responsible for the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with convicts who worked the detective and his creatorland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) Peacock_mountain|title=Bobbles & Plum: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson and PG Wodehouse|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=P.G. Wodehouse needs little if any introduction, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life and career were cut short and he is little known outside his connections with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This set of satirical playlets on which they collaborated, published in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sinceInto The Mountain, are presented in book form for the first time. As such they show how the careers A Life of both men were evolving, particularly while Wodehouse was finding his feet and experimenting with the different facets of journalism before finding his niche in comic fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham |title=People of the Day 4: The Rich and Famous CaricaturedCharlotte Peacock

|summary=Have you ever been asked Mostly we choose what books to buy a book in aid of a charity read because there is so little time and wished that you'd given a donation and not taken so many books… I can understand the book? Wellapproach, if you have but I'm hoping to persuade you that there are exceptions to every rule also think we sell ourselves short by it, and this book in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is definitely worth we sell the cover price.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy Nicholas |title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K Jerome: A 150th Anniversary Celebration|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Although he was a prolific novelist, myriad lesser-known authors short story writer, dramatist and journalist, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first and foremost as the author of ''Three Men in a Boat''well. This fascinating anthologySo while, published on the 150th anniversary of his birthlike most other people I have my favourite genres, reminds us that there was far more to the man than that one admittedly enduring book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time of paternal disapprovalfavoured authors, and a kind of Oedipal reaction to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Dianawhile, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Trevor Hamilton |title=Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and like most other people I read the Victorian Search for Life After Death|rating=4|genre=Biography |summary=Born in 1843, Frederic Myers began his career as a classical lecturer at Cambridge University, but disliked teaching reviews and soon gave it follow up in favour of writing poetry and essays in literature. Although his social circle included men such as Gladstoneon what appeals, Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning and Prince Leopold, the most intellectual of Queen Victoria's sons, his books (which are not so well remembered today) might I also have been his sole claim a third-string to fame, had it not been for his passionate curiosity about the meaning of human life. If it had a purpose, he was convinced, it could only be discovered through the study of human experiencesmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401239</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) |title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher Robinson|rating=5|genre=Biography |summary=Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes you into another world. Such is the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of ''Private Eye''. Subtitled, ''A Weekly'' ''Show of Political, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like the more successful, longer-lasting ''Punch'', it began with radical aspirations, intending ''Move on to expose what'' [the editor[Newest Business and Finance Reviews]] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of the elite social classes''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Piers Dudgeon|title=Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography |summary=According to D.H. Lawrence, J.M. Barrie ''has a fatal touch for those he loves. They die.'' Barrie had an extraordinary fascination with a childlike world of innocence and young boys who never grew up. Had it merely stopped at creating Peter Pan, all well and good. Unfortunately this obsession manifested itself in an unhealthy involvement with others, notably the du Maurier family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520451</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emma Charles|title=How Could He Do It?|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge of thinking that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mum, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit and a couple of guinea pigs. Sprinkle in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for the girls, a nice car in the drive of the nice house, good clothes and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life was going. Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin, gave her a note, couched in graphic terms, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for the past five years.In moments the family's life fell apart. Gone were all the certainties, the hopes and the expectations. In came the police, Social Services and Child Protection Officers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jacqueline Walker|title=Pilgrim State|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was intrigued and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir of her childhood in Jamaica and London in the 1960's. This is a book inevitably compared with Andrea Levy's ''Small Island''. It follows similar ground, but the main difference and great strength, is that it's the real narrative of mother and daughter. As a girl I was familiar with areas of London where Jackie Walker lived and heard some members of my family denigrate Caribbean immigrants. From this memoir, I've garnered much about the lived experience of my less advantaged contemporaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>}}