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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein1788360702|title=Leonardo's LegacyCharles, The Alternative Prince: How Da Vinci Reinvented the WorldAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=54

|summary=This excellent combination For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of science history alternative medicine and biography starts with complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the most populist Prince's opinions, beliefs and some aims against the background of the most awkwardly scientificevidence. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with There are few instances of his beliefs being analysed, vindicated and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece his relentless promotion of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, treatments which all helps us know partly why have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the truths reputation of a man who is proud of La Gioconda are still unknowablehis refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Grove1739805100|title=So Much To TellLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be ''Loving the envy of many a young bookworm. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, Enemy'' tells the children’s division quite extraordinary story of Penguin. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt MacAllester|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my MotherAndrew March's Kitchen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalistgrandparents, used who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to covering teach in the horrors early days of war, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother AnneNazi regime in the 1930s. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of Fred, a heart attack sensitive and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusualthoughtful man, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter some vague ideas of a century, trapped "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in her own private world of madness. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always Europe at the centre of family life time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and with the help of Elizabeth David, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cookedconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris Welch and Lucian RandallWill Brooker|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian StanshallTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=RedheadsMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], they sayone of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, feel more pain than one of the rest thousands of usless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. They may even have a layer of skin too few This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. However literally true this might be The meeting was some unspecified combination, it certainly seems to be , of her anecdote about cup cakes, the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says in this excellent words of her latest bookshe was reciting, and her being in a 'There'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, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing between him more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of the latest title, and all struggling with the sensations next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the world has to give us'result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donald SpotoMartha Leigh|title=High SocietyInvisible Ink: Grace Kelly and HollywoodA Family Memoir|rating=35|genre=Biography|summary=In Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his defencetypewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we must acknowledge Spotohis life's subtitlework. It underlines that this does not Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in any way shape or form claim to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace practicalities of Monacolife. It There is an analysis of her film career: love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a consideration of the "Hollywood years"child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MaloneyPolly Barton|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Fifty Sounds|rating=34.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Where do I was start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a bit of a patriot, even when it wasnwhile and if the world hadn't as fashionable as it is gone into melt-down I would have visited by now becoming. Perhaps I may get there later this is due to my once having played Styear, but I am not hopeful. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting And like Barton, I don't know the chance answer to personally slay the dragon question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag of St. George first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being used by a political party condemned as racist, itamong other things, the sound of ''s perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrickevery party where you have to introduce yourself's Day than St. George's Day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RogersFrederic Gros|title=The Last ResortA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayI confess I picked this one up from the country many years ago, but has never been able library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – to follow him go out oftheir homeland, despite an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, pages I have marked and the corruption return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in the countryslowly. Instead, This one had me in thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Driftersfirst two pages,their backpackerswherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport'' lodge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderSharon Blackie|title=Strength in What RemainsIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'Strength in What Remainslife-changing' – although it is definitely the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide first two and civil war in Burundi (just south of only time will tell about the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear third – but clichés exist for a reason and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isnI't quite what m not sure I can succinctly put it promisedany better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay0241446732|title=Trautmann's JourneyOur House is on Fire: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at Scenes of a FA Cup final with Family and a broken neck, such is the lifetime of difference between the two references. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is Planet in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Angela Thirlwell|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born in 1821 in Calais of a Scottish The Ernman / Thunberg family, raised in France seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Belgium before settling in England, was one Svante Thunberg took on most of the foremost Victorian artistsparenting of their two daughters. Throughout his career he was closely associated with the PreThen eleven-year-Raphaelites, old Greta stopped eating and talking and shared many of their same idealsher sister, style and subject matterBeata, though he never officially became a member of the group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Skidmore|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeththen nine years old, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4struggled with what was happening.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558 In such circumstances, everyoneit's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely natural to seek a solution close to become her husband was Robert Dudleyhome, but eventually, whom she made her Master of it became clear to the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivitiesfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. The fact that he was already married If they were to Amy Robsart did little find a way to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed live happily again their solution would need to be dying of breast cancerradical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jad Adams0648684806|title=GandhiClara Colby: Naked AmbitionThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=Until I read this bookThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a very shadowy figuregood education, both in and out of school. I She was familiar with the picture only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to an assassin's bullet shortly join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Indian independenceClara arrived. As the eldest girl, but knew little morea heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|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' (let's make him Syd from now on) 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Stonor Saunders1789017977|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 Ronnie and MP in DisraeliHilda'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 MonroRomance: 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 Towards 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 New Life 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>}} {{newreviewWorld War II|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedWendy Williams

|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on factEthel Wall. So it was in the case of Robert Louis StevensonThere's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scottsome doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's ''Guy Mannering''birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and at least three others, all of which can point to the saga of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=At school I remember spending he might well have shaved a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening few years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian eraoff his age. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of For a quick mention of while, the fact that William wasn't family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in direct line of succession to the throne 1929 Depression and Mary five-year-old Ronnie had never wanted to marry him in the first placeadjust to a very different lifestyle. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Bakewell|title=How One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question be well-turned-out and Twenty Attempts at an Answer |rating=5|genre=Biography|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, the Chicago School sociologistthis would stay with him throughout his life. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about He joined the next book for review. I'll allow myself to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering of interest army at eighteen in the subject matter1942. Just occasionally this way, I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewer. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David BaldwinPatti Smith|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars Year of the RosesMonkey

|summary=Due to On the small amount coast of surviving personal sourcesSanta Cruz, any book which purports to be a biography Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a 15-century subject stranger's words, ''Anything is almost inevitably going to be more a possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey'life and times' than a life. In As Smith wanders the case coast of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselvesSanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the lack of data will be even more acuteshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1912242052|title=The Private Lives of the ImpressionistsO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen mountains alone, not because he had to exhibit their for work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned by the Salonas a miner, the French equivalent of the Royal Academyquarryman, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparaginglyshepherd or pack-named Salon des Refuséshorse driver, where crowds and critics came but because he wanted to view - for pleasure and jeeradventure. When they held the first of His rapturous encounters with their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on natural beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paintand its literary consequences, smeared it onto yards changed our view of canvas, and signed the result with several different namesworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will BirchGraff_Find|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical world. In When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a branch plastic folder of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardomhandwritten notes from his journal, he was no oil paintingdidn't take much notice of it. During At the pub rock eraage of 24, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'nGraff didn'roll, and his songs extolled t realise the virtues gravity 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, pages he was comparatively middle-agedholding. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson1789016304|title=Alastair SimWar and Love: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St TrinianA family's|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The mere mention testament 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 anguish, endurance and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about him. How he would have fared twenty years later devotion in the age of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Robert Crawford|title=The Bard: Robert Burns - a biographyMelanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=If Shakespeare is EnglandMelanie 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 own Bardstories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived but only five thousand survived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils the equivalent role Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in Scottish iconography more than adequatelya country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesMost 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, there is much more that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the man than way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the wordsmith organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Porter1786893452|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Katherine Parr was Here in the last and arguably the most fortunate of King Henry VIII's six wivesWest, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. Apart from Anne But all of Clevesthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'investigative journalism they carry out, she was outsiders to the world and the only one to survive himsituations that refugees find themselves in. And while all six of It's rare that we find out the journeys from the queens consort remain rather shadowy figuresrefugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent , powerful and wellmoving work by Dina Nayeri -rounded personality someone who was born in the middle of them alla revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Clayton0857058320|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the UK Gold TV channels, author's lost ancestor's life and from occasional mentions death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the context of Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas'how great he would have been if only…uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco' In 1978 s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The Sunday Times Magazine tipped question at the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of hero whilst having fought for the great all-round stage actors. One year later, he was deadwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1788037812|title=Sons, Servants 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 Fraternity of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man 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 trend. 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>}} {{newreview|author=Maureen Emerson|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 Estranged: The Fight for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home Homosexual Rights in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood and the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancé, a nephew of the American President. Drawn to ParisEngland, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well1891-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>}} {{newreview1908|author=Sushila Anand |title=Daisy: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickBrian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=Born Daisy Maynard Originally passed in 18611885, the Countess of Warwick lived law that had made homosexual relations a colourful life by any standardscrime remained in place for 82 years. She was notoriously promiscuousBut during this time, a spendthrift who restrictions on same-sex relationships did not hesitate to try go unchallenged. Between 1891 and provoke a royal scandal to shore up her parlous finances1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and although she relished her lifestyle John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the fullscientific understanding of homosexuality, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the pioneer socialists milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in Britain1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael LewisBuckland_Zoo|title=The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on Man Who Ate 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 ''played'' 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 to go on and on forever, 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 to the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oher, a young African-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never around, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him to social services at a young age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one of the poorerZoo: Frank Buckland, inner-city suburbs of Manchester. His father had quite a good job and there wasn't a lot of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughter. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form forgotten hero 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 wasn't to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn ManRichard Girling

|summary=I came to this biography having read three As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of Hardy's novelshis time. Surgeon, two quite recentlynaturalist, veterinarian and some of his poetryeccentric sums him up perfectly, but knowing very little about him as and any biographer is immediately presented with a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably colourful tale to life in these pagestell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer RobertsWilliams_Captain|title=The Madness Captain Ronald Campbell of Queen MariaBombala Station, Cambalong: The Remarkable His Military Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Graham McCann|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard |title=A Royal Affair: Ivor George III and His Troublesome SiblingsWilliams

|summary=King George III was not In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the luckiest 17th Regiment of English sovereignsFoot. AmericaHe was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and then his sons, in that order, gave young son accompanied him no end of grief. He was not destined to live a long life, and dying suddenly at the last few years age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his life were clouded by madnesswidow to raise their two young sons. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to haunt this most conscientious monarchmanage, he but she was also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblingsresponsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman Peacock_mountain|title=Elizabeth's Women: Into The Hidden Story Mountain, A Life of the Virgin QueenNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=So Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many biographies have been written about books… I can understand the life approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and times of England's longestwe sell the myriad lesser-lived known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the story of her life through the women closest reviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string to hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=James Lever|title=Me Cheeta|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Straight out 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. Oh, and the star telling all? Well, for those of you who can't tell from the title (or even the picture Move on the front cover) it's Cheeta - chimpanzee star of the Tarzan films.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philippe Auclair |title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=Even though I'm not a Manchester United fan, Eric Cantona is one of my all time favourite players and I was really excited to get the opportunity to read a book which was billed as revealing his innermost thoughts, [[Newest Business and being the definitive account of his career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706347</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]