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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1788360702|title=NancyCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Story of Lady Astor|rating=5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Nancy, Lady Astor, the first woman to take her seat as an elected Member of Parliament at Westminster, is one of those characters about whom it is surely impossible for anyone to write a dull biography. A determined character who inspired admiration, respect and exasperation in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with her, she is well served by this latest in a long line of titles devoted to her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Jones|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction Factory: The Working Life Of Herbert AllinghamEdzard Ernst|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Herbert Allingham was one For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the most prolific authors background of his timethe scientific evidence. Between 1886 There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his death in 1936 he was a busy writer relentless promotion of melodramatic serial stories in the mass-market halfpenny papers treatments which flourished at have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the turn reputation of a man who is proud of the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name refusal to itapply evidence-based, and the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were the unsung heroes of the tradelogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Doggett1739805100|title=The Man Who Sold The WorldLoving the Enemy: David Bowie And The 1970sBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the founder quite extraordinary story of Singapore his roots were far from grand. He had no advantages apart from his own drive and determination and his professional life began with a lowly clerkship with the East india Companyauthor Andrew March's grandparents, then as large and ungainly as many a government. When he who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went abroad on behalf to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Company he quickly learned Nazi regime in the merits of doing something 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and asking permission afterwardsthoughtful man, not least because had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time taken . Fred's attempts to contact London separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and then receive connections that lasted for a reply. Even if all went well this could take the best part of a year - by which time the original question could well be academiclifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher Simon SykesWill Brooker|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975Truth About Lisa Jewell
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=With Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the possible exception most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of Princess Dianathe thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, Marilyn Monroe is probably and shows how 2021 drew the most written-about deceased woman in twentieth-century historytwo closer and closer together. The thirty-six years meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her life and anecdote about cup cakes, the manner words of her death will no doubt continue to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have since latest book she was reciting, and her sudden passing. After being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a decade of research Lois Bannerget-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a Professor professor of History and Gender Studies at university in Californiacultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, has added another weighty tome to down the relevant shelvesrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. As Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a self-styled pioneer success of second-wave feminism the latest title, and struggling with the new women’s historynext in line. Jewell, she has some interesting insights to offer into her subject’s life as a gender role modeldue diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408814102</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Penny JunorMartha Leigh|title=Prince William: Born to be KingInvisible Ink: An Intimate PortraitA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Prince William is one of the few people who genuinely needs no introduction. He's been Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in the public eye since his birth and the interest is certain to increase rather than diminish as time goes bya slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. On the other hand he ''Her father is'' only thirty. Is there really going to be enough to warrant a book and will it be anything more than an attempt to cash in Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his marriage in 2011 and typewriter as he edits the current interest in all things royal engendered by complete correspondence of the Queenphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something of work. Her mother is a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist and in addition Penny Junor concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is known to be a supporter of Prince Charles hugely interested in what can be described as the War practicalities of life. There is love in the Waleseshouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I would enjoy?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley HarrisonPolly Barton|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: The Rebellious SuffragetteFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=To some extentWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the history of question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the suffragettes was also the history of the Pankhurst familyworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. Sylvia, born in 1882, was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline PankhurstI may get there later this year, and one of three sistersbut I am not hopeful. The family had always been heavily politicisedAnd like Barton, Richard being a founder member of I don't know the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and answer to the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took a sudden turn for question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the worse question in 1898the first essay, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad which is on business and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as well as having to nurse himbeing, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With his passing the family were left strangely detached from each among other. His widow became heavily involved in public work and political agitationthings, an increasingly remote mother from the young children who needed hersound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy BormanFrederic Gros|title=Matilda: Wife A Philosophy of the Conqueror, first Queen of EnglandWalking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Writing I confess I picked this one up from the biography library in my pre-lockdown forage of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless taskrandom stuff. There will always be huge gaps in Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, pages I have marked and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know return to its varying wisdom when she diedI need to. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she was quite short of stature Some books draw you in slowly. In a male-dominated societyThis one had me in the first two pages, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down to us throughout history are quite probably false. It is hardly surprising that this appears to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in Englisha sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael RosenSharon Blackie|title=Fantastic Mr DahlIf Women Rose Rooted
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionBiography|summary=Reading this 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 rather like curling up in a deep, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa and some squashed-fly biscuits while a favourite uncle chats setting out to you about books. He tells you interesting things about Roald Dahlbuy my own copy before I's life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in ve finished reading the knowledge that you already know and love the storiesone I've borrowed. Just as important, he pauses in his chat from time I want to time to ask your opinion — and itavoid clichés like 'powerful' 's clear heinspiring's really interested in your answer. Do you prefer the original version of 'life-changing'James – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the Giant Peach'third – but clichés exist for a reason and I', or the one which was eventually published? Can you imagine how funny m not sure I can succinctly put it would be to see your grandfather looking in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leo McKinstry0241446732|title=Jack HobbsOur House is on Fire: England's Greatest CricketerScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=SportPolitics and Society|summary=Back in The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the early 1920sparenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; Englandthen nine years old, Australia and South Africastruggled with what was happening. In the summer of 2012such circumstances, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about it's natural to start seek a test series solution close to determine the best Test nation in the world. Given that history is repeating itselfhome, but eventually, it seems appropriate became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a new biography of Jack Hobbs, Englandburned-out planet''s greatest run scorer and . If they were to find a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available nowway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert K Massie0648684806|title=Catherine the GreatClara Colby: Portrait of a WomanThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Already known for major biographies The 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 Nicholas some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and Alexandrathree brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of Peter school. She was the Greatonly child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, Massie has now written an equally full her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and absorbing life of 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 childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the late eighteenth-century reigning Empresseldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Ewart1789017977|title=The Treasures of Queen Elizabeth|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Tim Ewart is Royal Correspondent for ITV News, which must be one of the perfect starting points for writing a biography of the Queen as she celebrates her diamond jubilee. She's only the second British monarch to achieve this landmark - the other being Queen Victoria. After sixty years on the throne - Ronnie and eighty six in public life - thereHilda's not much which isn't known about the Queen and few pictures which haven't previously seen the light of day, but Ewart's book is marked out by the inclusion of memorabilia which will have Romance: Towards a freshness for many readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780970064</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Jennie Bond|title=Elizabeth: A Diamond Jubilee PortraitWendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds a little extraordinaryRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. But the host, painter Benjamin Robert HaydonThere's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was no ordinary artistalready many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. He For a while, the family was a friend of many of quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the major artistic 1929 Depression and literary figures of the day, in addition five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to being an ambitious painter of historical scenesa very different lifestyle. Sadly, One thing he did inherit from his ambition father was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one need to be well-turned-out and a half centuries after this would stay with him throughout his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years of despair, and perhaps his diary as welllife. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara TuringPatti Smith|title=Alan M Turing: Centenary EditionYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=June 2012 will see On the centenary coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the birth lunar year of Alan Turingthe monkey - one packed with mischief, brilliant mathematiciansorrow, the man who played a major part in breaking the Enigma codes in the Second World War and is widely thought to be the father of computer scienceunexpected moments. To celebrate the anniversary Cambridge University Press have reprinted In a short biography written by Turingstranger's mother and included a memoir written by his older brotherwords, John. I'm rarely impressed by biographies written by [[No Ordinary Man by Dominic Carman|family members]] particularly when they're still coming to terms with their own griefAnything is possible: after all, but this book is startling for what it says about 's the year of the family members as much monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as for what it says about Alan Turingthe shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1107020581</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sally E Svenson1912242052|title=Lily, Duchess of Marlborough (1854 - 1909): A Portrait with HusbandsO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=BiographyArt|summary=The woman we will eventually come ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to know as Lily, Duchess of Marlborough was born Eliza Warren Price in Troywalk the mountains alone, New York in 1854. Her father hailed from Bluegrass Country in Kentucky and met his future wife (who was from Troy) in Washington DC. The family was comfortably off (but not rich) and became part of the Troy's social elite when they returned because he had to live there. Lily (for work, as she became known) had an unremarkable childhood and youth a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but became wealthy though her marriage because he wanted to Louis Hammersley, who died when she was twenty eight for pleasure and left her a wealthy widowadventure. His will would leave her legal problems which would simmer all her life rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and even after her own death twenty one years and two more husbands laterits literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1457507765</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane BrownGraff_Find|title=Lancelot 'Capability' Brown: The Omnipotent Magician 1716-1783Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Among those who helped their contemporaries living through the Age of Enlightenment to see the world around them in When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a different light, Brown was unquestionably one plastic folder of the most influential. Having trained as a gardenerhandwritten notes from his journal, as a young man he acquired an exhaustive knowledge of plants and trees, as well as didn't take much notice of drainage and water managementit. To this was added a rare ability to look at At the dullest age of gardens and landscapes24, decide that they had 'capabilitiesGraff didn' for improvement (hence t realise the time-honoured epithet), and persuade gravity of the owner that a transformation pages he was both possible and desirableholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951794</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna Adorjan1789016304|title=An Exclusive War and Love|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This moving memoir tells : A family's testament of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in October. The story is told by their granddaughteranguish, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera, with whom the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with the systematic persecution of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation endurance and describes their perilous flight to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with the police reports of the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies devotion in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, a town of the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorable. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Karen Blumenthal|title=Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought DifferentMelanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Framed Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by Jobswhat she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremony, but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the three stories he told the students, about connecting city during the dotswar years, love but only five thousand survived and loss, and mortality, Martin could not understand how this biography gives could be allowed to happen in a succinct and balanced account of Jobs' lifecountry 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, his successes and his failures, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personality. The author actively annotates that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the backstory of Jobs with references from this speechway that it did, but initial protests melted away as well as future events, carefully chosen statistics, and Jobsthe organisers became more circumspect. It' own reminiscence, giving s an atrocity on a rich context to his story. Jobs' achievements are incredible and they're not simply down to his genius, vast scale but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charismamade up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot1786893452|title=Dotter of Her Father's EyesThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Picture Here in the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptorWest, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansionsome scaremongering about them. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrastinvestigative journalism they carry out, energetically inspired outsiders to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West world and then there was the situations that tempestuous iconoclast, D.H.Lawrencerefugees find themselves in. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each otherIt's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here rare that we learn of talents find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and beauty this is a rare opportunity to do that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. Shein this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends born in the pages middle of annotated diaries which became ''A Book of Secrets''a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Grant0857058320|title=I & I: The Natural MysticsLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Just mention ''Lord Of All the word reggae, and Dead'' is a journey to uncover the name that nearly always springs to mind is that of Bob Marley author's lost ancestor's life and the Wailersdeath. The music has always been very much a product of Cercas is searching for the Jamaican culture, nurtured meaning behind his great uncle's death in years of turbulent historythe Spanish Civil War. In this book Colin GrantManuel Mena, born in Britain of Jamaican parentsCercas' great uncle, goes back deep into its roots, and in is the figure who looms large over the process examines book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the childhood lives centre of the Wailers’ three main personalities, namely Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Neville Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer, this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to provide an account of be a hero whilst having fought for the group – but much more than thatwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526727</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd1788037812|title=DickensThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A Memoir of Middle AgeThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=With publishers falling over each other Originally passed in an effort to outdo each other 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in celebrating 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 bicentenary nature of Charles Dickens’ birthhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, it as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was perhaps inevitable that we should see a reappearance common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of what has become these men were hugely significant – contributing to the modern standard lifescientific understanding of homosexuality, by Peter Ackroyd. The 1200-page original was first published in 1990and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, while this 600leading to the milestone legalisation of same-page abridged edition surfaced sex relationships in 1994, and now makes another timely appearance1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul HendricksonBuckland_Zoo|title=Hemingway's BoatThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Everything he loved in lifeFrank Buckland, and lost, 1934-1961|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise and fall’. Its theme is more or less the second half of his life, from 1934, when he returned from an African safari and took delivery forgotten hero of his boat Pilar, to his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it to be an account of the writer, bringing together the different elements of his life – fishing, friendship, wives and family - and above all, naturally, his writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Sarah Bradford|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our TimesRichard Girling|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies of conservationist in Victorian England before the Queen (published in 1996)term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of her father George VIhis time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and her daughter-in-law Dianaeccentric sums him up perfectly, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages of text, this and any biographer is barely half the length of her other titles, and probably aimed more at the general reader immediately presented with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee marketa colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick O'SheaWilliams_Captain|title=Amy WinehouseCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: A Losing GameHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=At In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the risk 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of stating the obvioustroops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, this is a sad bookAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. Writing this review some five months after her death, now the immediate smoke has cleared, it is apparent from this book (as well as other general sources) that she He was not destined to live a gifted performerlong life, with a jazz voice which could have qualified her for a lengthy career long after scores dying suddenly at the age of aspiring X-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous34 at Bangalore, more steady careersleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. After all, her idols had been Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliottdid she have their farm to manage, but she was also those of an earlier generation such as responsible for the convicts who worked the classic 1960s girl groups, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, with whom she was thrilled to record a duet four months before land. Two years later she diedwould marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew HollisPeacock_mountain|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: Into The Last Years of Edward Thomas|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Most historians tend to refer to Edwardian England as the thirteen-year interlude between the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated the First World War, an era of relative stability. However, there had been ominous rumblings from the new order of things during the two years or so prior to June 1914, particularly from a new spirit among the younger literary generation. The old Victorian writers, notably the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good man, but an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by the likes of Rupert Brooke and W.H. Davies. For a short time London was the poetry capital of the worldMountain, and the book opens with the opening in January 1913 A Life of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Julia Blackburn|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain VillageCharlotte Peacock|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many yearsbooks… I can understand the approach, but they had drifted apart. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: I also think we sell ourselves short by it mentioned a cottage he had discovered in Liguria and which he was renovating. Some time later there was another postcard , and an invitation to visit. Over time we sell the cottage would become her home and Herman her husbandmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. 'Thin Paths' is the stories of the So while, like most other people who inhabit this harshI have my favourite genres, wild landscape and of the way in which the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join the people and the places together in a way of life which is rare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Erica Heller|title=Yossarian Slept Here|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary='To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life favoured authors, and living that is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creatorwhile, Joseph Heller, reveals how like most other people I read the same excitement reviews and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictabilityfollow up on what appeals, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verveI also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
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