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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Raymond1788360702|title=3-Minute JRR TolkienCharles, The Alternative Prince: A Visual An Unauthorised Biography of The World's Most Revered Fantasy Writer|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base as Tolkien books have gets transported into another mediumFor over forty years, the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with the original, and then to try Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and buy everything worthwhile with even a tenuous link to the object of their affections, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwarycomplementary therapies. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''Charles, The HobbitAlternative Prince''critically assesses the Prince' is safely behind uss opinions, beliefs and aims against the six-film, three-month long Blu-Ray box set is on background of the shelvesscientific evidence. Tolkien enthusiasts There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of course treatments which have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold no scientific support has done considerable damage to the originals, and so low can the quality reputation of the spin-offs be, there are some a man who will never be satisfied. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired is proud of his refusal to find out moreapply evidence-based, and those at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide logical reasoning to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Fisher1739805100|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!'Loving the Enemy: A Life Building bridges in Jokes and Pictures|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=I grew up watching Tommy Cooper, and watching my dad do impressions of Tommy Cooper. I thought he was hilarious (the real Tommy!) and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried and failed to do magic tricks! This book is rather unusual as although it is a biography of sorts, giving information about Tommy's life and his history in the world time of entertainment, it isn't text heavy, and so mostly Tommy's story is told through photographs and pictures.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Peter Unwin (editor)|title=Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The TimesAndrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=I think I was not ''Loving the only person Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who at first glance found met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the title and sub-title slightly misleading. For me it conjured up visions early days of those who came across on the ‘Windrush’ Nazi regime in 1948 and the life they led on settling in Britain – 1930s. Fred, a sensitive andthoughtful man, perhaps, the lives had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the more famous (assuming there were some) growing hostilities between nations unfolding in obituary formEurope at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441159177</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Artemis CooperWill Brooker|title=Patrick Leigh Fermor: An AdventureThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The sub-title Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of this biography is highly appropriatethe most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, for one of the ninety-six years thousands of Patrick Leigh Fermor were packed less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with adventurethe two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. Born in 1915The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, he the words of her latest book she was something of reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a maverick get-up never commonly worn at schoolthe author events I get to attend), intellectually gifted but perpetually naughtypulled 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 more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of the latest title, and his punishments for various refractions included suspensions and even expulsionsstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719554497</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina GuinnessMartha Leigh|title=The Crocodile by the DoorInvisible Ink: The Story of a House, a Farm and a A FamilyMemoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a child and childhood spent in 2002 she and her husband-to-bea slightly eccentric, Colin Grahamimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, moved back to forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the house when her elderly uncle Charles became frailcomplete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. The surname might lead you to suspect that there were brewery millions Neither parent is hugely interested in the background but this wasn't the casepracticalities of life. The couple were young academics and doing what needed to be done at Tibradden would need to be done There is love in addition to full-time jobs. The the house was on the outskirts of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were but also darker undercurrents that a property developer or the last defence against the encroaching city if you were child does notfully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry RickettsPolly Barton|title=Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great WarFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The majority of recent books on Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the War Poets tend to focus question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on their lives during my radar for a while and immediately after if the conflict. This enterprising account, borrowing its name from the poem world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by Wilfred Owen, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or more. It begins with the first meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke at one of Eddie Marsh’s breakfasts in July 1914now. Marsh was a tireless supporter of modern painters and after that promising new writersI may get there later this year, particularly poetsbut I am not hopeful. The journeyAnd like Barton, or rather account of meetings, takes us I don't know the answer to the western front and back to England, culminating question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in a reunion of two respect of the longest-livedquestion in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, Sassoon and David Jonesamong other things, in 1964the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951808</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon CallowFrederic Gros|title=Charles Laughton: A Difficult ActorPhilosophy of Walking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Once a towering presence on stage and screen, I confess I picked this one up from the star library in my pre-lockdown forage of fifty films and forty plays, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these daysrandom stuff. As Now I have to go out an actor of a younger generation buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and keen admirer of his work, Callow is well placed return to bring him back its varying wisdom when I need to the fore. He notes Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped out of public consciousnessfirst two pages, and even within his own profession he wherein Gros explains why ''walking is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of fortynot a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099581957</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John SugdenSharon Blackie|title=Nelson: A Dream of GloryIf Women Rose Rooted
|rating=5
|genre=Biography|summary=I will admit 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 didn't know what ve finished reading the one I was letting myself in for when 've borrowed. I saw want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring'Nelson: A Dream of Glory' sitting on life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the Bookbag shelf, third – but clichés exist for a reason and I had just come back from Portsmouth and a wander around on the Victory, so 'm not sure I can succinctly put it was a bit hard to resistany better. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951913</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Chisholm0241446732|title=Wits Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Wives: Dr Johnson a Planet in the Company of WomenCrisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0648684806
|title=Clara Colby: The International Suffragist
|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=WhatThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's your mental image 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, 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 Great Writer? Most people would probably say good education, both in and out of school. She was the same thing: someone sitting only child in splendid isolationthe household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, probably her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a garretfew months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, writing Great Words seven surviving children and hating themdied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. The idea of Great Writers having friends As the eldest girl, or even a family, is heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a bizarre onerude awakening. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But there}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=Ronnie and Hilda's another issue at playRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. We There're simply s some doubt as to whether or not used they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to imagining them have been born in context1863, just one small part of but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a large and busy worldfew years off his age. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite For a while, the fact that one of family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to essentially confine themselves a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the person and their literary outputarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951867</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances A GerardPatti Smith|title=Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron Year of Goethe and Schillerthe Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Anna Amalia On the coast of BrunswickSanta Cruz, a Duchess Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Saxethe monkey -Weimar Eisenach in the eighteenth centuryone packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these days. Nevertheless possible: after all, it was mainly through her patronage that 's the court of Weimar became one year of the most artistically renowned monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of the timeSanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a reputation year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from shifting political waters in America. |isbn=1526614758}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the age mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of Bismarck and beyondthe world''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1781550166</amazonuk>When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of it. At the age of 24, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1789016304|title=NancyWar and Love: The Story A family's testament of Lady Astoranguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Nancy, Lady AstorMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the first woman to take her seat as an elected Member of Parliament at Westminsterwar years, is one of those characters about whom it is surely impossible for anyone but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to write happen in a dull biographycountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. A determined character Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who inspired admirationthought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, respect and exasperation that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with herthe way that it did, she is well served by this latest in but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a long line vast scale but made up of titles devoted to hertens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Jones1786893452|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction Factory: The Working Life Of Herbert AllinghamUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Herbert Allingham was one of Here in the most prolific authors of his timeWest, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. Between 1886 and his death in 1936 he was a busy writer But all of melodramatic serial those stories in the mass-market halfpenny papers which flourished at the turn of the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name to itare written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the unsung heroes of world and the trade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Doggett|title=The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie And The 1970s|rating=4situations that refugees find themselves in.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=With hindsight, it’s difficult to argue with the oft-expressed opinion It's rare that David Bowie was we find out the single most important rock musician of journeys from the 1970s. Having been refugees themselves – and this is a perpetual ‘one rare opportunity to watch’ from around 1966 onwards but with only one hit during do that decade, ‘Space Oddity’in this intelligent, from 1972 onwards he went through several remarkable selfpowerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -reinventions someone who was born in musical stylethe middle of a revolution in Iran, with an uncanny knack of being able fleeing to preAmerica as a ten-empt the next big trend. In examining his whole career but focusing largely on his work throughout that particular decade, Peter Doggett looks specifically at every song he recorded, including cover versions. There are also boxedyear-out features on each album, and articles on related topics such as ‘The Art of Minimalism’ and ‘The Heart of Plastic Soul’. He concludes that by 1979 the man’s extraordinary creativity was more or less spent and his subsequent output, successful though it may have been, was in effect treading water up to his ‘elegant, unannounced retirement’ in 2007old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548879</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victoria Glendinning0857058320|title=Raffles And Lord Of All the Golden OpportunityDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as ''Lord Of All the founder 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 Dead'' is a lowly clerkship with journey to uncover the East india Company, then as large author's lost ancestor's life and ungainly as many a governmentdeath. When he went abroad on behalf of Cercas is searching for the Company he quickly learned meaning behind his great uncle's death in the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwardsSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, not least because of is the figure who looms large over the time taken to contact London and then receive a replybook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Even if all went well Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this could take dictator. The question at the best part centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a year - by which time hero whilst having fought for the original question could well be academicwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon Sykes1788037812|title=HockneyThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Biography, Volume 1Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 19371891-19751908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Prince William is one of Originally passed in 1885, the few people who genuinely needs no introductionlaw 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. He's been in Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the public eye since his birth nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the interest is certain to increase rather than diminish as time goes byheterosexual Havelock Ellis. On Exploring the other hand he ''is'' only thirty. Is there really going to be enough to warrant a book margins of society and will it be anything more than an attempt to cash in studying homosexuality was common on his marriage the European Continent, but barely talked about in 2011 and the current interest in all things royal engendered by UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something scientific understanding of a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and in addition Penny Junor is known equality, leading to be a supporter the milestone legalisation of Prince Charles same-sex relationships in what can be described as the War of the Waleses1967. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I would enjoy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley HarrisonBuckland_Zoo|title=Sylvia PankhurstThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: The Rebellious SuffragetteFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=To some extent, the history of the suffragettes was also the history of As a conservationist in Victorian England before the Pankhurst family. Sylvia, born in 1882term existed, Frank Buckland was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst, and one of three sisters. The family had always been heavily politicised, Richard being very much a founder member man ahead of the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.Ghis time. WellsSurgeon, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took a sudden turn for the worse in 1898naturalist, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business veterinarian and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having to nurse eccentric sums himup perfectly, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With his passing the family were left strangely detached from each other. His widow became heavily involved in public work and political agitation, an increasingly remote mother from the young children who needed herany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy BormanWilliams_Captain|title=Matilda: Wife Captain Ronald Campbell of the ConquerorBombala Station, first Queen of EnglandCambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Writing In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the biography 17th Regiment of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless taskFoot. There will always be huge gaps He was in command of the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, troops and likewise we do not have convicts on board a precise date for her marriageship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, although we do know when she diedAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she He was quite short of stature. In a male-dominated society, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but 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 destined to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in English.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Fantastic Mr Dahl|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Reading this book is rather like curling up in live a deep, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa and some squashed-fly biscuits while a favourite uncle chats to you about books. He tells you interesting things about Roald Dahl's long life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in dying suddenly at the knowledge that you already know and love the stories. Just as importantage of 34 at Bangalore, he pauses in leaving his chat from time widow to time to ask your opinion — and it's clear he's really interested in your answerraise their two young sons. Do you prefer the original version of Edwards''James and the Giant Peach'', or the one which was eventually published? Can you imagine how funny it would be to see your grandfather looking death left his widow in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leo McKinstry|title=Jack Hobbsa difficult position: England's Greatest Cricketer|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Back in the early 1920s, there were not only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations did she have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about their farm to start a test series to determine manage, but she was also responsible for the best Test nation in convicts who worked the worldland. Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available nowTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert K MassiePeacock_mountain|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait Into The Mountain, A Life of a WomanNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and Alexandraso many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and of Peter we sell the Greatmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of while, like most other people I read the late eighteenthreviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-century reigning Empressstring to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>
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