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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4|genre=Biography__NOTOC__|summary=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 background of the scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Moore1739805100|title=NijinskyLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=The name Nijinsky is synonymous with dance from ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the last early days of imperial Russiathe Nazi regime in the 1930s. I must confess to knowing little about him until I read thisFred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the first biography of him for nearly forty years, time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for me it was a surprise to learn that his career was so tragically brieflifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686180</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SouhamiWill Brooker|title=The Trials of Radclyffe HallTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=It is a coincidence that Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the year 1928 saw most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the first appearance thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two English novels which were denounced meeting each other, as well, and initially suppressed on shows how 2021 drew the grounds two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of obscenity her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – D.H. Lawrence’s her being in a 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hallblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade's 'The Well (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of Lonelinesscultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. LawrenceBrooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's many novelslife, stories and poems are widely read todayworking to make a success of the latest title, but Hall and her works are hardly remembered except by a minoritystruggling with the next in line. Diana Souhami has Jewell, due diligence appropriately done her a service in , agrees. And this generous yet deeply probing life of a literary trailblazeris the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SouhamiMartha Leigh|title=Greta and CecilInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=The story of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden and the noted British photographer 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 curious one. Neither ever marriedCambridge don, both were androgynous and bisexualforever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, plucked their eyebrows, and had numerous short-term relationshipshis life's work. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was Her mother is a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant to pick up a pen even to sign her own nameconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up Neither parent is hugely interested in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures practicalities of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help itlife. It There is significant that the one picture of them together love in the book, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like house but also darker undercurrents that a handbagchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SouhamiPolly Barton|title=Natalie and RomaineFifty Sounds|rating=34.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The main focus of the book is the relationship between Natalie Barney and Romaine BrooksWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, two very well-off American lesbians who first met in Paris when with the former was 39 question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the latter 41world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. It was the beginning of an often mercurial partnership which lasted for fifty yearsI may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. HoweverAnd like Barton, despite I don't know the answer to the author’s insistence, it is less a double biography than a survey question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the Sapphic society life question in the first essay, which centred is on Paris for much of this period. Barney, a poet, was a flamboyant character who used to say that the sound ''living was the first of all the artsgiro' and often vowed to make 'my life itself into a poem'. Brooks– which she describes as being, a painter whose self-portrait adorns the front coveramong other things, was the product sound of a difficult childhood, abused by her mother who far preferred her mentally unbalanced brother, often proclaimed sadly that 'my dead mother stands between me and life'. An aloof soul, she made a brief marriage with the homosexual John Ellingham Brooks but left him within a yearevery party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780878826</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas WrightFrederic Gros|title=Circulation: William Harvey's Revolutionary IdeaA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary='Circulation' by Thomas Wright is a biography of English physician William Harvey’s life, and I confess I picked this one up from the story library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the 'birth of a theory'pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. It takes This one had me in the reader through time beforefirst two pages, during and after the creation and completion of wherein Gros explains why ''De Motu Cordis'walking is not a sport', in which Harvey famously outlines the most comprehensive antecedent of the mechanism of blood circulation as we know it today. The combination of the writer's aptitude for storytelling and the intriguing life of the individual about whom he writes makes for a fascinating read, allowing one to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life and works, mixed with briefer essays on subject matters ranging from the history of vivisection to the philosophical underpinnings of Harvey’s work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552698</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon MorrisonSharon Blackie|title=The Love and Wars of Lina ProkofievIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This I normally say that you can tell how much a book is a biography of and based largely on the letters of Lina Prokofievmeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid in 1897, she spent most Perhaps an even greater measure of her childhood in New York. After making her stage debut as a soprano in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ under the name of Lina Llubera, she met impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the Soviet composer and pianist Serge Prokofiev, best remembered for the children’s musical fable ‘Peter and the Wolf’one I've borrowed. They married in 1924 and for I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first thirteen years of their marriage they lived in Paris, where two sons, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were born to them. Soon after moving to Moscow in 1936 their marriage fell apart. In 1941 he left her only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a writer, Mira Mendelson, 24 years his junior, whom he married six years laterreason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846557313</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev0241446732|title=GiantsOur House is on Fire: The Dwarfs Scenes of Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput Troupea Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The title of this book does of course carry a sense of irony, although we never quite know exactly how muchErnman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. When a man of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania in the 1860s nobody Malena Ernman was to know what would happen to his lineage – there was no clue then that he would father ten children, an opera singer and seven Svante Thunberg took on most of them would inherit his genetic dwarfism. But history has pieced together all that followed, including the careers those children had as a performance troupe, belting out showtunes to parenting of their own accompaniment, and acting in their own tragitwo daughters. Then eleven-year-comic skits. And then having the limelight stolen from them by the Nazis, old Greta stopped eating and a transportation to Auschwitz. And then being surprisingly saved, talking and given what passed as a cushty lifeher sister, fed and togetherBeata, but tortured at the hands of the camp doctorthen nine years old, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues on struggled with what singled out his Aryan racewas happening. In such circumstances, it's genetic destiny. I say the amount of irony is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – natural to seek a solution close to home, but heeventually, it became clear to the doctor, would have known. As one of the more ominous sentences youfamily that they were ''ll read all year has it – burned-out people on a burned-out planet'Mengele had plans for them'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd0648684806|title=Wilkie CollinsClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books over The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the last few time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, he has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as wellshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. This life Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the Victorian novelist is one only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the latterUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the latest in his series of 'Brief Lives'family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, which have also included Chaucerhad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the painter Turner eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]]Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Raymond1789017977|title=3-Minute JRR TolkienRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Visual Biography of The Towards a New Life after World's Most Revered Fantasy WriterWar II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Tolkien books have gets transported into another medium, the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with the original, Harry) and then Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to try and buy everything worthwhile with whether or not they were ever married or even a tenuous link Harry's birthdate: he claimed to the object of their affectionshave been born in 1863, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwarybut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind usFor a while, and the sixfamily was quite well-film, three-month long Bluto-Ray box set is on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts of course have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold but disaster struck in the originals, 1929 Depression and so low can the quality of the spinfive-year-offs be, there are some who will never be satisfiedold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to find be well-turned-out more, and those this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John FisherPatti Smith|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!': A Life in Jokes and PicturesYear of the Monkey

|summary=I grew up watching Tommy CooperOn the coast of Santa Cruz, and watching my dad do impressions Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Tommy Cooper. I thought he was hilarious (the real Tommy!) monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried and failed to do magic tricks! This book unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is rather unusual as although possible: after all, it is a biography of sorts, giving information about Tommy's life and his history in the world year of entertainment, it isnthe monkey''t text heavy. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and so mostly Tommy's story is told through photographs and picturesageing are faced head-on, as it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Unwin (editor)1912242052|title=Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The TimesO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=I think I was not ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the only first person who at first glance found to walk the title 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 sub-title slightly misleadingadventure. For me it conjured up visions of those who came across on the ‘Windrush’ in 1948 and the life they led on settling in Britain – His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, andits literary consequences, perhaps, the lives changed our view of the more famous (assuming there were some) in obituary formworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441159177</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Artemis CooperGraff_Find|title=Patrick Leigh Fermor: An AdventureFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=The sub-title When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of this biography is highly appropriatehandwritten notes from his journal, for he didn't take much notice of it. At the ninety-six years age of Patrick Leigh Fermor were packed with adventure. Born in 191524, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was something of a maverick at school, intellectually gifted but perpetually naughty, and his punishments for various refractions included suspensions and even expulsionsholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719554497</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Selina Guinness1789016304|title=The Crocodile by the DoorWar and Love: The Story A family's testament of a Houseanguish, a Farm endurance and a Familydevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as a child Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and in 2002 was entranced by what she and her husband-to-bediscovered, Colin Graham, moved back to the house when particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her elderly uncle Charles became frailown family's stories were equally fascinating. The surname might lead you to suspect that there A hundred and seven thousand Jews were brewery millions in deported from the city during the background war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this wasn't the case. The couple were young academics and doing what needed to could be done at Tibradden would need allowed to be done happen in addition a country with liberal values who were resistant to full-time jobsGerman occupation. The house was on Most people believed that the outskirts of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were a property developer or occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the last defence against Germans might reach the encroaching city if you were not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Ricketts|title=Strange Meetings: The Lives of convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Poets of the Great War|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The majority of recent books on the War Poets tend Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to focus on their lives during and immediately after escalate in the conflict. This enterprising accountway that it did, borrowing its name from but initial protests melted away as the poem by Wilfred Owen, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or organisers became morecircumspect. It begins with the first meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke at one of Eddie Marsh’s breakfasts in July 1914. Marsh was 's an atrocity on a tireless supporter of modern painters and after that promising new writers, particularly poets. The journey, or rather account vast scale but made up of meetings, takes us to the western front and back to England, culminating in a reunion tens of two thousands of the longest-lived, Sassoon and David Jones, in 1964individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951808</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Callow1786893452|title=Charles Laughton: A Difficult ActorThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Once Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a towering presence on stage and screenregular basis – some media welcoming them, the star some scaremongering about them. But all of fifty films and forty playsthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these days. As an actor of a younger generation and keen admirer of his workalmost always, Callow is well placed to bring him back to no matter how deep the fore. He notes in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped investigative journalism they carry out of public consciousness, outsiders to the world and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of forty|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581957</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Sugden|title=Nelson: A Dream of Glory|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=I will admit situations that I didn't know what I was letting myself refugees find themselves in for when I saw . It'Nelson: A Dream of Glory' sitting on s rare that we find out the Bookbag shelf, but I had just come back journeys from Portsmouth the refugees themselves – and this is a wander around on the Victoryrare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, so it powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was a bit hard to resist. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951913</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Chisholm|title=Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson born in the Company of Women|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=What's your mental image middle of a Great Writer? Most people would probably say the same thing: someone sitting revolution in splendid isolation, probably in a garret, writing Great Words and hating them. The idea of Great Writers having friends, or even a familyIran, is a bizarre one. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But there's another issue at play. We're simply not used fleeing to imagining them in context, just one small part of America as a large and busy world. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite the fact that one of the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers to essentially confine themselves to the person and their literary outputten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951867</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances A Gerard0857058320|title=Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron of Goethe Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and SchillerAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=Anna Amalia of Brunswick, ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the eighteenth centurySpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these daysthe figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Nevertheless it was mainly through her patronage that The question at the court centre of Weimar became one of the most artistically renowned of the time, this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a reputation it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from hero whilst having fought for the age of Bismarck and beyondwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781550166</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1788037812|title=NancyThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Story of Lady AstorFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=Nancy, Lady AstorOriginally passed in 1885, 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 law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for anyone to write a dull biography82 years. A determined character who inspired admirationBut during this time, respect restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and exasperation in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with her1908, she is well served by this latest in a long line three books on the nature of titles devoted to herhomosexuality appeared.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Jones|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction FactoryThey were written by two homosexual men: The Working Life Of Herbert Allingham|rating=4Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis.5|genre=Biography|summary=Herbert Allingham was one of Exploring the most prolific authors margins of his time. Between 1886 society and his death in 1936 he studying homosexuality was a busy writer of melodramatic serial stories common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the mass-market halfpenny papers which flourished at UK, so the turn publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name to itscientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the unsung heroes milestone legalisation of the tradesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter DoggettBuckland_Zoo|title=The Man Who Sold The WorldAte the Zoo: David Bowie And The 1970sFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Although Raffles has gone down As a conservationist in history as Victorian England before the founder term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of Singapore his roots were far from grandtime. He had no advantages apart from his own drive Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and determination eccentric sums him up perfectly, and his professional life began with a lowly clerkship any biographer is immediately presented with the East india Company, then as large and ungainly as many a government. When he went abroad on behalf of the Company he quickly learned the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwards, not least because of the time taken colourful tale to contact London and then receive 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 academictell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon SykesWilliams_Captain|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975|rating=5|genre=Art|summary=As one of the major names Captain Ronald Campbell of British twentieth century artBombala Station, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure. Published to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is the first volume of a biography which tells his story up to 1975.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Lois Banner|title=Marilyn: The Passion and the ParadoxIvor George Williams

|summary=With In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the possible exception 17th Regiment of Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe is probably the most written-about deceased woman Foot. He was in twentieth-century history. The thirty-six years command of her life the troops and the manner of her death will no doubt continue convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have since her sudden passingSydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. After He was not destined to live a decade of research Lois Bannerlong life, a Professor dying suddenly at the age of History and Gender Studies 34 at university in CaliforniaBangalore, has added another weighty tome leaving his widow to the relevant shelvesraise their two young sons. As Edwards' death left his widow in a self-styled pioneer of second-wave feminism and difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the new women’s history, land. Two years later she has some interesting insights to offer into her subject’s life as a gender role modelwould marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408814102</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Penny JunorPeacock_mountain|title=Prince William: Born to be King: An Intimate Portrait|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Prince William is one of the few people who genuinely needs no introduction. He's been in the public eye since his birth and the interest is certain to increase rather than diminish as time goes by. On the other hand he ''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 on his marriage in 2011 and the current interest in all things royal engendered by the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something of a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist and in addition Penny Junor is known to be a supporter of Prince Charles in what can be described as the War Into The Mountain, A Life of the Waleses. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I would enjoy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Shirley Harrison|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: The Rebellious SuffragetteCharlotte Peacock

|summary=To some extentMostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, the history of the suffragettes was but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the history of the Pankhurst familymyriad lesser-known authors short as well. SylviaSo while, born in 1882like most other people I have my favourite genres, was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline Pankhurstfavoured authors, and one of three sisters. The family had always been heavily politicisedwhile, Richard being a founder member of like most other people I read the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw reviews and H.G. Wellsfollow up on what appeals, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took I also have a sudden turn for the worse in 1898, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having third-string to nurse him, 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 hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tracy Borman|title=Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, first Queen of England|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Writing the biography of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless task. There will always be huge gaps in the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she 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 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 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 life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in the knowledge that you already know and love the stories. Just as important, he pauses in his chat from time to time to ask your opinion — and it's clear he's really interested in your answer. Do you prefer the original version of ''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 in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leo McKinstry|title=Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest Cricketer|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Back in the early 1920s, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations have been Move on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the world. 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 now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert K Massie|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Ewart|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 - and eighty six in public life - there's not much which isn't known about the Queen [[Newest Business 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 a freshness for many readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780970064</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]