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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John Ashdown-HillMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title= The Private Life Reminiscences of Edward IVTolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating= 43.5|genre= Biography|summary= Edward IV is currently Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a popular subject for biographersvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. All credit In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is therefore due , but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to Dr Ashdown-Hillknow how I see this tower, that sea, one of the foremost of current Yorkistor that Tartar -era historianswhy should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, for looking at the King Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a fresh angle – subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of his romantic involvementsit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445652455</amazonuk>1804271977

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anja Reich-Osang and Imogen Taylor (translator)Ian Penman|title=The Scholl CaseErik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=3.5

|summary=I think IThis unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie'd like Ludwigsfelde. I wouldn't have liked it when it was an industrial villages admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, with one or two huge mechanical plants experimental and nothing else to its namecreative. But now, even with the constant hum of It is divided into three sections: the autobahn (one of Hitler's) keeping it companyfirst, it must have an appeal. It has been rebuiltessay, refashioned and remodelled since the end of East Germanysecond, under the most prosperous an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and forward-looking mayor in the statethird, if not the country. He it was who put in a mostly-nude swimming spa. It has dispensers for doggy poo bags'Satie Diary', so theredocumenting Ian Penman's nothing as uncouth as taking your own. The mayor, bless him, even expanded the motorway to three lanes in each direction. It is within touch of Berlin, and in tune with so many business wantsthoughts surrounding Satie, yet is surrounded by woodlandhis muse. Woodland where, between Christmas and New Year a few years back, the mayor's own wife and dog were found, both having been strangled…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925240932</amazonuk>1804271535

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=S D TuckerJacqueline Feldman|title=Great British EccentricsPrecarious Lease|rating=43.5

|summary= Some very strange people have stalked our green The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and pleasant landprocesses, but few scant property rights. In his introductionAmong mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, Tucker asks us whyadmirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Is it our status Something like a haven for artists and marginal members of society (as an island people which has made so many one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the margins of our countrymen turn in on ourselves? Has our long libertarian tradition the margins of the idea margins''), Le Bloc was subject to the continual threat of individual freedomeviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as long as we do nobody else any harm, permitted weirdness to flourish among us?a tragedy in this book. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445660326</amazonuk>1804271403

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Karen JenningsJacqueline Rose|title= Travels With My FatherWomen in Dark Times|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction Biography|summary= Despite the coda, this does not feel like ''an autobiographical novel''. I am The world of the unconscious is not sure why Jennings felt the need to couch it in those terms unless there is much in antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the structure that is fiction. Ihidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'m hoping there isn't. I am hoping that the fiction  Women in Dark Times is purely that conceit that this pretends Jacqueline Rose's homage to be a novel. If that was necessary to get it publishedcourageous women throughout history, then I'll applaud particularly women of the subterfuge21st, because this 20th and 19th centuries. Her historical and political backdrop is writing , thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that needs to be read. It feminism's lengthy mission is – if as true as I want it a testament to be – a delicate reminiscenceits successes, and not its failures: a daughter's ''in memoriamthe ongoing force of feminism'' to a father she loved, worshipped, idealised, cared-for, lived with, and yes (in true daughterly fashion) at times, hated. A father who was, therefore, a good dad. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320695</amazonuk>1804271713

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteClaire Dederer|title=Pop Pickers and Music VendorsMonsters: David Jacobs, Alan Freeman, John Peel, Tommy Vance and Roger ScottWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary=You know those questions you get Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in celebrity interviews - a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary 'which extinct being would you most like to see brought back to life?' Well, Icancel culture''d like to see Jimmy Savile brought back, so that he could get his comeuppance. ItDederer's not just work is original and expressive. The reader gets the damage he did to children and young people, dreadful as impression that was - it's the shadow he cast over thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the entertainment industrypage. We know that he wasn't alone in what he didIn particular, but somehow there's the prologue packs a whole era of entertainment which has been tarred by punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the same brushdirector Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. John Van der Kiste has turned This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the spotlight away from Savile and on to five of first few chapters, interrogating the great DJs likes of the music industryWoody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781555443</amazonuk>1399715070

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Tales of Loving and LeavingCharles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Gaby WeinerEdzard Ernst|rating=4.5

|summary=In For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Tales of Loving and LeavingCharles, The Alternative Prince''critically assesses the Prince's opinions, author Gaby Weiner tells beliefs and aims against the story background of three the scientific evidence. There are few instances of her family members: her grandmother, Amalia Moszkowicz Dinger; her mother, Steffi Dinger; his beliefs being vindicated and her fatherhis 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, Uszer Frochtlogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524635081</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Lewis1739805100|title=Henry IIILoving the Enemy: The Son Building bridges in a time of Magna Cartawar|author=Andrew March

|summary= For ''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 early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, a monarch whose reign over England sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of fifty-six years was unequalled until "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the nineteenth century, Henry III remains curiously little-knowntime. Nobody could claim that he was a particularly outstanding or Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful ruler, but the fact he did make friendships and connections that he held his throne lasted for so long in an unstable age was no mean achievement in itselfa lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653575</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy LicenceWill Brooker|title=Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True WifeThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary= Catherine Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of Aragonthe most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the first thousands of Henry VIII's six wives less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and Queenscloser together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was arguably reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the most unhappy figure during the Tudor era author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who did not meet her end on has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the scaffold or at the stakerabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. The cliché Brooker decides he'tragic love storyd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author' must be s life, working to make a fitting one success of the latest title, and struggling with the next in her caseline. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445656701</amazonuk>1529136024

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven BurgauerMartha Leigh|title=The Road To WarInvisible Ink: Duty & Drill, Courage & CaptureA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=After World War II Bill Frodsham led an everyday life Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, raising a immediately recognisable upper middle class English family in an ordinary US suburb. HeHer father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his wife and children became friends with the Burgauer family, little Steven Burgauer knowing him typewriter as Mr F. Time rolls on and little Steven grows up, and then eventually retires from he edits the American financial sector to write science fiction and lecture from time to time. He's therefore surprised when, out complete correspondence of the bluephilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mr Fhis life's daughter tracks him down and presents him with work. Her mother is a pile of handwritten notes asking Steven to make them into a book. These are Mr F's self-authored memoirs, stretching from his youth onwards and showing that this seemingly good, kind but unremarkable man was anything but unremarkable. During the war Mr F trained concert pianist who practises for the impossible and then lived it as he led men across Omaha Beach on D Dayhours every day. He was then captured and spent Neither parent is hugely interested in the rest practicalities of life. There is love in the war as house but also darker undercurrents that a POW in inhumane conditions. Steven accepted the request and ''The Road to War'' child does not fully understand but knows is the result: the life and war of Captain William C Frodsham Jrthere.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1450218806</amazonuk>1800460384

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sofka ZinovieffPolly Barton|title= The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and MeFifty Sounds|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyPolitics and Society|summary= Faringdon House in Oxfordshire was Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the home of Lord Berners; composer, writer, painter, friend of Stravinsky and Gertrude Stein, and question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a man renowned for both his eccentricity while and his homosexuality. Turning Faringdon if the world hadn't gone into an aesthete's paradise, exquisite food was served to many of the great minds and beauties of the daymelt-down I would have visited by now. Since the early 1930's, his companion I may get there was Robert Heber-Percylater this year, twenty-eight years his juniorbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, wildly physical and unscholarly, a hothead who rode naked through I don't know the grounds and was known answer to all as the Mad Boy. If those two sounded an odd couple, especially at a time when homosexuality was illegal, the addition question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of Jennifer Fry to the household question in 1942the first essay, a pregnant high society girl who became Robertwhich is on the sound ''giro' ''s wife– which she describes as being, was really rather astounding. After the child was bornamong other things, the marriage soon foundered. Berners died in 1950, and Robert was left in charge sound of Faringdon, ably assisted by a ferocious Austrian housekeeper. This mad world was the one first encountered by author Sofka Zinovieff, Robert's granddaughter. A typical child of the sixties, it was much 'every party where you have to her astonishment that Robert decided to leave the house to herintroduce yourself''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009957196X</amazonuk>1913097501

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor GreiveFrederic Gros|title=Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a FamilyA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=Biography Politics and Society|summary=Cameron and his wife, Sam, had been leading a very active, adventurous lifeI confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Even after the birth of their three sons they wanted Now I have to continue their adventures, go out an buy my own copy so they decided that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to travel its varying wisdom when I need to Thailand for a family holiday. They were having a brilliant time until, suddenly, Sam was involved Some books draw you in a dreadful, almost fatal, accidentslowly. The accident left her paralysed andThis one had me in the first two pages, because of the sudden and extremely severe impact on her life she slid quickly into wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a very deep and dark depression. Cameron feared for his familysport's future, and his wife's life, until one day a small abandoned magpie chick came along, and managed to change everything.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782119795</amazonuk>1781688370

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Simon CallowSharon Blackie|title=Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man BandIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary= Orson Welles, I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the noted actor, director and producer, was one of those larger than I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life characters whose impact on -changing' – although it is definitely the world of stage first two and screen during his lifetime was inestimable. Simon Callow has found only time will tell about the task of condensing his story into third – but clichés exist for a single volume is impossible, reason and this is the third of three solid instalmentsI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099502836</amazonuk>1912836017

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graeme Thomson0241446732|title= George HarrisonOur House is on Fire: Behind the Locked DoorScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|summary= George Harrison The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the youngest of USA. At the four wartimetime she was just three-years-born youngsters who came together old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to form The Beatlessail with her parents and three brothers. He was also the only one Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who came from doted on her and saw that she received a relatively stable family backgroundgood education, his early years not scarred by the loss both in and out of one parent through divorce or early bereavementschool. With two elder brothers and a sister, he She was the baby of only child in the Harrison clanhousehold and her childhood was glorious. A poor scholar but a promising trainee electrician By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in his teens, a musical ear and the advent of rock'n'roll soon led him along an alternative career path. This is a finely balanced wartsmid-and-all portrait west of the man, his United States and lifewas hard, character, songwriting as Clara was to find out when she and other interestsher grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, an often baffling figure, a strange mix of good and bad. Thomson has dug deeply and spoken to several people who knew him well and worked with himhad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and as a life of the 'Dark Horse', I doubt it could be bettereddied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. Scrupulously researched, it is easily As the most comprehensive Harrison life I have come acrosseldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and the most objectiveWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468310658</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander Larman1789017977|title= ByronRonnie and Hilda's WomenRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistory|summary= George Gordon, who became Ronnie Williams was the 6th Lord Byron at the age son of ten Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1798 on the death of his grandfather, is remembered not only as one of the great poets of the Romantic era1863, but also as somebody whose severe lack of moral compass he was guaranteed to attract scandal wherever already many years older than Ethel and he laid might well have shaved a few years off his hatage. This new book For a while, as the title suggests, is not a biography of him, rather an account of his life family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and those of nine of the women who were unfortunate enough five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to become involved with hima very different lifestyle. They include One thing he did inherit from his mother, father was his abused wife, his halfneed to be well-turned-sister out and this would stay with whom he slept as well, plus lovers and mistresses and him throughout his two daughterslife. Larman admits that there could have been several more – actresses, servant women, He joined the army at eighteen in fact almost anyone1942. For Byronic, maybe we should read 'insatiable'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784082023</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Susan HigginbothamPatti Smith|title= Margaret Pole: The Countess in Year of the TowerMonkey

|summary= The fate On the coast of Margaret PoleSanta Cruz, who as Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the cover says has monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a good claim to stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the title year of the monkey'the last Plantagenet', was a sorry one. As a close relation of the Yorkists and Smith wanders the Tudors at a time coast of upheavalSanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life was overshadowed by the executions of several of her family – - loss and ultimately leading to her ownageing are faced head-on, largely as it seems, for the 'crime' of being who she wasshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1445635941</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Barbara Fox1912242052|title= When the War is OverO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating= 43|genre= BiographyArt|summary=Gwenda and Douglas Brady were a brother and sister from Newcastle who were evacuated to the Lake District during the Second World War. ''When the War is OverOh Joy for me!''gives Coleridge credit for being ' tells Gwenda's story of evacuee life in the idyllic village of Bamptonfirst person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, where they spent several years living with as a kindly schoolmaster miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and his wifeadventure. As they settled into village life His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, Gwenda and Douglas found it harder and harder to come to terms with its literary consequences, changed our view of the idea that they would have to return home to their parents at some pointworld''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0751561398</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=John Howlett1789016304|title= James DeanWar and Love: Rebel LifeA family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary= James Dean Melanie 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 war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a sense country 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, that the 1950s Amsterdammers would never allow what Sid Vicious was happened to escalate in the 1970s – the ultimate 'live fastway that it did, die young' character, although but initial protests melted away as the star organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of three classic movies tens of the era he achieved rather more in his short life than the hapless punk icon ever did in histhousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859655342</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sean Cunningham1786893452|title=Prince Arthur: The Tudor King Who Never WasUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary= Prince Arthur was Here in the eldest son West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of Henry VIIthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. Had he lived longerIt's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, there might have been no Henry VIIIpowerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran, thus paving fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=''Lord Of All the way for Dead'' is a very large counterfactual journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor'what ifs life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle' s death in British historythe Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the 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. The name Arthur, that question at the centre of the mythical King several centuries earlier, had this book is whether it is possible for his great expectations attached, never uncle to be fulfilleda hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445647664</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts1788037812|title=The Beauty Fraternity of Her Agethe Estranged: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money The Fight for Homosexual Rights in Victorian England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary= The name of Yolande Stephens (nee Duvernay) is not Originally passed in 1885, the law that wellhad made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-known in sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the annals nature of Victorian Englandhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but behind it lies an enthralling rags-to-riches saga. How did a young girl born into poverty barely talked about in Paris become one the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the most celebrated ballerinas scientific understanding of her time in Englandhomosexuality, and after that one of beginning the richest women in struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the country, with a fortune on her death which rivalled that milestone legalisation of Queen Victoria?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653206</amazonuk>same-sex relationships in 1967.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter RexBuckland_Zoo|title=William The Man Who Ate the ConquerorZoo: The Bastard Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Normandynatural history|author=Richard Girling

|genre=History Biography|summary= The basic facts As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of William I's life are inevitably as clouded as those surrounding the Norman conquesthis time. Surgeon, naturalist, the events veterinarian and politics which led eccentric sums him up to itperfectly, and the aftermath. As Peter Rex makes clear in his introduction, any surviving sources are inevitably very incomplete. Moreover, 'the writing of the history of the eleventh century requires the historian to attempt biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to provide motives and explanations for events that are only sketchily described at best'tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660172</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Teresa ColeWilliams_Captain|title= Henry VCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: The His Military Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Henry V is remembered as one of England's greatest warrior kings, not least as a result of his immortalisation in the play by Shakespeare (as well as by two film versions of the drama). Ironically he was one of several great-grandchildren of Edward III, and as he was considered relatively unimportant at the time of his birth, exactly when he arrived in the world was not recorded and two different dates have been given. It was the deposition of his father's childless cousin Richard II in 1399 which placed him directly in the line of succession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445655411</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Peter Ackroyd|title= Alfred Hitchcock|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= Peter Ackroyd has established a reputation for himself in recent years as the master of the pithy biography, particularly but not exclusively of those with a strong London connection. J.M.W. Turner, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins and Charlie Chaplin are among those who have come under his scrutiny, and now he looks at the noted film director and producer, the 'Master of Suspense'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287668</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewTimes|author=Tom Bower|title=Broken Vows: Tony Blair The Tragedy of PowerIvor George Williams

|summary=In May 1997 we went March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to vote gleefullySydney, sure that there Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was going not destined to be live a change from long life, dying suddenly at the tiredage of 34 at Bangalore, sleaze-ridden Conservative government we'd been sufferingleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. The BlairsEdwards' entry into Downing Street the following day - through crowds of well-wishers - was like a breath of fresh air and (perhaps fortunately) it would be years before I discovered that the 'well wishers' had been bussed death left his widow in for the event. Looking back now it seems that our hopes for what the 'New Labour' government could achieve were unreasonably high and there's a special place in hell reserved for those who disappoint us in this way. I've often wondered quite how history will see Blairdifficult position: Afghanistan and Iraq as well as his failure not only did she have their farm to deal with Gordon Brown would always sour his premiership for memanage, but to what extent could his achievements such as she was also responsible for the Good Friday Agreement, convicts who worked the minimum wage and higher welfare payments be balanced against his failures?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571314201</amazonuk>land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Popham Peacock_mountain|title=Into The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for FreedomMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=On 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after spending 15 of Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the previous 21 years as a prisoner of Burma's military junta. Political reforms soon followedapproach, culminating with Suu (as she prefers to be known) being elected to parliament. The West rejoiced; leadersbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, business men, and tourists poured in; and Suu entered we sell the pantheon of modernmyriad lesser-day political heroes. Burma was a burgeoning democracy, and Suu was a saint. In reality, known authors short as Peter Popham argues in 'The Lady and the Generals', the situation was far more complexwell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846043719</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Aubrey|title= Brief Lives|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary= John Aubrey was a modest manSo while, an antiquarian and the inventor of modern biography. His lives of the prominent figures of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Funny, illuminating and full of historical details, they like most other people I have been plundered by historians for centuries. Here Aubrey's biographical writings are collectedmy favourite genres, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of the characters of his day – all more alive and kicking than in a conventional history book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870331</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ruth Scurr|title= John Aubrey: My Own Life|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary=John Aubreyfavoured authors, the seventeenth-century antiquary, writer and archaeologistwhile, occupies a peculiar, even unique place in English literature. When he died, the work for which he is like most famous, 'Brief Lives', was a disorganised collection of manuscripts which remained unpublished for over a century. Only in other people I read the last hundred years or so has be become more widely recognised as an interesting character reviews and perceptive commentator follow up on societywhat appeals, scholarship and on his contemporaries during the postI also have a third-restoration era.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490633</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Amy Licence|title= Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodvillestring to my reading bow: A True Romance|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Given the current resurgence in popularity of biographies dealing with the Yorkists, the time is right for an account of the marriage of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, a union that proved so divisive in the era of York vs Lancaster. With several of the great nobility declaring allegiance to one side and then another in turn during the Wars of the Roses, it was a divisive era to start withrandomness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445636786</amazonuk>