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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!-- Buckland -->{{Frontpage|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev[[image:Buckland_Zoo|rating=3.jpg5|leftgenre=Biography|linksummary=httpsBiographies 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 vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that://www''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be.amazonWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''.coWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.uk/gp/product/1784701610?ie|isbn=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1784701610]]1804271977}}

{{Frontpage|author=Ian Penman|title=Erik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. It is divided into three sections: the first, an essay, the second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, his muse. |isbn=1804271535}}{{Frontpage|author=Jacqueline Feldman|title=Precarious Lease|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=[[The Man Who Ate 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 processes, but few scant property rights. Among 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, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and marginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the Zoo: Frank Bucklandmargins of the margins of the margins''), forgotten hero Le Bloc was subject to the continual threat of natural history by Richard Girling]]eviction 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 a tragedy in this book. |isbn=1804271403}}{{Frontpage|author=Jacqueline Rose|title=Women in Dark Times|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

[[imageWomen in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries. Her historical and political backdrop is, thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, and not its failures:4.5star''the ongoing force of feminism''.jpg|linkisbn=Category:{{{rating1804271713}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]]

As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell. [[The Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history by Richard Girling{{Frontpage|Full Review]]<br> <br> <!-- Williams -->author=Claire Dederer[[image:Williams_Captain.jpg|left|linktitle=httpsMonsters://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1546280804What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative|rating=6738&creativeASIN=1546280804]]3|genre===[[Captain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life Politics and Times by Ivor George Williams]]===Society [[image:4star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] In 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 Dederer sets out to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live unveil what she calls a long life, dying suddenly at ''biography of the age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwardsaudience'' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to managedeconstructed, she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell. [[Captain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Stationthoroughly nitpicked, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times by Ivor George Williams|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Seward -->[[image:Seward Husband.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1471159558?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1471159558]] ===[[My Husband and I: The Inside Story of 70 Years of the Royal Marriage by Ingrid Seward]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] I'm writing this review on the eve exploration of the seventieth anniversary old aphorism of separating the wedding art from the artist in the Queen and the Duke context of Edinburgh: itcontemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's an amazing achievement particularly when you add to work is original and expressive. The reader gets the difficulties of maintaining any relationship for impression that period of time the burden of the Queen being our monarch for sixty-five years thoughts simply sprang and the challenges of having to live their joint leapt from her brilliant mind and separate lives in onto the public eyepage. Ingrid Seward gives us the story of the marriage and insights into both partiesIn particular, particularly Prince Philip. [[My Husband and I: The Inside Story of 70 Years of the Royal Marriage by Ingrid Seward|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Peacock -->[[imageprologue packs a punch:Peacock_mountain.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1903385563?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1903385563]] ===[[Into The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd by Charlotte Peacock]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]],[[:Category:History|History]] Mostly we choose what books to read, because there is so little time she simultaneously condemns and so many books… I can understand exalts the approachdirector Roman Polanski, but I also think we sell ourselves short by itan artist she personally admires for his art, and we sell the myriad lesser known authors short yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as well. So whileshe calls them, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read is consistent for the reviews and follow up on what appealsfirst few chapters, I also have a third string to my reading bow: randomness. [[Into The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd by Charlotte Peacock|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Hewitt -->[[image:Hewitt_Renoir.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785782738?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785782738]] ===[[Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]], [[:Category:Art|Art]] Deep in interrogating the rural parts likes of France in the 1860sWoody Allen, you would never really expect to find someone who would come to embody a full artistic period – Michael Jackson and not just a movement at that, but a full generation of both creative and societal changePablo Picasso. And if you were to expect that someoneHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling never slipping into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the circus that first caught anonymity and maintaining her teenaged eyeown subjectivity, although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what as she did have from that was the poise to be an appealing model for some seriously important paintersholds it so dearly, and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiencespersonal, rather than collective voice. And what she also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own… [[Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Ravilious -->[[image:Ravilious_James.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1908524944?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASINisbn=1908524944]]1399715070}}===[[James Ravilious: A Life by Robin Ravilious]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]]Frontpage The name of Eric Ravilious, war artist, engraver and designer, has long been familiar. Less well-known was his equally gifted son James. This delightful biography by his widow should help to put the situation right. [[James Ravilious: A Life by Robin Ravilious|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> <!-- Thomas -->[[image:Thomas_Pearl.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/144566125X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=144566125X]] ===[[The King's Pearl: Henry VIII and His Daughter Mary by Melita Thomas]]===1788360702[[image:5star.jpg|linktitle=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] As the eldest surviving child of a much-married father whose main aim was to secure the royal succession with sons, Mary Tudor's relationship with Henry VIIICharles, who called her his 'pearl of the world', was inevitably an important and often fraught one.[[The King's PearlAlternative Prince: Henry VIII and His Daughter Mary by Melita Thomas|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> <!-- Gordon -->An Unauthorised Biography[[image:Gordon_Carter.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099575728?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creativeauthor=6738&creativeASIN=0099575728]]Edzard Ernst|rating===[[The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon]]===4[[image:5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] Angela Carter is remembered as summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an influential ardent supporter of alternative medicine and inventive writer – with works like complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Bloody Chamber'' and Alternative Prince''Nights at critically assesses the CircusPrince'' propelling her to fames opinions, beliefs and a status as an icon and inspiration for many modern-day writers.Here author Edmund Gordon delves into the life of Carter – from aims against the London background of the 1940s through to the London scientific evidence. There are few instances of the 1990s, with stops in Bristol, Tokyo, Australia, his beliefs being vindicated and various other places in between. A work that is as full his relentless promotion of detail as it is full of devotion treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to a remarkable woman, ''The Invention of Angela Carter'' is the first authorised biography reputation of a woman and a writer man who is hugely missed todayproud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions. [[The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon|Full Review]]<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Dittricht -->[[image:Dittrich_Patient.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099571862?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&campisbn=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0099571862]]1739805100===[[Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|linktitle=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Popular Science|Popular Science]], [[:CategoryLoving the Enemy:Biography|Biography]] Luke Dittrich seeks to shed light on the man behind the initials, and Building bridges in doing so, uncovers quite a bit more than he expected. [[Patient H.M.: A Story time of Memory, Madness and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrichwar|Full Review]]author=Andrew March<br> <br> <br> <br> <!-- Morris -->[[image:Morris_Footsteps.jpg|left|linkrating=https://www4.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/144567114X?ie5|genre=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=144567114X]]Biography|summary===[[In ''Loving the Footsteps of Enemy'' tells the Six Wives quite extraordinary story of Henry VIII: The visitorauthor Andrew March's companion grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the palaces, castles & houses associated with Henry VIII's iconic queens by S Morris and N Grueninger]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Travel|Travel]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] It was inevitable that each early days of the six wives of Henry VIII would have left their mark Nazi regime in some way on the places they lived and visited1930s. This book straddles several categories; it is part historyFred, part gazetteer or guide booka sensitive and thoughtful man, and also a collection had some vague ideas of potted biographies. [[In "building bridges" which may guard against the Footsteps of growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the Six Wives of Henry VIII: The visitortime. Fred's companion attempts to the palaces, castles & houses associated with Henry VIIIseparate individual people from ideology weren's iconic queens by S Morris t universally successful but he did make friendships and N Grueninger|Full Review]]connections that lasted for a lifetime. <br> <br> <br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Breverton -->[[image:Breverton_Owen.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1445654180?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCodeauthor=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1445654180]]Will Brooker|title===[[Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor Dynasty by Terry Breverton]]===The Truth About Lisa Jewell [[image:4.5star.jpg|linkrating=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]], [[:Category:History|History]]5 Owen Tudor was one of those shadowy yet very important characters in medieval history. While we may know little about him, or at least did not until this biography appeared, his historical importance can hardly be overestimated. Without him, there would have been no Tudor dynasty. [[Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor Dynasty by Terry Breverton|Full Review]]<br> <br> <!-- Landreth -->[[image:Landreth_Swell.jpg|left|linkgenre=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472938941?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1472938941]]Biography ===[[Swell by Jenny Landreth]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] Meet [[:Category:Politics and SocietyLisa Jewell|Politics and SocietyLisa Jewell]], [[:Category:Sport|Sport]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] one of the most successful British authors I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography and I love her encouragement that we should each write our ownve never knowingly read. This is more than just (I say ''just''!) a recollection Now meet Will Brooker, one of the author's own encounters with water; it's also a history thousands of women's fight for the right to swimless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. That sounds absurd until you start reading about it, then it becomes serious. Not too serious though – because Jenny Landreth is clearly a lover of the absurd. Not a lover of This book blurbs myself, I do always seek to give a shout-out to those who get it dead right: in this case I'm definitely starts with Alexandra Heminsley's ''giggles-on-the-commute funny''. [[Swell by Jenny Landreth|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Blackburn -->[[image:Blackburn_Threads.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099582198?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0099582198]] ===[[Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske by Julia Blackburn]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]]two meeting each other, [[:Category:Art|Art]] John Craske was a fishermanas well, from a family of fishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on and shows how 2021 drew the north Norfolk coast in 1881 two closer and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill healthcloser together. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years at a time and he The meeting was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talentsome unspecified combination, albeit that his work had to be done on the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sillsit seems, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroideryher anecdote about cup cakes, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, words of the evacuation at Dunkirk. [[Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske by Julia Blackburn|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Elkin -->[[image:Elkin_Flaneuse.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099593378?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0099593378]] ===[[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Parisher latest book she was reciting, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, her being in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking of everything from a ''Madame Bovaryblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to ''Revolutionary Road''attend). When she imagines to herself what the female version of that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneur''but pulled Brooker, might bea professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, she thinks about women who freely wandered down the worldrabbit-hole that is Jewell's great cities without having the diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied than to them. [[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Jones -->[[image:Jones_Black.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1784972932?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1784972932]] ===[[The Black Prince by Michael Jones]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] Generally known during and shortly after his lifetime as Edward of Woodstock, after the palace in Oxfordshire in which he was born, the eldest son of King Edward III was arguably one of the Kings that never was. At last we have follow her through a modern biography to put him year in his proper perspective. [[The Black Prince by Michael Jones|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br>  <!-- Hoffman -->[[image:Hoffman_Billion.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785781979?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785781979]] ===[[The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E Hoffman]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] With the Cold War at its frostiestpublished author's life, there were few tougher locations for western intelligence agencies working to try and run an agent than 1970s Moscow. That makes the tale of Adolf Tolkachev, make a Russian engineer who provided thousands success of top secret documents to the Americans right under the noses of the KGBlatest title, all and struggling with the more incrediblenext in line. [[The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E Hoffman|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Moore -->[[image:Moore Buddha.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/9381182299?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=9381182299]] ===[[Buddha: An Enlightened Life (Campfire Graphic Novels) by Kieron Moore and Rajesh Nagulakonda]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Graphic Novels|Graphic Novels]] Jewell, [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] I don't do religiondue diligence appropriately done, but still there was something that drew me to agrees. And this comic book. For one, the whole Buddhist faith is still a little unknown to me, and this was certainly going to be educational. Yes, I knew some of the terms it ends up using, but not others, such as bhikshu, and had never really come across the man's life storyresult. Yes, I knew he found enlightenment and taught a very pacifist kind of faith, but where did he come from? What failings did he have on his path, and who were the ones that joined him along the way? [[Buddha: An Enlightened Life (Campfire Graphic Novels) by Kieron Moore and Rajesh Nagulakonda|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Arman -->[[image:Arman_Warrior.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1445662043?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1445662043]]1529136024 ===[[The Warrior Queen: The Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Daughter of Alfred the Great by Joanna Arman]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] Aethelflaed, the 'Lady of the Mercians', was the daughter and eldest child of King Alfred. Considering the scanty details of her life which have been handed down to posterity, the author has done a very good job in presenting us with a portrait of her life and times. [[The Warrior Queen: The Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Daughter of Alfred the Great by Joanna Arman|Full Review]]<br> <br> <br> {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kathryn WarnerMartha Leigh|title= Edward IIInvisible Ink: The Unconventional KingA Family Memoir

|summary= Edward II Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has come been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to us the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Gros|title=A Philosophy of Walking|rating=5|genre= Politics and Society|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the 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 pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|isbn=1781688370}}{{Frontpage|author=Sharon Blackie|title=If Women Rose Rooted|rating=5|genre= Biography|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the worst English kings first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|isbn=1912836017}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|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=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of 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 good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, 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 few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: 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. 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 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to 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 army at eighteen in 1942.}}{{Frontpage|author=Patti Smith|title=Year of the Monkey|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey''. With As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a reign filled by reliance year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on male favourites, constant threats of civil warsas it the 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 mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, endless quarrels but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his baronsjournal, unsuccessful military campaigns (including 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.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was perhaps 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 worst English military defeat ever war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a 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 Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to take place escalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on British soil)a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=The Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Here in the West, abdication and we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – so we some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are led written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to believe the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a brutal death revolution in captivity Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year- old.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Lord Of All the balance sheet Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a pretty poor onejourney 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 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. But The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The Fraternity of the full story?Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Originally passed in 1885, the law 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. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality 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 barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Buckland_Zoo|title=The Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Williams_Captain|title=Captain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=4|genre=Biography|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1445666723</amazonuk>In 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 Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.