134,836
edits
Changes
Newest Biography Reviews (view source)
Revision as of 09:26, 22 September 2025
, 09:26, 22 September 2025no edit summary
[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (let's make him Syd from now ontranslator) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five children, he was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children Reminiscences of Baron AshbourneTolstoy, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer Chekhov and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Josephine Wilkinson|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynAndreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In terms Biographies are often seen as the form of British chart statistics 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 record salesoffers a vibrant, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled subjective yet informed portrait of three of his full potentialliterary contemporaries. When measured against In the achievements first section of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinckthis book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, he fell some way shortbut of what you yourself imagine it to be. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuitWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, and overseasthat sea, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britainor that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''s most successful exports ever. Well, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank SinatraMaxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to whom how he was often comparedsaw Tolstoy, often said Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened toone almost feels unworthy of it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>1804271977
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Moorehead Ian Penman|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionErik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped|rating=4|genre=History|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on fact. So it was in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Mannering'', and at least three others, all of which can point to the saga of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time on the Tudors This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. It is divided into three sections: the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of first, an essay, the history teacher second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another third, a 'Satie Diary'meaningful'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn, documenting Ian Penman't in direct line of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successors thoughts surrounding Satie, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'his muse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>1804271535
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BakewellJacqueline Feldman|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Precarious Lease|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''Chance … really the way things happenbail précaire'') associated with squatters in France,' wrote Howard Beckaffording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, the Chicago School sociologistbut few scant property rights. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about the next book 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 reviewits 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, ''Ilive on the margins of the margins of the margins'll allow myself '), Le Bloc was subject to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering the continual threat of interest in eviction and the subject matterpressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. Just occasionally this wayWe follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, I stumble on framed as a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewertragedy in this book. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>1804271403
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David BaldwinJacqueline Rose|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesDark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Due to ''The world of the small amount of surviving personal sources, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject unconscious is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a life. In not the case antagonist of women who were sisters political life, but not sovereigns or consorts themselvesits steadfast companion, the lack of data will be even more acute.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will BirchClaire Dederer|title=Ian DuryMonsters: The Definitive BiographyWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Ian Dury was always one Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the most individualaudience'' in a deconstructed, even contrary characters thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the musical worldcontext of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardomparticular, he was no oil painting. During the pub rock era, he prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and his group, exalts the Blockheadsdirector Roman Polanski, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'n'rollan artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his songs extolled the virtues actions. This model of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or California. Alongside ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in first few chapters, interrogating the rock presslikes of Woody Allen, he was comparatively middle-agedMichael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. As if that was not enoughHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, in his never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own words childhood illness had left him subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a permanent 'raspberry ripple'personal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>1399715070
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson1788360702|title=Alastair SimCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the 1950s when a more gentle humour was Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the order background of the dayscientific evidence. Yet the man hated There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to know about him. How he would have fared twenty years later in the age reputation of a more intrusive pressman who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, one cannot but wonderlogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford1739805100|title=The BardLoving the Enemy: Robert Burns - Building bridges in a biographytime of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=If Shakespeare is England''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's own Bardgrandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils early days of the equivalent role Nazi regime in Scottish iconography more than adequatelythe 1930s. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesFred, there is much more to a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the man than growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the wordsmith of time. Fred'Auld Lang Synes attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren' t universally successful but he did make friendships and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda PorterWill Brooker|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Katherine Parr was the last and arguably Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most fortunate of King Henry VIIIsuccessful British authors I's six wivesve never knowingly read. Apart from Anne Now meet Will Brooker, one of Clevesthe thousands of 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 speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the only one author events I get to survive himattend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. And while all six Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figureslatest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this biography gives is the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>1529136024
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David ClaytonMartha Leigh|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats 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 UK Gold TV channels, and from occasional mentions in the context complete correspondence of 'how great he would have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30philosopher Jean-year-old sitcom favourite as Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a rising major star of concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the 80s who would blossom into one practicalities of life. There is love in the great all-round stage actors. One year later, he was deadhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>1800460384
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KistePolly Barton|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Like Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have been written about Queen Victoriavisited by now. I may get there later this year, but John Van der Kiste has taken I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the unusual step question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of using the men question in her life to illuminate some dark corners the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which might she describes as being, among other wise things, the sound of ''every party where you have remained unexploredto 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. Of course Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the most famous man pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in her lifeslowly. This one had me in the first two pages, husband and Prince Consort Albert isnwherein Gros explains why ''t walking is not a sport'son, servant or statesman' as promised .|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 the title 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 book, but he established a trendone I've borrowed. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman I want to please, would always have a man in her avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life who would, to -changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a greater or lesser extent, dominate herreason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>1912836017
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maureen Emerson0241446732|title=Escape to ProvenceOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the 1920s parenting of their two women, one American, one British, settled in the south of France, both for different reasonsdaughters. Elisabeth Starr had left Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood and the deathsister, possibly suicideBeata, of her fiancéthen nine years old, a nephew of the American Presidentstruggled with what was happening. Drawn to ParisIn such circumstances, it'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as s natural to seek a nurse during the Great War, then moved solution close to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone house, the Castellobut eventually, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was it became clear to the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 with family that they were ''burned-out people on a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historianburned-out planet''. After the fall of the pound, it was hard for them to make ends meet in England, and If they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rateway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sushila Anand 0648684806|title=DaisyClara Colby: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861, the Countess The path of Warwick lived a colourful Clara Dorothy Bewick's life by any standardswas probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. She At the time she was notoriously promiscuousjust 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, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try doted on her and provoke saw that she received a royal scandal to shore up good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her parlous financeschildhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and although life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she relished and her lifestyle grandparents eventually went to join the full, family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she spent several was married for fifteen years fighting wholeheartedly for , had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the pioneer socialists in Britaineldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Lewis1789017977|title=The Blind SideRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=SportHistory|summary=I think my husband Ronnie Williams was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Footballson of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. I suppose I should admit that I didnThere't actually know it 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 going to be about American Footballalready many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Well, I knew it was about For a boy who ''played'' American Footballwhile, but I'd thought that the family was just going quite well-to be the background story, you know, like -do but disaster struck in ''Jerry Maguire''. So the first chapter seemed 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to go on and on forever, and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled adjust to the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oher, a young African-American very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from the slums of Memphis whose his father was never around, his need to be well-turned-out and whose mother was a drug addict and lost this would stay with him to social services throughout his life. He joined the army at a young ageeighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Billy HopkinsPatti Smith|title=Tommy's WorldYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=I came to this biography having read three On the coast of HardySanta Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's novelswords, two quite recently''Anything is possible: after all, and some it's the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of his poetrySanta Cruz in solitude, but knowing very little about him as she reflects on a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably to year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the shifting political waters in these pagesAmerica.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>1526614758
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts1912242052|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined first person to become walk the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married mountains alone, not because he had to her uncle Infante Pedrofor work, seventeen years her senioras a miner, she had six children (outliving all but one of them)quarryman, and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious womanshepherd or pack-horse driver, she had the misfortune but because he wanted to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church for pleasure and state were vying for supremacyadventure. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, His rapturous encounters with a humanitarian approach to state affairstheir natural beauty, she was no Queen Elizabethand its literary consequences, no Catherine changed our view of the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantlyworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCannGraff_Find|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=When I was in my early teensBen Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one of At the most recognizable characters age of all with his gap-toothed grin24, cigarette holder and inimitable Graff didn'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best t realise the gravity of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>pages he was holding.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Tillyard 1789016304|title=War and Love: A Royal Affair: George III family's testament of anguish, endurance and His Troublesome Siblingsdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=King George III Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was not the luckiest entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of English sovereigns. America, and Ann Frank'' but then his sons, in realised that order, gave him no end of grief, her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the last few city during the war years of his life , 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 clouded by madnessresistant to German occupation. It is thus often overlooked Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced thatthey would soon be pushed back, before these troubles arose that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to haunt this most conscientious monarchescalate in the way that it did, he also had but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a thankless task in trying to control his siblingsvast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman 1786893452|title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=So many biographies have been written Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about the life and times them. But all of England's longest-lived those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through world and the women closest to hersituations that refugees find themselves in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Lever|title=Me Cheeta|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Straight It's rare that we find out of the golden age of Hollywood comes journeys from the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its stars. There are scores refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to be settleddo that, stars to be insulted, secrets to be hinted at none too subtley, and lost opportunities to be longed for. Ohin this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the star telling all? Wellmiddle of a revolution in Iran, for those of you who can't tell from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta fleeing to America as a ten-year- chimpanzee star of the Tarzan filmsold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philippe Auclair 0857058320|title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be KingLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Even today, London ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a remarkable compromise of journey to uncover the old author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the newSpanish Civil War. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volumeManuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changedbook. There have been a handful of books in the past on 'HolmesHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's London', but forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this is dictator. The question at the first centre of its kind this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to place equal emphasis on places associated with be a hero whilst having fought for the detective and his creatorwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1788037812|title=Bobbles & PlumThe Fraternity of the Estranged: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson and PG WodehouseThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=POriginally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years.GBut during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Wodehouse needs little if any introductionBetween 1891 and 1908, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life and career three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were cut short written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and he is little known outside his connections with Sir Arthur Conan DoyleJohn Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. This set Exploring the margins of satirical playlets society and studying homosexuality was common on which they collaboratedthe European Continent, published but barely talked about in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sincethe UK, are presented in book form for so the first time. As such they show how the careers publications of both these men were evolvinghugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, particularly while Wodehouse was finding his feet and experimenting with beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the different facets milestone legalisation of journalism before finding his niche same-sex relationships in comic fiction1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham Buckland_Zoo|title=People of The Man Who Ate the Day 4Zoo: The Rich and Famous CaricaturedFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Have you ever been asked to buy As a book conservationist in aid Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of a charity his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and wished that you'd given a donation and not taken the book? Welleccentric sums him up perfectly, if you have I'm hoping to persuade you that there are exceptions to every rule and this book in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust any biographer is definitely worth the cover priceimmediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Nicholas Williams_Captain|title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K JeromeCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: A 150th Anniversary CelebrationHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although he was a prolific novelist, short story writer, dramatist and journalist, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first and foremost as the author In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of ''Three Men in a Boat''. This fascinating anthology, published on the 150th anniversary 17th Regiment of his birth, reminds us that there was far more to the man than that one admittedly enduring bookFoot.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he He was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time command of paternal disapproval, the troops and convicts on board a kind of Oedipal reaction ship sailing from Plymouth to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can DianaSydney, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Trevor Hamilton |title=Immortal LongingsAustralia: F.W.H. Myers and the Victorian Search for Life After Death|rating=4|genre=Biography |summary=Born in 1843, Frederic Myers began his career as a classical lecturer at Cambridge University, but disliked teaching wife and soon gave it up in favour of writing poetry and essays in literatureyoung son accompanied him. Although his social circle included men such as Gladstone, Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning and Prince Leopold, the most intellectual of Queen Victoria's sons, his books (which are He was not so well remembered today) might have been his sole claim destined to fame, had it not been for his passionate curiosity about the meaning of human live a long life. If it had a purpose, he was convinced, it could only be discovered through dying suddenly at the study age of human experiences.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401239</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) |title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher Robinson|rating=5|genre=Biography |summary=Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking 34 at the pages takes you into another world. Such is the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of ''Private Eye''. SubtitledBangalore, ''A Weekly'' ''Show of Political, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Like the more successful, longer-lasting Edwards''Punch'', it began with radical aspirations, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of the elite social classes''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed death left his widow in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Piers Dudgeon|title=Captivateda difficult position: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography |summary=According not only did she have their farm to D.H. Lawrencemanage, J.M. Barrie ''has a fatal touch but she was also responsible for those he loves. They die.'' Barrie had an extraordinary fascination with a childlike world of innocence and young boys the convicts who never grew upworked the land. Had it merely stopped at creating Peter Pan, all well and good. Unfortunately this obsession manifested itself in an unhealthy involvement with others, notably the du Maurier familyTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520451</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma CharlesPeacock_mountain|title=How Could He Do It?Into The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyBiography|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge of thinking that she Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mum, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit and a couple of guinea pigs. Sprinkle in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for so many books… I can understand the girlsapproach, a nice car in the drive of the nice housebut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, good clothes and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with we sell the way that life was goingmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Then her fifteen year old daughterSo while, Tamsinlike most other people I have my favourite genres, gave her a noteand favoured authors, couched in graphic termsand while, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for like most other people I read the past five years.In moments the family's life fell apart. Gone were all the certainties, the hopes reviews and the expectations. In came the policefollow up on what appeals, Social Services and Child Protection OfficersI also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>
}}