Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela ThirlwellMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves Reminiscences of Ford Madox Brown Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5

|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born in 1821 in Calais Biographies are often seen as the form of a Scottish familylife-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, raised in France and Belgium before settling in Englandoffers a vibrant, was one subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the foremost Victorian artists. Throughout first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelitesfriend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, and shared many but of their same idealswhat you yourself imagine it to be. Whom 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?''. Well, style and subject matterMaxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, though giving us access to how he never officially became a member saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of the groupit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>1804271977

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris SkidmoreIan Penman|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart Erik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=43.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked Ambition|rating=4

|summary=Until I read this bookThis unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figureexperimental and creative. I was familiar with It is divided into three sections: the picture of first, an essay, the loinclothsecond, an A-clad man who fell victim to an assassinZ encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's bullet shortly after Indian independencethoughts surrounding Satie, but knew little morehis muse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>1804271535

 {{newreview|author=Sue Shephard|title=The Surprising Life of Constance Spry|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention of the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps it was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made a celebrity of her, as it did of the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name but two. Even so, she enjoyed a remarkably successful career, and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) 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 of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josephine WilkinsonJacqueline Feldman|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynPrecarious Lease

|summary=In terms The title of British chart statistics this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and record salesprocesses, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potentialbut few scant property rights. When measured against the achievements Among mentions of contemporary ballad singers other squats dotted around Paris like Tom Jones Le Carrosse and Engelbert HumperdinckLa Miroiterie, he fell some way shortFeldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Yet the former Terry Parsons was Something like a regular fixture haven for artists and marginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and margins of the margins of the Philippinesmargins''), he Le Bloc was undoubtedly one subject to the continual threat of Britain's most successful exports ever, eviction and at one point he was the biggest selling artist pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra2012 until its eventual dissolution, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened toframed as a tragedy in this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>1804271403

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Moorehead Jacqueline Rose|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionWomen in Dark Times

|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall ''The world of the monarchy and unconscious is not the Napoleonic warsantagonist of political life, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first handbut its steadfast companion, 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>}}hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''

{{newreview|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped|rating=4|genre=History|summary=They say truth Women in Dark Times is sometimes stranger than fictionJacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries. Her historical and it political backdrop is not unusual for novels to be based partly on fact. So , thus, expansive, yet she navigates it was in the case of Robert Louis Stevensonwith intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's ''Kidnapped''lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, Sir Walter Scottand not its failures: 's ''Guy Manneringthe ongoing force of feminism'', and at least three others, all of which can point to the saga of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteClaire Dederer|title=William and MaryMonsters: Heroes of the Glorious RevolutionWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=At school I remember spending Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a lot ''biography of time on the Tudors and audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites old aphorism of separating the art from the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through artist in the intervening years until we reached another context of contemporary ''meaningfulcancel culture'' period – the Victorian era. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of reader gets the fact impression that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and Mary had never wanted to marry him in onto the first placepage. Their successorIn particular, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Bakewell|title=How to Livethe prologue packs a punch: A Life of Montaigne in One Question she simultaneously condemns and Twenty Attempts at an Answer |rating=5|genre=Biography|summary='Chance … really exalts the way things happendirector Roman Polanski,' wrote Howard Beckan artist she personally admires for his art, the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about the next book and yet despises for reviewhis actions. IThis model of 'll allow myself to fall 'monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for a quirky title or appealing coverthe first few chapters, despite only a smattering interrogating the likes of interest in the subject matterWoody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Just occasionally this wayHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, I stumble on a golden nugget as she holds it so fascinating dearly, and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewerpersonal, rather than collective voice. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Baldwin1788360702|title=Charles, The Kingmaker's SistersAlternative Prince: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=Due to the small amount For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of surviving personal sourcesalternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince'life s opinions, beliefs and times' than a lifeaims against the background of the scientific evidence. In There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the case reputation of women a man who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselvesis proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, the lack of data will be even more acutelogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1739805100|title=The Private Lives Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of the Impressionistswar|author=Andrew March

|summary=In ''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 1860s a group days of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art worldNazi regime in the 1930s. Their protests at being spurned by the SalonFred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, the French equivalent had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the Royal Academy, resulted growing hostilities between nations unfolding in their paintings being shown Europe at the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds and critics came to view - and jeertime. When they held the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they Fred'seem s attempts to have declared war on beautyseparate individual people from ideology weren', while another assured his readers t universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paint, smeared it onto yards of canvas, and signed the result with several different nameslasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will BirchBrooker|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5

|summary=Ian Dury was always Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most individualsuccessful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, even contrary characters in one of the musical worldthousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks This book starts with the two meeting each other, as a short cut to stardomwell, he was no oil paintingand shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. During the pub rock eraThe meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, he and his groupof her anecdote about cup cakes, the Blockheadswords of her latest book she was reciting, ploughed and her being in a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz''black lace mini-funk than rockdress with gold brocade'n'roll(certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and his songs extolled down the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or Californiarabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom Brooker decides he competed for inches 'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the rock presspublished author's life, working to make a success of the latest title, he was comparatively middle-agedand struggling with the next in line. As if that was not enoughJewell, due diligence appropriately done, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark SimpsonMartha Leigh|title=Alastair SimInvisible Ink: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when 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 more gentle humour was Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the order complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Yet Neither parent is hugely interested in the man hated and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about himpracticalities of life. How he would have fared twenty years later There is love in the age of house but also darker undercurrents that a more intrusive press, one cannot child does not fully understand but wonderknows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert CrawfordPolly Barton|title=The Bard: Robert Burns - a biographyFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own BardWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils if the equivalent role in Scottish iconography more than adequatelyworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. Yet as I may get there later this very thorough biography demonstratesyear, there is much more but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the man than question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the wordsmith of question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Wee– which she describes as being, sleekitamong other things, cowrinthe sound of ', tim'rous beastieevery party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda PorterFrederic Gros|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life A Philosophy of Katherine ParrWalking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Katherine Parr was I confess I picked this one up from the last and arguably the most fortunate library in my pre-lockdown forage of King Henry VIII's six wivesrandom stuff. Apart from Anne of Cleves, Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare', she was the only one pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to survive him. Some books draw you in slowly. And while all six of This one had me in the queens consort remain rather shadowy figuresfirst two pages, this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David ClaytonSharon Blackie|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on the UK Gold TV channels, and from occasional mentions in the context of 'I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how great he would many pages have been if only…' corners turned down. In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the 80s who would blossom into one of the great all-round stage actorsI've borrowed. One year later, he was deadI want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste0241446732|title=SonsOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Servants Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeSvante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Like The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step parenting of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexploredtheir two daughters. Of course the most famous man in Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her lifesister, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonBeata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, servant or statesmanit' as promised by the title of the books natural to seek a solution close to home, but he established eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a trendburned-out planet''. Victoria, often regarded as If they were to find a difficult woman way to please, live happily again their solution would always have a man in her life who would, need to a greater or lesser extent, dominate herbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maureen Emerson0648684806|title=Escape to Provence|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=In the 1920s two women, one American, one British, settled in the south of France, both for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood and the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancé, a nephew of the American President. Drawn to Paris, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as a nurse during the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone house, the Castello, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 with a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historian. After the fall of the pound, it was hard for them to make ends meet in England, and they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=Sushila Anand |title=Daisy: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickJohn Holliday

|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

|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

|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

|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

|summary=So many biographies have been Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written about by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the life world and times of Englandthe situations that refugees find themselves in. It's longest-lived rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there this is anything new left a rare opportunity to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by telling Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the story middle of her life through the women closest a revolution in Iran, fleeing to herAmerica as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Lever0857058320|title=Me CheetaLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|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

|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

|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

|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

|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>

{{newreview|author=Jacqueline Walker|title=Pilgrim State|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I was intrigued Move on to [[Newest Business and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir of her childhood in Jamaica and London in the 1960's. This is a book inevitably compared with Andrea Levy's ''Small Island''. It follows similar ground, but the main difference and great strength, is that it's the real narrative of mother and daughter. As a girl I was familiar with areas of London where Jackie Walker lived and heard some members of my family denigrate Caribbean immigrants. From this memoir, I've garnered much about the lived experience of my less advantaged contemporaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]