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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland HuntfordMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries Reminiscences of Scott Tolstoy, Chekhov and AmundsenAndreyev|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In 1910 two European ships set out for the Antarctic. first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership you write not of Captain Robert Scottreal life as it is, while but of what 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?'Fram' sailed with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The basic facts Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be briefly summarized. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned home to gained from a hero's welcomesubjective account, while Scott reached the same destination 35 days latergiving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, only to perish with his men on the return journey. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they had diedChekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>1804271977
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles MargerisonIan Penman|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational StoriesErik Satie Three Piece Suite
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The cover of this book tells the reader that these short ''bioviews'' or biographies can be read in 10 mins or so. This is one of a series within ''The Amazing People Club'' courtesy of the ''Amazing People Team''. There is a rather fulsome ''Authorunconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's Note'' followed by a one-page introduction. I was immediately struck by the fact that, given the various feats of these womenadmittedly effusive personality: whimsical, I was anxious to read about them - experimental and not about Dr Margerisoncreative. Less It is more. He goes on to say (by now I'm getting a bit tired of divided into three sections: the smiling Margerison) that 'The stories are inspirational and can help you achieve your ambitions in your own journey through life.' All of this and especially that last sentence sits rather uneasily with me, I'm afraid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921629940</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Selina Hastings|title=The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=These daysfirst, W. Somerset Maugham seems to be something of an anachronism. In his heydayessay, for much of a career which lasted from the end of the Victorian era to the 1950ssecond, he was one of the most successful an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and widely read of all British writers, with his novels, short stories and plays spawning more film adaptations than any other author. Yet over the last thirty years or so he seems to have slipped from favour, as if his preoccupation with the Edwardian England in which he grew up and his end-of-empire settings are deeply embedded in an age we would rather forget. Moreover, as this very comprehensive biography demonstrates, he was not the most pleasant of individuals. The unhappy child, orphaned by the time he was ten, afflicted with a lifelong stammer and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affectionthird, grew up to lead a long and unhappy life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew McConnell Stott|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest Comedian|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=This book has won several prestigious awards, so my expectations were raised before ISatie Diary'd even opened the book. And of all the plaudits given on the back cover, my favourite was Simon Callows' '(A) great big Christmas pudding of a book ...' Stott has researched his subject thoroughly. First up, theredocumenting Ian Penman's a Grimaldi family treethoughts surrounding Satie, a Prologue, an Introduction and all this before you get to the story proper, so to speakhis muse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>1804271535
}}
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=What would you do ifThe title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, without warningaffording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, your brilliantbut few scant property rights. Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, lovingFeldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, superman partner died from admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age haven for artists and marginal members of 43society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, leaving you with two young boys and a third ''I live on the way? Most margins of us would probably reach for the Valium and book a very long course margins of counseling. But Natascha McElhone couldnthe margins''t because she ), Le Bloc was already stretchedsubject to the continual threat of eviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, juggling a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young family. Coping framed as a single parent left no spare time for self-indulgence; within months she had a new baby as well. So she found her own way, grabbing instead at odd moments to write tragedy in her well-established diary. These short entries … e-mails, almost … to her dead husband form the basis of 'After You'this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>1804271403
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter FirstbrookJacqueline Rose|title=The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The book jacket states that this is 'the untold story of an African family' and with a presidential photograph of Barack Obama, the book is certainly eye-catching. Along with, I'm sure, millions of others, I've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' and was charmed and blown away Women in almost equal measure, so I was keen to get started on this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stefan Klein|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Grove|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be the envy of many a young bookworm. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, the children’s division of Penguin. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt MacAllester|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenDark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Matt MacAllester ''The world of the unconscious is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, used to covering not the horrors antagonist of war, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the political life and death of his mother Anne. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusual, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter of a century, trapped in her own private world of madness. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhoodits steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where wonderful food was always at the centre of family life and with the help of Elizabeth David, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cooked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>}}any true revolution must begin…''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donald SpotoClaire Dederer|title=High SocietyMonsters: Grace Kelly and HollywoodWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
|rating=3
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In his defenceDederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, we must acknowledge Spotoexploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's subtitlework is original and expressive. It underlines The reader gets the impression that this does not in any way shape or form claim to be the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a biography punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace likes of MonacoWoody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. It Her critical voice is an analysis of acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her film career: own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a consideration of the "Hollywood years"personal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>1399715070
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Maloney1788360702|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I was a bit of a patriot, even when it wasn't as fashionable as it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting the chance to personally slay the dragon in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racistCharles, it's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Douglas Rogers|title=The Last Resort|rating=5|genre=Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom the country many years ago, but has never been able to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – to follow him out oftheir homeland, despite the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, and the corruption in the country. Instead, thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Kidder|title=Strength in What RemainsEdzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. 'Strength in What Remains' is Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the inspirational account of DeogratiasPrince's opinions, a man who has fled from beliefs and aims against the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south background of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda)scientific evidence. He escapes to New York, out There are few instances of fear his beliefs being vindicated and want his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a safer life; only man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his new found American life isn't quite what it promisedambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay1739805100|title=Trautmann's JourneyLoving the Enemy: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary='You have 'Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to learn Dresden to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at teach in the early days of the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies regime in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at Fred, a FA Cup final with a broken necksensitive and thoughtful man, such is had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the lifetime of difference growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the two referencestime. But Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela ThirlwellWill Brooker|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Ford Madox BrownMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], born in 1821 in Calais one of a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in Englandthe most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, was one of the foremost Victorian artiststhousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. Throughout his career he was closely associated This book starts with the Pre-Raphaelitestwo meeting each other, as well, and shared many shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of their same idealsher latest book she was reciting, style and subject matterher being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (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, though down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he never officially became 'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a member success of the grouplatest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>1529136024
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris SkidmoreMartha Leigh|title=Death and the VirginInvisible Ink: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart A Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in November 1558a slightly eccentric, everyone's dominant concern was immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the matter complete correspondence of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the successionphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for her coronation festivitieshours every day. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell Neither parent is hugely interested in the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying practicalities of breast cancerlife. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>1800460384
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|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|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 Where do I start? I could have made a celebrity of herstart with where Barton herself starts, as it did of with the likes of Fanny Cradock question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and Nigella Lawsonif the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, to name but twoI am not hopeful. Even soAnd like Barton, I don't know the answer to 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 enjoyed a remarkably successful careerdescribes as being, among other things, and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personalitysound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rob ChapmanFrederic Gros|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired I confess I picked this one up from the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born library in Cambridge in 1946my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. The fourth of five children, he was Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the only one pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. Some books draw you in slowly. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of This one had me in the local Philharmonic Societyfirst two pages, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painterwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Stonor SaundersSharon Blackie|title=The Woman Who Shot MussoliniIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Most British titled families 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 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebelsone I've borrowed. Yet few came as close I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing ' – although it is definitely the course of European history as first two and only time will tell about the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, third – but clichés exist for a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer reason and MP in DisraeliI's government during the 1870sm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Josephine Wilkinson0241446732|title=The Early Loves Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Anne Boleyna Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=3.5|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and possibly saved her from her eventual end Svante Thunberg took on most of the scaffoldparenting of their two daughters. The first was Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her Irish cousin James Butlersister, Beata, later Earl of Ormondthen nine years old, whom she struggled with what was at one time intended to marry in order happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to settle seek a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came solution close to an end in the face of legal obstacleshome, but eventually, she it became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir clear to the Duke of Northumberlandfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. With If they were to find a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should way to live happily again their solution would need to be dismissed forthwithradical. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michele Monro0648684806|title=Matt MonroClara Colby: The Singer's SingerInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In terms The path of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potentialClara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. When measured against At the achievements time she was just three-years-old but because of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way shortthree brothers. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on the light entertainment circuit, her and overseassaw that she received a good education, particularly both in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one out of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he school. She was the biggest selling artist only child in Spainthe household and her childhood was glorious. His idol Frank SinatraBy contrast, to whom he her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was often comparedhard, often said that Matt as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only British singer he ever really listened toknow 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 1789017977|title=Dancing to the Precipice Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Two hundred years ago, with Ronnie Williams was the fall son of the monarchy Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherEthel 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 who witnessed years older than Ethel and experienced the volatile he might well have shaved a few years off his age at first hand. For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but few left disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a more detailed record than 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 subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A.Roger Ekirch Patti Smith|title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=At school I remember spending a lot On the coast of time on Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites lunar year of the history teacher monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, 'meaningful'Anything is possible: after all, it' period – s the Victorian erayear of the monkey''. The importance As Smith wanders the coast of William and Mary was completely overlooked Santa Cruz in favour of solitude, she reflects on a quick mention of the fact year that William wasn't brings huge shifts in direct line of succession to the throne her life - loss and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successorageing are faced head-on, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bakewell1912242052|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about first person to walk the next book for review. I'll allow myself mountains alone, not because he had to fall for work, as a quirky title miner, quarryman, shepherd or appealing coverpack-horse driver, despite only a smattering of interest in the subject matterbut because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. Just occasionally this wayHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewerits literary consequences, changed our view of the world''. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David BaldwinGraff_Find|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Due to the small amount When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of surviving personal sourceshandwritten notes from his journal, any book which purports to be a biography he didn't take much notice of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a lifeit. In At the case age of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves24, Graff didn't realise the lack gravity of data will be even more acutethe pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1789016304|title=The Private Lives War and Love: A family's testament of the Impressionistsanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen Melanie Martin read about what happened to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by the Salonwhat she discovered, the French equivalent 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 Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at city during the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refuséswar years, where crowds but only five thousand survived and critics came Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to view - and jeerhappen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. When they held Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said city were convinced that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty'would soon be pushed back, while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in paint, smeared the way that it onto yards of canvasdid, and signed but initial protests melted away as the result with several different namesorganisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Birch1786893452|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Ian Dury was always one of Here in the most individualWest, even contrary characters in the musical world. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied we see news reports about immigrants on good looks as a short cut to stardomregular basis – some media welcoming them, he was no oil paintingsome scaremongering about them. During the pub rock eraBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, he and his groupalmost always, no matter how deep the Blockheadsinvestigative journalism they carry out, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more outsiders to jazz-funk than rockthe world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It'n'roll, and his songs extolled s rare that we find out the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those journeys from Memphis or California. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in the rock pressthis intelligent, he powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was comparatively born in the middle-aged. As if that was not enoughof a revolution in Iran, in his own words childhood illness had left him fleeing to America as a permanent 'raspberry ripple'ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson0857058320|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and the Belles of St Trinian'sAnne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during ''Lord Of All the 1950s when Dead'' is a more gentle humour was journey to uncover the order of the dayauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. Yet Cercas is searching for the man hated and did meaning behind his best to avoid publicitygreat uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, claiming that is the person figure who looms large over the public saw book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about himwhy his uncle fought for this dictator. How he would have fared twenty years later in The question at the age centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonderhero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford1788037812|title=The BardFraternity of the Estranged: Robert Burns The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891- a biography1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own BardOriginally passed in 1885, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils the equivalent role law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in Scottish iconography more than adequatelyplace for 82 years. Yet as But during this very thorough biography demonstratestime, there is much more to restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the man than nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the wordsmith heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of 'Auld Lang Syne' society and 'Weestudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, sleekitbut barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, cowrin'and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, tim'rous beastie'leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda PorterBuckland_Zoo|title=Katherine The Man Who Ate the QueenZoo: The Remarkable Life Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Katherine Parrnatural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Katherine Parr As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was the last and arguably the most fortunate very much a man ahead of King Henry VIII's six wiveshis time. Apart from Anne of ClevesSurgeon, the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'naturalist, she was the only one to survive veterinarian and eccentric sums him. And while all six of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figuresup perfectly, this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David ClaytonWilliams_Captain|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from repeats on the UK Gold TV channelsPlymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and from occasional mentions in young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the context age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards'how great he would death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s convicts who would blossom into one of worked the great all-round stage actorsland. One year Two years later, he was deadshe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KistePeacock_mountain|title=SonsInto The Mountain, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's A Lifeof Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Like Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoriaapproach, but John Van der Kiste has taken I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other wise people I have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her lifemy favourite genres, and favoured authors, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonwhile, servant or statesman' as promised by like most other people I read the title of the bookreviews and follow up on what appeals, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always I also have a man in her life who would, third-string to a greater or lesser extent, dominate hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>
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