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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography== __NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie SimmonsMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=I'm Your Man: The Life Reminiscences of Leonard CohenTolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=If you or I wanted to write a story about an imaginary figure who began Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as a novelist more objective and poet, then became acclaimed as a singer-songwriter in the swinging sixtiesless personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, made and lost offers a fortunevibrant, became a monksubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, and returned Tolstoy complains to a musical career at an age when most mortals are well into retirement, and found himself his friend Gorky that: ''you write not only more popular than ever but also playing to the largest audiences in his entire of real lifeas it is, but of what you yourself imagine it would to be dismissed as total fantasy. Nobody could make Whom would it up – and nobody needs help toknow how I see this tower, because in a nutshell that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is the life (so far) of Leonard Cohenit?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, the subject of this biography Chekhov and surely Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of the music business’s most unique figuresit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099549328</amazonuk>1804271977
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J C KannemeyerIan Penman|title=J.M. Coetzee: A life in writingErik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=J.MThis unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. (John Maxwell) Coetzee It is described as probably divided into three sections: the most celebrated and decorated writer throughout first, an essay, the Englishsecond, an A-speaking world. The author of sixteen published novels, he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature Z encyclopedia on Satie and the Booker Prize twice. At the same time he has guarded his privacy jealouslythird, a 'Satie Diary', tending to decline interviews and requests to discuss his workdocumenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, and refusing to collect prestigious awards in person. On one occasion he explained his absence by saying that he could not imagine 'anything better calculated to reduce me to misery'. One acquaintance claims to have attended several dinner parties at which the author was a fellow guest and did not utter a single wordmuse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922070084</amazonuk>1804271535
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vladimir AlexandrovJacqueline Feldman|title=The Black RussianPrecarious Lease|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Until I read The title of this book I had never come across the story novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, but few scant property rights. Among mentions of Frederick Bruce Thomasother squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, 'the Black Russian'Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, beforeadmirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. It is Something like a remarkable tale haven for artists and marginal members of rags to richessociety (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, tragedy''I live on the margins of the margins of the margins''), success against Le Bloc was subject to the odds continual threat of eviction and subsequent failurethe pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as a tragedy in this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781855196</amazonuk>1804271403
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jacqueline Rose
|title=Women in Dark Times
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SouhamiClaire Dederer|title=The Trials of Radclyffe HallMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=43|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It is Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a coincidence that ''biography of the year 1928 saw audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the first appearance old aphorism of two English novels which were denounced and initially suppressed on separating the art from the artist in the grounds context of obscenity and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – D.H. Lawrence’s contemporary 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hallcancel culture's 'The Well of Loneliness'. LawrenceDederer's many novels, stories work is original and poems are widely read today, but Hall expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her works are hardly remembered except by a minoritybrilliant mind and onto the page. Diana Souhami has done her In particular, the prologue packs a service in this generous punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet deeply probing life despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a literary trailblazerpersonal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>1399715070
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Souhami1788360702|title=Greta and CecilCharles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The story For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden alternative medicine and the noted British photographer is a curious onecomplementary therapies. Neither ever married''Charles, both were androgynous and bisexual, plucked their eyebrowsThe Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and had numerous short-term relationshipsaims against the background of the scientific evidence. They were like chalk There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to pick up the reputation of a pen even to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures man who is proud of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred his refusal to wear unfussy men’s clothesapply evidence-based, and was reluctant logical reasoning to be photographed at all if she could help it. It is significant that the one picture of them together in the book, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like a handbaghis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Souhami1739805100|title=Natalie and RomaineLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=34.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The main focus of ''Loving the book is Enemy'' tells the relationship between Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooksquite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, two very well-off American lesbians who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in Paris when the former was 39 and early days of the latter 41. It was Nazi regime in the beginning of an often mercurial partnership which lasted for fifty years1930s. HoweverFred, despite the author’s insistencea sensitive and thoughtful man, it is less a double biography than a survey had some vague ideas of the Sapphic society life "building bridges" which centred on Paris for much of this period. Barney, a poet, was a flamboyant character who used to say that 'living was may guard against the first of all growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the artstime. Fred' and often vowed s attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make 'my life itself into a poem'. Brooks, a painter whose self-portrait adorns the front cover, was the product of a difficult childhood, abused by her mother who far preferred her mentally unbalanced brother, often proclaimed sadly friendships and connections that 'my dead mother stands between me and life'. An aloof soul, she made a brief marriage with the homosexual John Ellingham Brooks but left him within lasted for a yearlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas WrightWill Brooker|title=Circulation: William Harvey's Revolutionary IdeaThe Truth About Lisa Jewell
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I'Circulation' by Thomas Wright is a biography of English physician William Harvey’s lifeve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, and the story one of the 'birth thousands of a theory'less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. It takes This book starts with the reader through time beforetwo meeting each other, as well, during and after shows how 2021 drew the creation two closer and completion 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 ''De Motu Cordisblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade''(certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, in which Harvey famously outlines the most comprehensive antecedent a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the mechanism of blood circulation as we know it todayrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. The combination of Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the writerpublished author's aptitude for storytelling life, working to make a success of the latest title, and struggling with the intriguing life of next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the individual result.|isbn=1529136024}}{{Frontpage|author= Martha Leigh|title= Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about whom he writes makes for a fascinating readchildhood spent in a slightly eccentric, allowing one to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life and worksimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, mixed with briefer essays forever clacking away on subject matters ranging from his typewriter as he edits the history complete correspondence of vivisection to the philosophical underpinnings philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of Harvey’s worklife. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552698</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon MorrisonPolly Barton|title=The Love and Wars of Lina ProkofievFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This book is 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 biography of while and based largely on if the letters of Lina Prokofievworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid in 1897And like Barton, she spent most of I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her childhood feelings in New York. After making her stage debut as a soprano respect of the question in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ under the name of Lina Lluberafirst essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she met describes as being, among other things, the Soviet composer sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Gros|title=A Philosophy of Walking|rating=5|genre= Politics and pianist Serge Prokofiev, best remembered for Society|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the children’s musical fable ‘Peter pages I have marked and the Wolf’return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. They married This one had me in 1924 and for the first thirteen years of their marriage they lived in Paris, where two sonspages, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were born wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|isbn=1781688370}}{{Frontpage|author=Sharon Blackie|title=If Women Rose Rooted|rating=5|genre= Biography|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to themme by how many pages have corners turned down. Soon after moving Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to Moscow in 1936 their marriage fell apartbuy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. In 1941 he left her I 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 writer, Mira Mendelson, 24 years his junior, whom he married six years laterreason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846557313</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev0241446732|title=GiantsOur House is on Fire: The Dwarfs Scenes of Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput Troupea Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The title of this book does of course carry a sense of irony, although we never quite know exactly how muchErnman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. When a man of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania in the 1860s nobody Malena Ernman was to know what would happen to his lineage – there was no clue then that he would father ten children, an opera singer and seven Svante Thunberg took on most of them would inherit his genetic dwarfism. But history has pieced together all that followed, including the careers those children had as a performance troupe, belting out showtunes to parenting of their own accompaniment, and acting in their own tragitwo daughters. Then eleven-year-comic skits. And then having the limelight stolen from them by the Nazis, old Greta stopped eating and a transportation to Auschwitz. And then being surprisingly saved, talking and given what passed as a cushty lifeher sister, fed and togetherBeata, but tortured at the hands of the camp doctorthen nine years old, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues on struggled with what singled out his Aryan racewas happening. In such circumstances, it's genetic destiny. I say the amount of irony is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – natural to seek a solution close to home, but heeventually, it became clear to the doctor, would have known. As one of the more ominous sentences youfamily that they were ''ll read all year has it – burned-out people on a burned-out planet'Mengele had plans for them'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd0648684806|title=Wilkie CollinsClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books over The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the last few time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, he has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as wellshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. This life Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the Victorian novelist is one only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the latterUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the latest in his series of 'Brief Lives'family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, which have also included Chaucerhad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the painter Turner eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]]Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Raymond1789017977|title=3-Minute JRR TolkienRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Visual Biography of The Towards a New Life after World's Most Revered Fantasy WriterWar II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Tolkien books have gets transported into another medium, the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with the original, Harry) and then Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to try and buy everything worthwhile with whether or not they were ever married or even a tenuous link Harry's birthdate: he claimed to the object of their affectionshave been born in 1863, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwarybut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind usFor a while, and the sixfamily was quite well-film, three-month long Bluto-Ray box set is on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts of course have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold but disaster struck in the originals, 1929 Depression and so low can the quality of the spinfive-year-offs be, there are some who will never be satisfiedold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to find be well-turned-out more, and those this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John FisherPatti Smith|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!': A Life in Jokes and PicturesYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=I grew up watching Tommy CooperOn the coast of Santa Cruz, and watching my dad do impressions Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Tommy Cooper. I thought he was hilarious (the real Tommy!) monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried and failed to do magic tricks! This book unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is rather unusual as although possible: after all, it is a biography of sorts, giving information about Tommy's life and his history in the world year of entertainment, it isnthe monkey''t text heavy. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and so mostly Tommy's story is told through photographs and picturesageing are faced head-on, as it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Unwin (editor)1912242052|title=Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The TimesO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=I think I was not ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the only first person who at first glance found to walk the title mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and sub-title slightly misleadingadventure. For me it conjured up visions of those who came across on the ‘Windrush’ in 1948 and the life they led on settling in Britain – His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, andits literary consequences, perhaps, the lives changed our view of the more famous (assuming there were some) in obituary formworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441159177</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Artemis CooperGraff_Find|title=Patrick Leigh Fermor: An AdventureFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=The sub-title When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of this biography is highly appropriatehandwritten notes from his journal, for he didn't take much notice of it. At the ninety-six years age of Patrick Leigh Fermor were packed with adventure. Born in 191524, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was something of a maverick at school, intellectually gifted but perpetually naughty, and his punishments for various refractions included suspensions and even expulsionsholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719554497</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Selina Guinness1789016304|title=The Crocodile by the DoorWar and Love: The Story A family's testament of a Houseanguish, a Farm endurance and a Familydevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as a child Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and in 2002 was entranced by what she and her husband-to-bediscovered, Colin Graham, moved back to the house when particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her elderly uncle Charles became frailown family's stories were equally fascinating. The surname might lead you to suspect that there A hundred and seven thousand Jews were brewery millions in deported from the city during the background war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this wasn't the casecould be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. The couple Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were young academics and doing what needed to convinced that they would soon be done at Tibradden pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would need never allow what happened to be done escalate in addition to full-time jobsthe way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. The house was It's an atrocity on the outskirts a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were a property developer or the last defence against the encroaching city if you were notindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry Ricketts1786893452|title=Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great WarUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The majority of recent books on Here in the War Poets tend to focus West, we see news reports about immigrants on their lives during and immediately after the conflicta regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. This enterprising account, borrowing its name from the poem But all of those stories are written by Wilfred Owenjournalists – almost always western, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or more. It begins with the first meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke at one of Eddie Marsh’s breakfasts in July 1914. Marsh was a tireless supporter of modern painters and after that promising new writersalmost always, particularly poets. The journeyno matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, or rather account of meetings, takes us outsiders to the western front world and back to England, culminating in a reunion of two of the longest-lived, Sassoon and David Jones, situations that refugees find themselves in 1964.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951808</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Callow|title=Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Once a towering presence on stage and screen, It's rare that we find out the journeys from the star of fifty films refugees themselves – and forty plays, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these days. As an actor of this is a younger generation and keen admirer of his workrare opportunity to do that, Callow is well placed to bring him back to the fore. He notes in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped out of public consciousnessthis intelligent, powerful and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of forty|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581957</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Sugden|title=Nelson: A Dream of Glory|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=I will admit that I didn't know what I moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was letting myself born in for when I saw 'Nelson: A Dream the middle of Glory' sitting on the Bookbag shelf, but I had just come back from Portsmouth and a wander around on the Victoryrevolution in Iran, so it was fleeing to America as a bit hard to resistten-year-old. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951913</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Chisholm0857058320|title=Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson in Lord Of All the Company of Women|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=What's your mental image of a Great Writer? Most people would probably say the same thing: someone sitting in splendid isolation, probably in a garret, writing Great Words and hating them. The idea of Great Writers having friends, or even a family, is a bizarre one. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But there's another issue at play. We're simply not used to imagining them in context, just one small part of a large and busy world. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite the fact that one of the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers to essentially confine themselves to the person and their literary output.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951867</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Frances A Gerard|title=Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron of Goethe Javier Cercas and SchillerAnne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Anna Amalia of Brunswick, ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the eighteenth centurySpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these daysthe figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Nevertheless it was mainly through her patronage that The question at the court centre of Weimar became one of the most artistically renowned of the time, this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a reputation it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from hero whilst having fought for the age of Bismarck and beyondwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781550166</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1788037812|title=NancyThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Story of Lady AstorFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Nancy, Lady AstorOriginally passed in 1885, the first woman to take her seat as an elected Member of Parliament at Westminster, is one of those characters about whom it is surely impossible law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for anyone to write a dull biography82 years. A determined character who inspired admirationBut during this time, respect restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and exasperation in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with her1908, she is well served by this latest in a long line three books on the nature of titles devoted to herhomosexuality appeared.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Jones|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction FactoryThey were written by two homosexual men: The Working Life Of Herbert Allingham|rating=4Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis.5|genre=Biography|summary=Herbert Allingham was one of Exploring the most prolific authors margins of his time. Between 1886 society and his death in 1936 he studying homosexuality was a busy writer of melodramatic serial stories common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the mass-market halfpenny papers which flourished at UK, so the turn publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name to itscientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the unsung heroes milestone legalisation of the tradesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter DoggettBuckland_Zoo|title=The Man Who Sold The WorldAte the Zoo: David Bowie And The 1970sFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=With As a conservationist in Victorian England before the possible exception of Princess Dianaterm existed, Marilyn Monroe is probably the most written-about deceased woman in twentieth-century history. The thirty-six years of her life and the manner Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of her death will no doubt continue to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have since her sudden passinghis time. After a decade of research Lois BannerSurgeon, naturalist, a Professor of History veterinarian and Gender Studies at university in Californiaeccentric sums him up perfectly, has added another weighty tome to the relevant shelves. As and any biographer is immediately presented with a self-styled pioneer of second-wave feminism and the new women’s history, she has some interesting insights colourful tale to offer into her subject’s life as a gender role modeltell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408814102</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Penny JunorWilliams_Captain|title=Prince WilliamCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: Born to be King: An Intimate PortraitHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Prince William is one In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the few people who genuinely needs no introduction17th Regiment of Foot. He's been was in command of the public eye since troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his birth wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the interest is certain age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to increase rather than diminish as time goes byraise their two young sons. On the other hand he Edwards''is'' only thirty. Is there really going to be enough to warrant a book and will it be anything more than an attempt to cash in on death left his marriage widow in 2011 and the current interest in all things royal engendered by the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something of a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist and in addition Penny Junor is known difficult position: not only did she have their farm to be a supporter of Prince Charles in what can be described as manage, but she was also responsible for the War of convicts who worked the Walesesland. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I Two years later she would enjoy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>marry Captain Ronald Campbell.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley HarrisonPeacock_mountain|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: Into The Rebellious SuffragetteMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=To some extentMostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, the history of the suffragettes was but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the history of the Pankhurst familymyriad lesser-known authors short as well. SylviaSo while, born in 1882like most other people I have my favourite genres, was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline Pankhurstfavoured authors, and one of three sisters. The family had always been heavily politicisedwhile, Richard being a founder member of like most other people I read the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw reviews and H.G. Wellsfollow up on what appeals, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took I also have a sudden turn for the worse in 1898, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having third-string to nurse him, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With his passing the family were left strangely detached from each other. His widow became heavily involved in public work and political agitation, an increasingly remote mother from the young children who needed hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>
}}
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