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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Desmond SewardMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title= Renishaw Hall: the story Reminiscences of the SitwellsTolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating= 43.5|genre= Biography|summary= Renishaw HallBiographies 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, Derbyshireand offers a vibrant, has been the home subjective yet informed portrait of three of the Sitwells since 1625his literary contemporaries. Though In the history first section of the house and its family go back this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to the early Stuart eraknow how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, as Seward tells giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in a few wonderfully concise chapterssuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977}} {{Frontpage|author=Ian Penman|title=Erik Satie Three Piece Suite|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, it experimental and creative. It is really with divided into three sections: the appearance of first, an essay, the eccentric Sir George Sitwell second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, his three famous children that the narrative comes into its ownmuse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178396183X</amazonuk>1804271535

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Finn and Petra CouveeJacqueline Feldman|title=The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden BookPrecarious Lease|rating=3.5

|summary=One The title of the many things this novel refers to come out 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 this incredibly clear other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and readable book is that we BritsLa Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for all our literary heritageits inhabitants, have got nothing like an equivalent to Boris Pasternakadmirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. He or she would have to sell Something like Rowlinga haven for artists and marginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, regularly capture ''I live on the enjoyment and spirit margins of the margins of the nation a la Danny Boylemargins''s Olympics ceremonies), and at the same time have Le Bloc was subject to the cultural heft continual threat of Larkin, Rushdie, Graham Greene eviction and more combined. Someone connected with choosing recipients of the Nobel Prize declare him here to be the Soviet TS Eliot, but thatpressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants's nothing likelives. So the reader probably has to stretch herself to see someone so well-respected and well-loved for his verseWe follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, who spent twelve years and more on framed as a huge, society-defining novel, only for the country to nix every plan to get it publishedtragedy in this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099581345</amazonuk>1804271403

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marlena de BlasiJacqueline Rose|title=The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper ClubWomen in Dark Times

|summary= Author Marlena de Blasi lives in the (as far as I can tell from having a quick google), beautiful small Italian city ''The world of Orvieto – deep in the beautiful Umbrian countryside. Having lived there for some time, she gradually becomes aware of unconscious is not the Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club – a group antagonist of Italian ladies who meet once a week for supperpolitical life, but its steadfast companion, and the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'' Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to talk. Whilst it takes her some timecourageous women throughout history, Marlena eventually manages to be accepted into particularly women of the group21st, 20th and begins to cook and eat with these unique 19th centuries. Her historical and fascinating ladiespolitical backdrop is, sharing both tales of lifethus, loveexpansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and deathan acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, and taking part in delicious home cooked mealsnot its failures: ''the ongoing force of feminism''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091954304</amazonuk>1804271713

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter AckroydClaire Dederer|title=Charlie ChaplinMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=3|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a 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 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 personal, rather than collective voice.|isbn=1399715070}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4.5

|summary=Charlie Chaplin dominated the formative For over forty years , Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the cinemaPrince's opinions, as actor beliefs and director, like no otheraims against the background of the scientific evidence. As we There are told in an early chapter few instances of this book, on his first visit beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to America in 1910, he the reputation of a man who is alleged proud of his refusal to have shoutedapply evidence-based, ‘I am coming logical reasoning to conquer youhis ambitions. Every man woman and child shall have my name on their lips!’ Within a few years he had indeed conquered the entire movie-going world|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287560</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sean Smith1739805100|title=Tom Jones - The LifeLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=Few singers have sustained a career over half a century and appealed ''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 succeeding generations teach in the way that early days of the Nazi regime in the former Thomas John Woodward of Treforest has managed to do1930s. Almost written off during Fred, a lean period or twosensitive and thoughtful man, he proved himself had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the master of re-invention, and now growing hostilities between nations unfolding in his mid-70s Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he is loved did make friendships and revered as something of connections that lasted for a national treasurelifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000810445X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derek NiemannWill Brooker|title=A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime GermanyTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=I'm sure someone somewhere has rewritten The Devil's Dictionary to include the following – ''familyMeet [[:Category: noun; place where Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the greatest secrets are kept'most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. The Niemann family is no exceptionNow meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. It was long known that grandfather Karl was in Germany during This book starts with the Second World Wartwo meeting each other, as well, people could easily work that out from and shows how 2021 drew the family biographytwo closer and closer together. Yet little The meeting was spoken some unspecified combination, it seems, ofher anecdote about cup cakes, apart from him being an office-bound worker, either in logistics or finance. Since the War two words of three surviving siblings had relocated to the Glasgow environsher latest book she was reciting, and there was even her being in a family quip concerning Goebbels and Gorbals (''family: noun; place where the worst things are spoken in the best wayblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade''). What was (certainly a surprise get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to our authorattend), but pulled Brooker, and many a professor of his relativescultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, was down the rabbit-hole that things were is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a lot closer to year in the former than had been expectedpublished author's life, for Karl was such an office worker – for the SS. With working to make a lot of family history finally out success of the closet of silent mouthslatest title, and struggling with incriminating photographic evidence revealed the next in unlikely waysline. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, the whole truth can be knownagrees. But And this is certainly not just of interest to that one small familythe result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780722222</amazonuk>1529136024

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miranda Richmond MouillotMartha Leigh|title=Invisible Ink: A Fifty Year SilenceFamily Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The story follows the narrator’s quest to find out why Martha Leigh begins her mother’s parents abruptly parted and never reconciledbook talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, or even spoke another word to one anotherimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. We follow Miranda Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as she goes backwards and forwards between her Grandmotherhe edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom she his life's work. Her mother is very close to, and her Grandfather, whom she has always found a difficult characterconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. She Neither parent is determined to get to hugely interested in the bottom practicalities of the story which takes her through terrible first hand accounts of events leading up to and throughout World War Two and what Nazi occupied Europe was like for the Jewishlife. She There is driven by love in the need to know what could cause two people to part so completely after going through so much together, and it’s become her academic life to find outhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922182583</amazonuk>1800460384

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David GreenePolly Barton|title=Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of RussiaFifty Sounds

|summary=ItWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?''s no mistake that the cover of Japan has been on my edition of this book is radar for a photo where while and if the Transworld hadn't gone into melt-Siberian Railway is horizontal in the framedown I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. ItAnd like Barton, I don's well known for going east-west, left t know the answer to right across the map question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the largest country by far question in the world. 9,288 kilometres from Moscow to the eastern stretches of Russia, it could only be a longfirst essay, thin line across the cover, as it which is in our imagination of it as a form of transport and a travel destination in its own right. So when this book mentions it as on the spine or backbone of Russia a couple of times, thatsound ''giro' ''s got to be of a prone Russia – one lying downwhich she describes as being, not upright or active. David Greeneamong other things, a stalwart the sound of northern American radio journalism, uses this book ''every party where you have to see just how active or otherwise Russia and Russians are – and finds their lying down to be quite a definite verdict, as well as a slight indictment. Itintroduce yourself''s no mistake either for this cover to have people in the frame alongside the train carriages, for the people met both riding and living alongside the tracks of the Railway are definitely the ribs of the piece.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883709</amazonuk>1913097501

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances WelchFrederic Gros|title=Rasputin: A Short LifePhilosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Was Grigori Rasputin, I confess I picked this one up from the Siberian peasant turned mystic and the time bomb who almost singlelibrary in my pre-handedly precipitated the collapse lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the Russian Empire pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in 1917the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a genuine holy man or an evil-minded reprobate and total disaster?sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178072232X</amazonuk>1781688370

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Allen and Amie ParnesSharon Blackie|title=HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary ClintonIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Hillary Clinton initially came I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to our attention as First Lady and me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even then she might have faded into international obscurity had it not been for the way in which she managed greater measure of impact is setting out to hold her head high during those unfortunate incidents with Bill - well, HRC wasnbuy my own copy before I't ve finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'involvedpowerful'' but Iinspiring'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Then she relife-emerged through changing' – although it is definitely the fog of first two and only time will tell about the George W Bush presidency with her bid to gain the Democratic nomination, losing in third – but clichés exist for a hotly contested series of primaries to Barack Obama - reason and went on to become his Secretary of State. Now the question is whether or I'm not she will make another run for President in 2016sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099594692</amazonuk>1912836017

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Thompson0241446732|title=Life Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford The BiographyCrisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=There can have been few more extraordinary families in British society The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and cultural life during Svante Thunberg took on most of the early twentieth century than the Mitfords, the six parenting of their two daughters . Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and one son of Baron Redesdale. The only sonher sister, killed in action during the Second World WarBeata, led an unexceptional life away from the headlinesthen nine years old, but four of his sisters more than made up for himstruggled with what was happening. Diana In such circumstances, wife of the notorious Sir Oswald Mosleyit's natural to seek a solution close to home, never renounced her admiration for Hitler or the Fascist movementbut eventually, while Unity, who shared her beliefs, shot herself on it became clear to the day war broke family that they were ''burned-out but lingered pathetically for another brainpeople on a burned-damaged eight years, and the fiercely left-wing Jessica became an active member of the American Communist Partyout planet''. Compared If they were to find a way to them Nancy, the eldest and the subject of this biography, seems live happily again their solution would need to have been the most balanced and least eccentric of them allbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784082295</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Kennedy0648684806|title=Oscar & LucyClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=With The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the film about Alan Turingtime she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn''The Imitation Game'' getting rave reviews t allowed to sail with her parents and award nominations rightthree brothers. Instead, left she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and centresaw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the sterling work done by only child in the Bletchley Park cryptographers during WWII is quite high household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in our mindsthe mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. But Enigma wasn't the Clara would only code broken know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and Turing wasn't died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the only one doing secret but heroic workeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>095646968X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Lodge1789017977|title=Lives in WritingRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=EntertainmentHistory|summary=David Lodge Lives in Writing. So blares Ronnie Williams was the cover son of my edition, Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and itEthel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not far wrong. When hethey were ever married or even Harry's not entertaining us with his [[birthdate:Category:David Lodge|writing career]] (now he claimed to have been born in its third1863, more erudite but he was already many years older than Ethel and to me more serious stage, after the first third of comic light touches, before he found might well have shaved a few years off his metier – and fame with TV adaptations– with comedies about the social and sexual lives of academe) he's teaching about and around writingage. When I For a while, the family was younger I also read around writing – literature books, quite well-to-do but disaster struck in other words – the 1929 Depression and Lodge's were among those I turned five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to. So this book and its contents are a welcome step back down a very familiar roaddifferent lifestyle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587769</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=The Prussian Princesses: The Sisters of Kaiser Wilhelm II|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaiser Wilhelm II is well known and not for the best of reasons and One thing he's certainly over-shadowed did inherit from his six younger siblings. John Van der Kiste's first biography father was of his father, Kaiser Friedrich III and he has also written about Emperor Wilhelm II so he is need to be well placed to write about the three youngest children Kaiser Friedrich and Victoria, Princess Royal. Originally he intended to write about Friedrich's second daughter, but it quickly became obvious that the most satisfying biography - for reader and author turned- would be a biography of Victoria, Sophie and Margaret, their mother's ''kleebatt'' or trio, as they were known.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00QKROC9W</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Sarah Churchwell|title=Careless People Murder Mayhem out and the Invention of the Great Gatsby|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=In this accomplished literary biography Professor Churchwell expertly weaves together three guest lists- the Fitzgeralds and literary cast of New York, the sensationalist tragic murder victims and suspects of New Brunswick, New Jersey and the careless characters of Fwould stay with him throughout his life. Scott's novel using the Fitzgeralds' archives, newspaper clippings, literary scrapbooks,diary entries and anecdotes to link the stories and chronicle the heedless hedonism of the 1920s. It is not only a meticulously researched tribute tracing He joined the genesis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s plot skeleton, which he roughly sketched army at eighteen in pencil in the back of a book, entitled Man’s Hope, but it also sparkles with sophisticated vocabulary fizzing with the effervescence of a glass of champagne providing new treats for the reader with each inviting chapter1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844087689</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BatchelorPatti Smith|title=Tennyson: To strive, to seek, to findYear of the Monkey

|summary=Most readersOn the coast of Santa Cruz, if they were asked to name Patti Smith enters the ultimate poet lunar year of the Victorian age, would almost surely choose Alfredmonkey - one packed with mischief, Lord Tennyson. He was Poet Laureate for over forty years of Queen Victoria’s reignsorrow, and inevitably her favourite versifierunexpected moments.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950763</amazonuk>}}{{newreview |author=Zareer Masani |title=Macaulay: BritainIn a stranger's Liberal Imperialist |rating=4.5 |genre=Biography |summary=If Thomas Babington Macaulay words, ''Anything is remembered at possible: after all today, it is probably for 's the year of the historical writings to which he devoted himself during monkey''. As Smith wanders the last few years coast of his life. Yet earlier Santa Cruz in his careersolitude, he was also she reflects on a Member of Parliament, a government minister, year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and served for some years in Indiaageing are faced head-on, playing a major reforming role as a member of it the governor-general’s councilshifting political waters in America. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587025</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Campbell1912242052|title=Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded LifeO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=It must be rare indeed that a British political figure who never became Prime Minister is ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the subject of or deserves mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a biography comprising 750 pages of text. Howeverminer, quarryman, as John Campbell demonstrates in this volumeshepherd or pack-horse driver, it is difficult but because he wanted to do justice to the lifefor pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, times and career its literary consequences, changed our view of Roy Jenkins in much less than thatthe world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087509</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Walter Dean MyersGraff_Find|title=An African Princess: From African Orphan to Queen Victoria’s FavouriteFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary=This elegant edition When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of An African Princess tells handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of it. At the life age of Sarah Bonetta who is suddenly swept from 24, Graff didn't realise the threat gravity of a savage execution in 1848 only to face a brave new world under the patronage of the imperious Queen Victoria. Meticulously researched by the twice elected US National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Walter Dean Myers, it is a creatively imaginative account, with an historical backbone of genuine diary entries, letters, autobiographical work, contemporary newspapers, social and anthropological studies and period photographspages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406354449</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel Jones1789016304|title=Rupert BrookeWar and Love: LifeA family's testament of anguish, Death endurance and Myth|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Rupert Chawner Brooke’s reputation as one of the greatest or at least best-remembered war poets rests largely on his sonnet ''The Soldier''. Perhaps it was English literature’s abiding loss that his output was so slender, as his career was cut short so suddenly. Had he lived longer he would surely have developed into a notable writer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857164</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Amber Hunt and David Batcher|title=The Kennedy Wives: Triumph and Tragedy in America's Most Public FamilyMelanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=The Kennedy dynasty is mainly known for the men who have come Melanie Martin read about what happened to political prominence: Jack KennedyDutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, the president who was assassinated particularly in November 1963, his brother, Bobby, Jack''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's Attorney General who would be assassinated in June 1968 stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and Senator Edward Kennedy seven thousand Jews were deported from the youngest of the nine children - city during the war years, but only one of the brothers five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who would, as they say, live were resistant to comb grey hairGerman occupation. Not quite so much is known about Most people believed that the women occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were brave enough to marry into convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the family and Amber Hunt and David Batcher have set out Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to give us some background on five of these women: Rose Kennedy escalate in the matriarch of way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the family and wife organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of Joe Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of Jack, Ethel, wife tens of Bobby and Joan and Vicki, the first and second wives thousands of Teddy Kennedyindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762796340</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious DaughterUngrateful Refugee|author=Lucinda HawksleyDina Nayeri

|summary=As Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a previous biographer once called herregular basis – some media welcoming them, Princess Louise was Queen Victoria’s unconventional daughtersome scaremongering about them. Always popular with But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the public for her comparatively easygoing manner (thoughinvestigative journalism they carry out, being royal, she was not averse outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to pulling rank), her forward-looking views on social issuesdo that, notably education and votes for womenin this intelligent, powerful and her artistic interests, she moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was certainly one of born in the most interesting middle of her familya revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951549</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=The FroodLord Of All the Dead|author=Jem RobertsJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=They say that you should never meet your heroes. After reading 'The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and 'Lord Of All the HitchhikerDead's Guide ' is a journey to uncover the Galaxyauthor's lost ancestor' as life and death.k.aCercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas''great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the Froodbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco'' I understand s forces. Cercas ruminates on whyhis uncle fought for this dictator. I never heard The question at the original radio series and I have quite deliberately shied away from the Americanised film version (even if centre of this book is whether it does sell itself well by is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having Stephen Fry as 'the voice of fought for the book' - I mean, really, in this day and age, who else?!)wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809437X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Thompson1788037812|title=A Different Class The Fraternity of Murderthe Estranged: The Story of Lord LucanFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|genre=True CrimeBiography|summary=It's difficult to believe Originally passed in 1885, the law that it's forty had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years since . But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the murder nature of nanny Sandra Rivett homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the subsequent disappearance margins of Lord Lucansociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, not least because there have been numerous theories but barely talked about what happened on November in the UK, so the 7th 1974 - and what became of Lucan. It might also be thought that - short publications of the Earl turning up with an explanation - there's not a great deal ''new'' which can be added these men were hugely significant – contributing to the pile scientific understanding of published material on homosexuality, and beginning the subjectstruggle for recognition and equality, so I began reading ''A Different Class leading to the milestone legalisation of Murder'' with the thought that there would be no great surprisessame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855366</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Buckland_Zoo|title=Effie GrayThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Suzanne Fagence CooperRichard Girling

|summary=Effie Gray As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was born in Perth in 1828very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and knew art critic John Ruskin from an early age. When he finally decided to ask her to be his wifeeccentric sums him up perfectly, she called off an engagement and happily acceptedany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715648578</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Williams_Captain|title=VictoriaCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: A His Military Lifeand Times|author=A N WilsonIvor George Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=Every few years, it seems, we are presented with another generously-sized biography In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Queen VictoriaFoot. How many times can another author follow Elizabeth LongfordHe was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Stanley Weintraub, or Christopher Hibbert Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to name but threelive a long life, produce 500 pages or more and still say something new about her? Can dying suddenly at the blurb’s claim that this shows us the sovereign ‘as she’s never been seen before’ really be justified? Fortunately it canage of 34 at Bangalore, for even more than leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a century after her deathdifficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, there is still new material from previously unseen sources to add to what we already know about herbut she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879563</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Into The Lives Mountain, A Life of the Famous and the Infamous: Everything You Need To Know About Everyone Who MatteredNan Shepherd|author=The WeekCharlotte Peacock

|summary=To describe a book as unputdownable Mostly we choose what books to read because there is a pretty bold claim to make. Jeremy O'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week does just that in the foreword to The Lives of the Famous so little time and so many books… I can understand the Infamousapproach, a collection of obituaries from but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the weekly magazinemyriad lesser-known authors short as well. ThankfullySo while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, his bold judgement is largely spot like most other people I read the reviews and follow up onwhat appeals, I also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.}}

For those unfamiliar, ''The Week'' collates the best offerings from print media outlets around the world, condenses them into smaller chunks, adds a little of its own commentary Move on to [[Newest Business and creates a highly concise and entertaining look at the news.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958660</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]