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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yehuda Koren and Eilat NegevClaire Dederer|title=GiantsMonsters: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput TroupeWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The title Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of this book does of course carry the audience'' in a sense deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of irony, although we never quite know exactly how much. When a man the old aphorism of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania separating the art from the artist in the 1860s nobody was to know what would happen to his lineage – there was no clue then context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that he would father ten children, the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and seven of them would inherit his genetic dwarfismonto the page. But history has pieced together all that followedIn particular, including the careers those children had as prologue packs a performance troupe, belting out showtunes to their own accompaniment, punch: she simultaneously condemns and acting in their own tragi-comic skits. And then having exalts the limelight stolen from them by the Nazisdirector Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and a transportation to Auschwitzyet despises for his actions. And then being surprisingly saved, and given what passed This model of ''monstrous men'' as a cushty lifeshe calls them, fed and togetheris consistent for the first few chapters, but tortured at interrogating the hands likes of the camp doctorWoody Allen, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues on what singled out his Aryan race's genetic destinyMichael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. I say the amount of irony Her critical voice is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – but heacutely present throughout, the doctornever slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, would have known. As one of the more ominous sentences you'll read all year has as she holds it – 'Mengele had plans for them'so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd1788360702|title=Wilkie CollinsCharles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books For over the last few forty years, he Prince Charles has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as wellan ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. This life ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the Victorian novelist is one scientific evidence. There are few instances of the latter, the latest in his series beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of 'Brief Lives', treatments which have also included Chaucerno scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, the painter Turner and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]]logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Raymond1739805100|title=3-Minute JRR TolkienLoving the Enemy: A Visual Biography Building bridges in a time of The World's Most Revered Fantasy Writerwar|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5

|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base as Tolkien books have gets transported into another medium, ''Loving the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with Enemy'' tells the originalquite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, and then who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to try and buy everything worthwhile with even a tenuous link Dresden to teach in the object early days of their affections, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge Nazi regime in the unwary1930s. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind usFred, a sensitive and the six-filmthoughtful man, three-month long Blu-Ray box set is on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts had some vague ideas of course have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold "building bridges" which may guard against the originals, and so low can the quality of growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the spin-offs be, there are some who will never be satisfiedtime. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired to find out more, and those at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginnerFred's guide attempts to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John FisherWill Brooker|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!': A Life in Jokes and PicturesThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I grew up watching Tommy Cooper've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, and watching my dad do impressions one of the thousands of Tommy Cooperless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. I thought he was hilarious (This book starts with the real Tommy!) two meeting each other, as well, and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried shows how 2021 drew the two closer and failed to do magic tricks! closer together. This The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book is rather unusual as although it is she was reciting, and her 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 biography professor of sortscultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, giving information about Tommydown the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life , working to make a success of the latest title, and his history struggling with the next in the world of entertainmentline. Jewell, it isn't text heavydue diligence appropriately done, and so mostly Tommy's story agrees. And this is told through photographs and picturesthe result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Unwin (editor)Martha Leigh|title=Newcomers' LivesInvisible Ink: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The TimesA Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=I think I was not Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the only person who at first glance found complete correspondence of the title and subphilosopher Jean-title slightly misleadingJacques Rousseau, his life's work. For me it conjured up visions of those Her mother is a concert pianist who came across on the ‘Windrush’ practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in 1948 and the practicalities of life they led on settling . There is love in Britain – and, perhaps, the lives of the more famous (assuming house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there were some) in obituary form.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441159177</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Artemis CooperPolly Barton|title=Patrick Leigh Fermor: An AdventureFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The subWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-title of down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this biography is highly appropriateyear, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, for I don't know the answer to the ninety-six years question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of Patrick Leigh Fermor were packed with adventure. Born the question in 1915the first essay, he was something of a maverick at schoolwhich is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, intellectually gifted but perpetually naughtyamong other things, and his punishments for various refractions included suspensions and even expulsionsthe sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719554497</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina GuinnessFrederic Gros|title=The Crocodile by the Door: The Story A Philosophy of a House, a Farm and a FamilyWalking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as a child and I confess I picked this one up from the library in 2002 she and her husbandmy pre-to-be, Colin Graham, moved back to the house when her elderly uncle Charles became fraillockdown forage of random stuff. The surname might lead you Now I have to suspect go out an buy my own copy so that there were brewery millions in the background but this wasn't I can turn down the case. The couple were young academics pages I have marked and doing what needed return to be done at Tibradden would its varying wisdom when I need to be done . Some books draw you in addition to full-time jobsslowly. The house was on This one had me in the outskirts of Dublin - first two pages, wherein Gros explains why 'derelict fields' if you were walking is not a property developer or the last defence against the encroaching city if you were notsport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry RickettsSharon Blackie|title=Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great WarIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The majority of recent books on the War Poets tend I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to focus on their lives during and immediately after the conflict. This enterprising account, borrowing its name from the poem me by Wilfred Owen, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or morehow many pages have corners turned down. It begins with Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading 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 writers, particularly poetsI've borrowed. The journey, or rather account of meetings, takes us I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the western front first two and back to England, culminating in only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reunion of two of the longest-lived, Sassoon reason and David Jones, in 1964I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951808</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Callow0241446732|title=Charles LaughtonOur House is on Fire: A Difficult ActorScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Once a towering presence The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on stage and screen, most of the star parenting of fifty films their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and forty playstalking and her sister, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these daysBeata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. As an actor of In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a younger generation and keen admirer of his worksolution close to home, but eventually, Callow is well placed to bring him back it became clear to the fore. He notes in his preface family that the man has increasingly slipped they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out of public consciousness, and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to anybody under the age of forty|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581957</amazonuk>be radical.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Sugden0648684806|title=NelsonClara Colby: A Dream of GloryThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=54

|summary=I will admit that I didnThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick't know what I s life was letting myself in for probably determined when I saw 'Nelson: A Dream her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of Glorysome childhood ailment, she wasn' sitting t allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. 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 only child in the Bookbag shelfhousehold and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, but I her family had just come back from Portsmouth become pioneer farmers in the 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. Clara would only know her mother for a wander around on 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 Victoryeldest girl, so it a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a bit hard to resistrude awakening. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951913</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Chisholm1789017977|title=Wits Ronnie and WivesHilda's Romance: Dr Johnson in the Company of WomenTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=54|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=What's your mental image Ronnie Williams was the son of a Great Writer? Most people would probably say the same thing: someone sitting in splendid isolation, probably in a garret, writing Great Words Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and hating themEthel Wall. The idea of Great Writers having friends, There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even a family, is a bizarre one. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But thereHarry's another issue at play. We're simply not used birthdate: he claimed to imagining them have been born in context1863, just one small part of but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a large and busy worldfew years off his age. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite For a while, the fact that one of family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to essentially confine themselves a 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 person and their literary outputarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951867</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances A GerardPatti Smith|title=Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron Year of Goethe and Schillerthe Monkey

|summary=Anna Amalia On the coast of BrunswickSanta Cruz, a Duchess Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Saxethe monkey -Weimar Eisenach in the eighteenth centuryone packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these days. Nevertheless possible: after all, it was mainly through her patronage that 's the court of Weimar became one year of the most artistically renowned monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of the timeSanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a reputation year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from shifting political waters in America. |isbn=1526614758}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the age 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 adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of Bismarck and beyondthe world''.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1781550166</amazonuk>When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of it. At the age of 24, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1789016304|title=NancyWar and Love: The Story A family's testament of Lady Astoranguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Nancy, Lady AstorMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, 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 city during the first woman to take her seat as an elected Member of Parliament at Westminsterwar years, is one of those characters about whom it is surely impossible for anyone but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to write happen in a dull biographycountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. A determined character Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who inspired admirationthought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, respect and exasperation that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with herthe way that it did, she is well served by this latest in but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a long line vast scale but made up of titles devoted to hertens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Jones1786893452|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction Factory: The Working Life Of Herbert AllinghamUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Herbert Allingham was one of Here in the most prolific authors of his timeWest, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. Between 1886 and his death in 1936 he was a busy writer But all of melodramatic serial those stories in the mass-market halfpenny papers which flourished at the turn of the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name to itare written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the unsung heroes of world and the trade.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Doggett|title=The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie And The 1970s|rating=4situations that refugees find themselves in.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=With hindsight, it’s difficult to argue with the oft-expressed opinion It's rare that David Bowie was we find out the single most important rock musician of journeys from the 1970s. Having been refugees themselves – and this is a perpetual ‘one rare opportunity to watch’ from around 1966 onwards but with only one hit during do that decade, ‘Space Oddity’in this intelligent, from 1972 onwards he went through several remarkable selfpowerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -reinventions someone who was born in musical stylethe middle of a revolution in Iran, with an uncanny knack of being able fleeing to preAmerica as a ten-empt the next big trend. In examining his whole career but focusing largely on his work throughout that particular decade, Peter Doggett looks specifically at every song he recorded, including cover versions. There are also boxedyear-out features on each album, and articles on related topics such as ‘The Art of Minimalism’ and ‘The Heart of Plastic Soul’. He concludes that by 1979 the man’s extraordinary creativity was more or less spent and his subsequent output, successful though it may have been, was in effect treading water up to his ‘elegant, unannounced retirement’ in 2007old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548879</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victoria Glendinning0857058320|title=Raffles And Lord Of All the Golden OpportunityDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as ''Lord Of All the founder of Singapore his roots were far from grand. He had no advantages apart from his own drive and determination and his professional life began with Dead'' is a lowly clerkship with journey to uncover the East india Company, then as large author's lost ancestor's life and ungainly as many a governmentdeath. When he went abroad on behalf of Cercas is searching for the Company he quickly learned meaning behind his great uncle's death in the merits of doing something and asking permission afterwardsSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, not least because of is the figure who looms large over the time taken to contact London and then receive a replybook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Even if all went well Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this could take dictator. The question at the best part centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a year - by which time hero whilst having fought for the original question could well be academicwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Simon Sykes1788037812|title=HockneyThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Biography, Volume 1Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 19371891-19751908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=Prince William is one of Originally passed in 1885, the few people who genuinely needs no introductionlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. He's been in Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the public eye since his birth nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the interest is certain to increase rather than diminish as time goes byheterosexual Havelock Ellis. On Exploring the other hand he ''is'' only thirty. Is there really going to be enough to warrant a book margins of society and will it be anything more than an attempt to cash in studying homosexuality was common on his marriage the European Continent, but barely talked about in 2011 and the current interest in all things royal engendered by UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something scientific understanding of a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and in addition Penny Junor is known equality, leading to be a supporter the milestone legalisation of Prince Charles same-sex relationships in what can be described as the War of the Waleses1967. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I would enjoy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley HarrisonBuckland_Zoo|title=Sylvia PankhurstThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: The Rebellious SuffragetteFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=To some extent, the history of the suffragettes was also the history of As a conservationist in Victorian England before the Pankhurst family. Sylvia, born in 1882term existed, Frank Buckland was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst, and one of three sisters. The family had always been heavily politicised, Richard being very much a founder member man ahead of the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.Ghis time. WellsSurgeon, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took a sudden turn for the worse in 1898naturalist, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business veterinarian and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having to nurse eccentric sums himup perfectly, 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 herany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy BormanWilliams_Captain|title=Matilda: Wife Captain Ronald Campbell of the ConquerorBombala Station, first Queen of EnglandCambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=Writing In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the biography 17th Regiment of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless taskFoot. There will always be huge gaps He was in command of the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, troops and likewise we do not have convicts on board a precise date for her marriageship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, although we do know when she diedAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she He was quite short of stature. In a male-dominated society, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down to us throughout history are quite probably false. It is hardly surprising that this appears destined to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in English.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Fantastic Mr Dahl|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Reading this book is rather like curling up in live a deep, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa and some squashed-fly biscuits while a favourite uncle chats to you about books. He tells you interesting things about Roald Dahl's long life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in dying suddenly at the knowledge that you already know and love the stories. Just as importantage of 34 at Bangalore, he pauses in leaving his chat from time widow to time to ask your opinion — and it's clear he's really interested in your answerraise their two young sons. Do you prefer the original version of Edwards''James and the Giant Peach'', or the one which was eventually published? Can you imagine how funny it would be to see your grandfather looking death left his widow in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leo McKinstry|title=Jack Hobbsa difficult position: England's Greatest Cricketer|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Back in the early 1920s, there were not only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations did she have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about their farm to start a test series to determine manage, but she was also responsible for the best Test nation in convicts who worked the worldland. Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available nowTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert K MassiePeacock_mountain|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait Into The Mountain, A Life of a WomanNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and Alexandraso many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and of Peter we sell the Greatmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of while, like most other people I read the late eighteenthreviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-century reigning Empressstring to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tim Ewart|title=The Treasures of Queen Elizabeth|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Tim Ewart is Royal Correspondent for ITV News, which must be one of the perfect starting points for writing a biography of the Queen as she celebrates her diamond jubilee. She's only the second British monarch Move on to achieve this landmark - the other being Queen Victoria. After sixty years on the throne - and eighty six in public life - there's not much which isn't known about the Queen [[Newest Business and few pictures which haven't previously seen the light of day, but Ewart's book is marked out by the inclusion of memorabilia which will have a freshness for many readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780970064</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]