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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1788360702|title=Bounder!Charles, The Alternative Prince: The An Unauthorised Biography of Terry-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard |title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome SiblingsEdzard Ernst

|summary=King George III was not the luckiest For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of English sovereignsalternative medicine and complementary therapies. America''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end aims against the background of grief, and the last scientific evidence. There are few years instances of his life were clouded by madness. It beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose proud of his refusal to haunt this most conscientious monarchapply evidence-based, he also had a thankless task in trying logical reasoning to control his siblingsambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman 1739805100|title=Elizabeth's WomenLoving the Enemy: The Hidden Story Building bridges in a time of the Virgin Queenwar|author=Andrew March

|summary=So many biographies have been written about ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the life and times quite extraordinary story of Englandauthor Andrew March's longest-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to say about herteach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the story of her life through growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the women closest time. Fred's attempts to herseparate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=James Lever|title=Me Cheeta|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Straight out of the golden age of Hollywood comes the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its stars. There are scores to be settled, stars to be insulted, secrets to be hinted at none too subtley, and lost opportunities to be longed for. Oh, and the star telling all? Well, for those of you who can't tell from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta - chimpanzee star of the Tarzan films.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philippe Auclair Will Brooker|title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=Even though I'm not a Manchester United fan, Eric Cantona is one of my all time favourite players and I was really excited to get the opportunity to read a book which was billed as revealing his innermost thoughts, and being the definitive account of his career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alistair Duncan |title=Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan DoyleTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Even todayMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, London is a remarkable compromise one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the old two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the newtwo closer and closer together. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volumeThe meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the city words of Conan Doyle her latest book she was reciting, and Holmes 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 professor of cultural studies who has changed – yet not changedswallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. There have been Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a handful of books year in the past on 'Holmespublished author's London'life, working to make a success of the latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, but agrees. And this is the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with the detective and his creatorresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) Martha Leigh|title=Bobbles & PlumInvisible Ink: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson and PG WodehouseA Family Memoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=P.G. Wodehouse needs little if any introduction, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life and career were cut short and he is little known outside his connections with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This set of satirical playlets on which they collaborated, published Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sincea slightly eccentric, are presented in book form for the first timeimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. As such they show how Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the careers complete correspondence of both men were evolvingthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, particularly while Wodehouse was finding his feet and experimenting with life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the different facets practicalities of journalism before finding his niche life. There is love in comic fictionthe house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham Polly Barton|title=People of the Day 4: The Rich and Famous CaricaturedFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Have you ever Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been asked to buy a book in aid of on my radar for a charity while and wished that youif the world hadn'd given a donation and t gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not taken the book? Wellhopeful. And like Barton, if you have Idon'm hoping t know the answer to persuade you that there are exceptions to every rule and this book the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in aid respect of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust question in the first essay, which is definitely worth on the cover pricesound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy Nicholas Frederic Gros|title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K Jerome: A 150th Anniversary CelebrationPhilosophy of Walking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Although he was a prolific novelist, short story writer, dramatist and journalist, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first and foremost as I confess I picked this one up from the author library in my pre-lockdown forage of ''Three Men random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in a Boat''slowly. This fascinating anthology, published on one had me in the 150th anniversary of his birthfirst two pages, reminds us that there was far more to the man than that one admittedly enduring bookwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreview|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and Diana|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer of great renown, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in a time of paternal disapproval, and a kind of Oedipal reaction to being the man in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor Hamilton Sharon Blackie|title=Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and the Victorian Search for Life After Death|rating=4|genre=Biography |summary=Born in 1843, Frederic Myers began his career as a classical lecturer at Cambridge University, but disliked teaching and soon gave it up in favour of writing poetry and essays in literature. Although his social circle included men such as Gladstone, Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning and Prince Leopold, the most intellectual of Queen Victoria's sons, his books (which are not so well remembered today) might have been his sole claim to fame, had it not been for his passionate curiosity about the meaning of human life. If it had a purpose, he was convinced, it could only be discovered through the study of human experiences.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401239</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul R Spiring (Editor) |title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonWomen Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography |summary=Every now and then, I normally say that you comes across can tell how much a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the means to me by how many pages takes you into another worldhave corners turned down. Such Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the case with this one. ''Vanity Fair'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of ''Private Eye'I've borrowed. Subtitled, I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful'A Weekly'inspiring' ''Show of Political, Social, and Literary Wares'', it appeared between 1868 and 1914. Like the more successful, longerlife-lasting ''Punch'changing', – although it began with radical aspirations, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities of is definitely the elite social classes''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Piers Dudgeon|title=Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers first two and only time will tell about the Dark Side of Neverland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography |summary=According to D.H. Lawrence, J.M. Barrie ''has a fatal touch third – but clichés exist for those he loves. They die.'' Barrie had an extraordinary fascination with a childlike world of innocence reason and young boys who never grew up. Had I'm not sure I can succinctly put it merely stopped at creating Peter Pan, all well and good. Unfortunately this obsession manifested itself in an unhealthy involvement with others, notably the du Maurier familyany better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520451</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Charles0241446732|title=How Could He Do It?|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Emma Charles was Our House is on the edge Fire: Scenes of thinking that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mum, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit Family and a couple of guinea pigs. Sprinkle Planet in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for the girls, a nice car in the drive of the nice house, good clothes and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life was going.Crisis Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin|author=Malena Ernman, gave her a noteGreta Thunberg, couched in graphic terms, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for the past five years.In moments the family's life fell apart. Gone were all the certainties, the hopes and the expectations. In came the police, Social Services Beata Thunberg and Child Protection Officers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jacqueline Walker|title=Pilgrim StateSvante Thunberg

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=I The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was intrigued an opera singer and touched by Jacqueline Walker's beautiful memoir Svante Thunberg took on most of her childhood in Jamaica and London in the 1960'sparenting of their two daughters. This is a book inevitably compared Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with Andrea Levywhat was happening. In such circumstances, it's ''Small Island''. It follows similar groundnatural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the main difference and great strength, is family that itthey were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''s the real narrative of mother and daughter. As If they were to find a girl I was familiar with areas of London where Jackie Walker lived and heard some members of my family denigrate Caribbean immigrantsway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. From this memoir, I've garnered much about the lived experience of my less advantaged contemporaries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340960809</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Williams0648684806|title=Becoming QueenClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=ItThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's a story which has been told by many authors during life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the last centuryUSA. The Victorian ageAt the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, or at any rate the woman who gave doted on her name to the eraand saw that she received a good education, came about largely if not wholly because of a crisis both in and out of sorts among King George III's familyschool. By She was the time his seven surviving sons reached middle age, they had managed to produce one legitimate only child between them, namely Princess Charlottein the household and her childhood was glorious. Her unexpected deathBy contrast, and her family had become pioneer farmers in the need for at least some if not all mid-west of the others United States and life was hard, as Clara was to do their dynastic duty find out when she and produce an heir or two, resulted in an undignified mass scramble her grandparents eventually went to join the altarfamily. EdwardClara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, Duke of Kent won the lotteryseven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. It As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was he and his wife, a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became the saviour of the royal successionrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099451824</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martyn Downer1789017977|title=The QueenRonnie and Hilda's Knight|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title sounds more indicative of a novel by [[:CategoryRomance:Dorothy Dunnett|Dorothy Dunnett]] or Jean Plaidy than Towards a biography. Then a brief prologue starts the story at the very end, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstone. An equally short first chapter gives us a glimpse of the man some thirty years earlier in the thick of battle at the Crimea. Only New Life after that do we 'reach' his birth in 1829. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken, and it's a good way of introducing this very interesting life. As the husband of his subject's great-great-granddaughter, the author is well qualified to write it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Coxe and Peter Danckwerts (Editor)|title=Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=Written by the stepson of John Christopher Smith (a friend of Handel and composer in his own right), ''Anecdotes'' is an overview of two men who in their own ways were remarkable. Handel, of course, was a musical genius while Smith was a man of great kindness — a good friend of Coxe's father, he married his widow to ensure she and her children would be cared for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799396</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Barney Hoskyns|title=Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tom Waits probably enjoys a status comparable to the UK's Richard Thompson. He has never sold out to a mass pop audience, preferring instead to sustain an engagingly low-key career for over 30 years, feted by critics, fellow artists and a cult following while only achieving modest record sales. While his 80s albums 'Swordfishtrombones' and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded as among the finest of the decade, most of his royalties have come through cover versions of his songs. Two, 'Downtown Train' and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits for Rod Stewart, who once said that they paid for the swimming pool in Tom's garden, while in his early days the Eagles gave him a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third album.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235522</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWorld War II|author=Victor Schoelcher (Author), Anton de Moresco (Editor), James Lowe (Translator) |title=The Life of HandelWendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Although he is probably best remembered for his active role in Ronnie Williams was the abolition son of slavery in the French colonies, Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as a campaigner for womento whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's rightsbirthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, Victor Schoelcher but he was also already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a noted musicologistfew years off his age. His biography of For a while, the composer Handel, first published family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in 1857, was one of the first scholarly works on the subject, 1929 Depression and at the time it five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was generally regarded as one of his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the finest portraits of a musician or composer ever writtenarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799388</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain McCalmanPatti Smith|title=Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for Year of the Theory of Evolution|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Osborne|title=The BolterMonkey

|summary=Life in London just after On the Great War must have been jollycoast of Santa Cruz, even frightfully good fun, what – for Patti Smith enters the right (or lunar year of the wrong?) peoplemonkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. The early 1920s were the years of the bright young thingsIn a stranger's words, the men who had been lucky enough to return from the fighting still in one piece''Anything is possible: after all, determined to make up for years of tedium in the trenches by whooping it up with 's the equally pleasure-loving gals barely out year of their teens, just as willing to throw morals and discretion to the winds and party round the clockmonkey''. This was As Smith wanders the age when women thought nothing coast of receiving invited company while Santa Cruz in the bath and slowly getting dressed solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in front of them. One hostess even greeted her guests walking down life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the staircase of her Belgrave Square mansion wearing a string of the family pearls – and nothing elseshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844084809</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doris Kearns Goodwin1912242052|title=Team of RivalsO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=This hefty tome, the cover tells us, is 'the book that inspired Barack Obama'. For what itOh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being 's worth, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on the cover first person to walk the 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 spineadventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, while Lincoln's appears only sixand its literary consequences, and that changed our view of the author a mere twoworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gribbin and Michael WhiteGraff_Find|title=Darwin: A Life in ScienceFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=This straightforward and likeable biography of Charles Darwin charts the evolution When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his theories of evolutionjournal, while providing solid insights into the man in the context he didn't take much notice of his upbringing, education and family lifeit. Importantly, it makes you want to read ''On At the Origin age of the Species''24, acting as a primer for the ideas introduced in that famous volume.  Graff didn''Darwin: A Life in Science'' is pitched beautifully for t realise the reader of popular science, yet gives plenty of signposts enabling future study. It also gives a very believable picture of Darwin, based on convincing evidence and without falling into florid psychological speculation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391494</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael D Lemonick|title=The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding gravity of the Cosmos|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=No-one can ever look at the night skies above our heads as Galileo did. The light pollution covering so much of our planet makes it impossible to see nearly as much as he might. Conversely, he would have adored living in a time such as ours – with the technology to show him so much he couldn't see, so much pages he daren't dream of. Sitting happily between those two extremes was William Herschelholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039306574X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Grann1789016304|title=The Lost City of ZWar and Love: A Legendary British Explorerfamily's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets testament of the Amazonanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=For Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett there was more Melanie Martin read about what happened to the Amazonian jungle than El Dorado. His target Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was a treasure entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of a different nature – a lost 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 war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to be discovered because it was happen in a city, not for any spurious material wealth it might holdcountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Could an entire civilisation have been founded in Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the inhospitable tracks of rain forest, and left remains he Germans might find fame in locating? As this brilliant biography showsreach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, Fawcett was that the best man around Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to find escalate in the way that itdid, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374360</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham1786893452|title=People of the Day 3: The Rich and Famous Caricatured|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=I often find myself paying money for books where the profits go to charity and I'm usually left with the feeling that I'd much rather someone had simply asked me for a donation and not wasted the paper. Every once in a while a book comes along which proves me wrong and there's only one way to describe the ''People of the Day'' series. The books are a delight and it's all in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095481102X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewUngrateful Refugee|author=John Matteson|title=Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father Dina Nayeri

|summary=Louisa May Alcott and her father, Amos Bronson, shared Here in the same birthdayWest, she being born we see news reports about immigrants on 29 November 1832a regular basis – some media welcoming them, his thirty-thirdsome scaremongering about them. Throughout their livesBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, father and daughter remained extraordinarily closealmost always, and even almost died together. When he finally succumbed after a stroke and long-drawn no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out illness on 4 March 1888, she was too ill outsiders to be told the world and followed him two days laterthe situations that refugees find themselves in. Between them, they saw life as It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a persistent but failed quest for perfection'rare opportunity to do that, regarding themselves in their vain pursuit of paradise on earth as Eden's outcaststhis intelligent, hence powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the title middle of this dual biographya revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393333590</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ranginui Walker 0857058320|title=Paki Harrison: Tohunga Whakairo : Lord Of All the Story of a Master Carver |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=It was an inspired choice that Ranginui Walker was commissioned to write this book. He successfully places the extraordinary character of master carver Paki Harrison into an historical, cultural, academic and political context, whilst never letting us forget that this almost mythical genius is very much a man with his personal conflicts, successes and devotion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143010069</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Megan Hutching|title=Over the Wide and Trackless Sea: the Pioneer Women Javier Cercas and Girls of New Zealand|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This book offers a valuable insight into the lives of twelve pioneer women who suffered, endured and triumphed in New Zealand.  Their journey by boat from Europe to New Zealand was a long and sometimes perilous one. The European explorers had previously been certain that their destination existed, mainly because they abhorred a vacuum, and couldn't believe there could be such a vast expanse of ocean without the existence of a great land. Some also believed that without a land mass south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the world would be tipped upside down, while others were fearful they would burn up whilst crossing the equator, a myth finally dispelled by the Portuguese voyaging around Africa.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869507061</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joanne Drayton|title=Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in CrimeAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=Joanne Drayton successfully introduces us ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the reclusive Ngaio Marsh, her extraordinary success, author's lost ancestor's life and her love death. Cercas is searching for the theatremeaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the 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. The question at the arts, her friends and centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the country she loved and would always call homewrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869506359</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wendy Kendall1788037812|title=Wind Driven: Barbara Kendall's Story|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Barbara Kendell is an extraordinary woman. She has not only won windsurfing medals at three Olympics, she is a mother, an IOC representative, public speaker and mentor. This biography, written by her sister, tells the inspiring story The Fraternity of an extraordinary woman who overcame her personal challenges and remains at the top of her sport after twenty years of competition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186979043X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian W Pugh and Paul R Spiring|title=Bertram Fletcher RobinsonEstranged: A Footnote to The Hound of the Baskervilles |rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Bertram Fletcher Robinson was a great friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and a prolific writerFight for Homosexual Rights in England, who tragically died aged just thirty-six in 1907. His collaboration was crucial to the revival of Sherlock Holmes in ACD's best1891-known tale, ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''. This volume is described as a 'footnote' to that story and while there is much of value to Sherlock Holmes fans, I got little impression of BFR the man, despite the meticulously recorded details which the authors have painstakingly uncovered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312403</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908|author=George Johnson|title=The Ten Most Beautiful ExperimentsBrian Anderson

|summary=''The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments'' looks at Originally passed in 1885, the most elegantlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, stylish, simple, groundrestrictions on same-breakingsex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, thrilling and inspiring experiments throughout historythree books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. There's a real feel that this is how science should be doneThey were written by two homosexual men: one personEdward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, alone in a room, forming a hypothesis and creating a method to test itas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. It doubles as a potted biography of some Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the greatest scientists everEuropean Continent, but it's more barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the experiments themselves than struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the peoplemilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224071963</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan KeatesBuckland_Zoo|title=Handel: The Man and His Music |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The chances are that most people who have any knowledge of classical music, even if it's only some familiarity with short soundbites, will have something by Handel embedded in their subconscious – probably a few bars from 'Hallelujah Chorus'. There are few other composers of whom the same can be said. The exceptions – Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mozart come to mind – also seem a little better known as historical figures, while Handel remains something of an unknown quantity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082027</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy Seabrook |title=The Refuge and Who Ate the FortressZoo: Britain and the Flight From Tyranny|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Mongrel nation and successful purveyor of multiculturalism or bunch of xenophobic Little Englanders addicted to past glories? In truth, of course, it's something of both. Prejudice against asylum seekers is nothing new to Britons. A genuine and human commitment to refugees is nothing new either. Alongside the heroic Kindertransport in the 1930sFrank Buckland, we may compare the anti-Semitic rabble-rousing forgotten hero of some newspapers and Oswald Moseley's blackshirts. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230218784</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Brian W Pugh and Paul R Spiring|title=On the Trail of Arthur Conan Doyle: An Illustrated Devon Tour|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=This slim volume, comprising just four chapters, is both a detailed chronology of the life of Arthur Conan Doyle and, for those that want to follow in the footsteps of ACD (I adopt the authors' abbreviation gladly), 'The Complete Arthur Conan Doyle Devon Tour' – locations that inspired The Hound of the Baskervilles and more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846241987</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Russell Miller|title=The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Having reviewed several other biographies of well-known authors in the last few months, it struck me that most of these wordsmiths were dedicated writers, famous for their books and little if anything else, except perhaps for the odd isolated newsworthy incident. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could not have been more different. Although his name is indelibly associated with that of Sherlock Holmes, arguably the most renowned fictional detective of all, he had several careers in one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0436206137</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Kieve|title=Hocus PocusRichard Girling

|summary=''Hocus Pocus'' is part biography of As a conservationist in Victorian England before the greatest magicians term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of all his time. Surgeon, part fictional tale of the author meeting them as they come alive from his postersnaturalist, veterinarian and part magic instruction manual. All the parts foster an interest in magiceccentric sums him up perfectly, and act as an inspiration any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to the next generation of magicianstell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074759094X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon WinchesterWilliams_Captain|title=BombCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Book Cambalong: His Military Life and CompassTimes|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=It is 1943 and a twin engined Douglas C-47 is making its way low over In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the mountains, using cloud cover to avoid Japanese Zero fighters17th Regiment of Foot. It lands right He was in the centre command of China at Chungking - now known as Chongqing in pinyin - into the political troops and military chaosconvicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, which is wartime ChinaAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. A tall man with spectacles emerges - this is Dr Joseph Terence Montgomery NeedhamHe was not destined to live a long life, a brilliant biologist and Cambridge don on an important mission dying suddenly at the age of discovery 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to help save Chinese universities from the marauding Japanese enemyraise their two young sons. In the intense 90-degree heat, he has just arrived from the cool dampness of Gonville and Caius College; Edwards' death left his intensive studies begunwidow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, on behalf of but she was also responsible for the Royal Society and convicts who worked the British government, and also which will lead to the remarkable revelations and extensive history, in twenty four volumes and three million words, of Chinese Science and Technologyland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670913782</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten EllisPeacock_mountain|title=Star of the Morning: Into The Extraordinary Mountain, A Life of Lady Hester StanhopeNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=It Mostly we choose what books to read because there is hard to not be fascinated by Lady Hester Stanhope. A relative of so little time and so many books… I can understand the Pittsapproach, she grew up in an England where King George III was undergoing periodic bouts of madnessbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, where revolutionary France evoked feelings of extreme reaction and we sell the myriad lesser-known authors short as well as intense interest. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and where women – noblewomen in particularfavoured authors, were expected to contract good marriages and support their husbands. Hester resisted. At an age older than her own mother had been when she diedwhile, Hester left England for like most other people I read the Middle Eastreviews and follow up on what appeals, never I also have a third-string to returnmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007170300</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Lyndall Gordon |title=Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It is hardly surprising that the lives of the Brontës have attracted so many biographers, and the story of the siblings' short existences and premature deaths has been told many a time. Where Lyndall Gordon's account differs from these is in exploring Charlotte's life from a more feminist viewpoint than that of the apparently downtrodden novelist, who in the words of her contemporary and first biographer Mrs Gaskell was ''a valiant woman made perfect by sufferings''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084728</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas Wright|title=Oscar's Books|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Oscar Wilde, so the introduction tells us, devoured and luxuriated in books. He had a lifelong thirst for reading, and his house was (obviously) packed with them. It comes as no surprise to find out that he was an accomplished speed reader with a remarkable – and to some extent photographic – memory which helped him to absorb and recall instantly vast amounts of prose and verse. As a reviewer for ''Pall Mall Gazette'', he could master a book's content, plot or argument in minutes. We think he would have been the ideal patron saint of Bookbag.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701180617</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laura Thompson|title=Agatha Christie: An English Mystery|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Agatha Christie, the creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, was one of the select few ultra-successful, very prolific authors who became an institution within her lifetime. She was much read, widely adapted for television, cinema and stage, and often criticised for her sometimes formulaic plots as well as eagerly sought-after by those who had loved her earlier books and were always eager for the next 'Christie for Christmas', something her publishers did not hesitate Move on to exploit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755314883</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yuan-Tsung Chen|title=Return to the Middle Kingdom|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Yuan-Tsung Chen's family have lived through momentous times in China and been as close to what was happening as any one family could be. Chen Guixin, born in 1830 in the time of the Manchu government and just before the beginning of the Opium Wars was her husband's grandfather. He was a part of the Taiping Rebellion but it was his son, Chen Youren who was hailed as a hero when he marched into two former British concessions and reclaimed the land for China. He was the first foreign minister of modern China to have taken back land from the colonial powers. The author married Chen Youren's son, the journalist and artist Jack Chen, who was arrested by the Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution [[Newest Business and who later continued his work in the USA.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402761848</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]