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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1788360702|title=SonsCharles, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her life, husband and Alternative Prince Consort Albert isn't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by the title of the book, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Maureen Emerson|title=Escape to Provence|rating=4.5|genre=: An Unauthorised Biography|summary=In the 1920s two women, one American, one British, settled in the south of France, both for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood and the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancé, a nephew of the American President. Drawn to Paris, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as a nurse during the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone house, the Castello, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 with a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historian. After the fall of the pound, it was hard for them to make ends meet in England, and they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sushila Anand |title=Daisy: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickEdzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861For over forty years, the Countess Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Warwick lived a colourful life by any standards. She was notoriously promiscuous, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try and provoke a royal scandal to shore up her parlous finances, alternative medicine and although she relished her lifestyle to the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for the pioneer socialists in Britain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Footballcomplementary therapies. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Well'Charles, I knew it was about a boy who ''played'The Alternative Prince' American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be critically assesses the background story, you know, like in Prince''Jerry Maguire''. So the first chapter seemed to go on and on forevers opinions, beliefs and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled to aims against the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oher, a young African-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never around, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him to social services at a young age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one background of the poorer, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterscientific evidence. His father had quite a good job and there wasn't a lot There are few instances of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as his beliefs being filled with love vindicated and laughter. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms his relentless promotion of affection rather than in treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the form reputation of worldly goods. All that was to change when his father died a man who is proud of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had refusal to move into cheaper lodgings. Even that tenuous security wasn't apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin1739805100|title=Thomas HardyLoving the Enemy: The Time-Torn ManBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=I came to this biography having read three ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of Hardyauthor Andrew March's novelsgrandparents, two quite recentlywho first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of his poetry, "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but knowing very little about him as he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably to life in these pageslifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsWill Brooker|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born in 1734 in LisbonMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], at that time one of the richest and most opulent city in Europesuccessful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, Maria was destined to become and shows how 2021 drew the first female monarch in Portuguese historytwo closer and closer together. Married to The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her uncle Infante Pedroanecdote about cup cakes, seventeen years the words of her seniorlatest book she was reciting, she had six children and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (outliving all certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but one pulled Brooker, a professor of them)cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and became Queen in 1777down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to be born follow her through a year in during the published author'age of reason's life, when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively working to make a supporter success of the old religionlatest title, and struggling with a humanitarian approach to state affairsthe next in line. Jewell, she was no Queen Elizabethdue diligence appropriately done, no Catherine agrees. And this is the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantlyresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham McCannMartha Leigh|title=Bounder!Invisible Ink: The Biography of Terry-ThomasA Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in my early teensa slightly eccentric, it sometimes seemed immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as if Terry-Thomas was one of he edits the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around. He was certainly one complete correspondence of the most recognizable characters of all with his gapphilosopher Jean-toothed grinJacques Rousseau, cigarette holder and inimitable his life'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best s work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of all, life. There is love in the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>1800460384
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|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=So many biographies have Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been written about on my radar for a while and if the life and times of Englandworld hadn's longestt gone into melt-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether down I would have visited by now. I may get there is anything new left later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to say about the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – by telling which she describes as being, among other things, the story sound of her life through the women closest ''every party where you have to herintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James LeverFrederic Gros|title=Me CheetaA Philosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Straight out of I confess I picked this one up from the golden age library in my pre-lockdown forage of Hollywood comes the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its starsrandom stuff. There are scores Now I have to be settled, stars go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to be insulted, secrets its varying wisdom when I need to be hinted at none too subtley, and lost opportunities to be longed for. Oh, and Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the star telling all? Wellfirst two pages, for those of you who canwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport't tell from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta - chimpanzee star of the Tarzan films.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>1781688370
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|rating=5
|genre=Biography|summary=Even today, London is I normally say that you can tell how much a remarkable compromise of the old and the newbook means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volume, Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changedone I've borrowed. There have been a handful of books in the past on I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring'Holmes's Londonlife-changing', but this – although it is definitely the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with two and only time will tell about the detective third – but clichés exist for a reason and his creatorI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 0241446732|title=Bobbles & PlumOur House is on Fire: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and PG WodehouseSvante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=PThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal.G Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Wodehouse needs little if any introduction, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and career were cut short talking and he is little known outside his connections her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with Sir Arthur Conan Doylewhat was happening. This set of satirical playlets on which they collaboratedIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, published in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sincebut eventually, are presented in book form for it became clear to the first timefamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. As such If they show how the careers of both men were evolving, particularly while Wodehouse was finding his feet and experimenting with the different facets of journalism before finding his niche in comic fictionto find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham 0648684806|title=People of the Day 4Clara Colby: The Rich and Famous CaricaturedInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Have you ever been asked The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to buy a book in aid the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of a charity some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and wished saw that you'd given she received a donation good education, both in and not taken out of school. She was the only child in the book? household and her childhood was glorious. WellBy contrast, if you have I'm hoping her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to persuade you that there are exceptions find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to every rule join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and this book died in aid of childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is definitely worth the cover priceeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Nicholas 1789017977|title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K Jerome: A 150th Anniversary Celebration|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Although he was a prolific novelist, short story writer, dramatist and journalist, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first Ronnie and foremost as the author of Hilda''Three Men in s Romance: Towards a Boat''. This fascinating anthology, published on the 150th anniversary of his birth, reminds us that there was far more to the man than that one admittedly enduring book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and DianaWendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceHistory|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer Ronnie Williams was the son of great renownThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when but he was nine? already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in For a time of paternal disapprovalwhile, and a kind of Oedipal reaction the family was quite well-to being the man -do but disaster struck in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a claim she very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor Hamilton Patti Smith|title=Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and Year of the Victorian Search for Life After DeathMonkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography |summary=Born in 1843On the coast of Santa Cruz, Frederic Myers began his career as a classical lecturer at Cambridge University, but disliked teaching and soon gave it up in favour Patti Smith enters the lunar year of writing poetry and essays in literature. Although his social circle included men such as Gladstonethe monkey - one packed with mischief, Ruskinsorrow, Tennyson, Browning and Prince Leopold, the most intellectual of Queen Victoriaunexpected moments. In a stranger's sonswords, his books (which are not so well remembered today) might have been his sole claim to fame''Anything is possible: after all, had it not been for his passionate curiosity about 's the meaning year of human lifethe monkey''. If it had As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a purpose, he was convincedyear that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it could only be discovered through the study of human experiencesshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845401239</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1912242052|title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=Biography Art|summary=Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes you into another world. Such is the case with this one. ''Vanity FairOh Joy for me!'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of gives Coleridge credit for being ''Private Eye''. Subtitledthe first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, ''A Weekly'' ''Show of Politicalas a miner, Socialquarryman, and Literary Wares''shepherd or pack-horse driver, it appeared between 1868 but because he wanted to for pleasure and 1914adventure. Like the more successfulHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, longer-lasting ''Punch'', it began with radical aspirationsand its literary consequences, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities changed our view of the elite social classesworld''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Piers DudgeonGraff_Find|title=Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of NeverlandFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of thinking that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mumhandwritten notes from his journal, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit and a couple he didn't take much notice of guinea pigsit. Sprinkle in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for At the girlsage of 24, a nice car in Graff didn't realise the drive gravity of the nice house, good clothes and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life pages he was going. Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin, gave her a note, 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 and Child Protection Officersholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Walker1789016304|title=Pilgrim StateWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Written Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by the stepson of John Christopher Smith (a friend of Handel and composer what she discovered, particularly in his own right), ''AnecdotesThe Diary of Ann Frank''but then realised that her own family' is an overview of two men 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 happen in a country with liberal values who in their own ways were remarkableresistant to German occupation. HandelMost people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, of coursethat the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, was but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a musical genius while Smith was a man vast scale but made up of tens of great kindness — a good friend thousands of Coxe's father, he married his widow to ensure she and her children would be cared forindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799396</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barney Hoskyns1786893452|title=Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom WaitsThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born and raised Here in Los Angelesthe West, Tom Waits probably enjoys we see news reports about immigrants on a status comparable to regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the UK's Richard Thompson. He has never sold investigative journalism they carry out to a mass pop audience, preferring instead outsiders to sustain an engagingly low-key career for over 30 years, feted by critics, fellow artists the world and a cult following while only achieving modest record salesthe situations that refugees find themselves in. While his 80s albums It'Swordfishtrombones' and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded as among s rare that we find out the finest of journeys from the decaderefugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, most of his royalties have come through cover versions of his songs. Twoin this intelligent, 'Downtown Train' powerful and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits for Rod Stewart, moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who once said that they paid for was born in the swimming pool middle of a revolution in Tom's gardenIran, while in his early days the Eagles gave him fleeing to America as a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third albumten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235522</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victor Schoelcher (Author), Anton de Moresco (Editor), James Lowe (Translator) 0857058320|title=The Life of HandelLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although he ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is probably best remembered searching for the meaning behind his active role great uncle's death in the abolition of slavery in Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the French colonies, and as a campaigner book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for womenFrancisco Franco's rights, Victor Schoelcher was also a noted musicologistforces. His biography of the composer Handel, first published in 1857, was one of the first scholarly works Cercas ruminates on the subject, and why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the time centre of this book is whether it was generally regarded as one of is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the finest portraits of a musician or composer ever writtenwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799388</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain McCalman1788037812|title=Darwin's ArmadaThe Fraternity of the Estranged: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle The Fight for the Theory of EvolutionHomosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=A look at Darwin's journey Originally passed in 1885, the law 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. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on The Beaglethe nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as journeys by Joseph Hookerthe heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear the milestone legalisation of nonsame-fiction will enjoy itsex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances OsborneBuckland_Zoo|title=The Bolter|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Life in London just after the Great War must have been jolly, even frightfully good fun, what – for the right (or the wrong?) people. The early 1920s were Man Who Ate the years of the bright young things, the men who had been lucky enough to return from the fighting still in one piece, determined to make up for years of tedium in the trenches by whooping it up with the equally pleasure-loving gals barely out of their teensZoo: Frank Buckland, just as willing to throw morals and discretion to the winds and party round the clock. This was the age when women thought nothing of receiving invited company while in the bath and slowly getting dressed in front of them. One hostess even greeted her guests walking down the staircase of her Belgrave Square mansion wearing a string forgotten hero of the family pearls – and nothing else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084809</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Doris Kearns Goodwin|title=Team of Rivals|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This hefty tome, the cover tells us, is 'the book that inspired Barack Obama'. For what it's worth, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on the cover and spine, while Lincoln's appears only six, and that of the author a mere two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Gribbin and Michael White|title=Darwin: A Life in ScienceRichard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This straightforward and likeable biography of Charles Darwin charts As a conservationist in Victorian England before the evolution of his theories of evolutionterm existed, while providing solid insights into the Frank Buckland was very much a man in the context ahead of his upbringingtime. Surgeon, education naturalist, veterinarian and family life. Importantlyeccentric sums him up perfectly, it makes you want to read ''On the Origin of the Species'', acting as a primer for the ideas introduced in that famous volume. ''Darwin: A Life in Science'' and any biographer is pitched beautifully for the reader of popular science, yet gives plenty of signposts enabling future study. It also gives immediately presented with a very believable picture of Darwin, based on convincing evidence and without falling into florid psychological speculationcolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391494</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael D LemonickWilliams_Captain|title=The Georgian StarCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: How William His Military Life and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the CosmosTimes|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=No-one can ever look at In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the night skies above our heads as Galileo did17th Regiment of Foot. The light pollution covering so much He was in command of our planet makes it impossible the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to see nearly as much as he mightSydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. ConverselyHe was not destined to live a long life, he would have adored living dying suddenly at the age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a time such as ours – with the technology difficult position: not only did she have their farm to show him so much he couldn't seemanage, so much he daren't dream ofbut she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Sitting happily between those two extremes was William HerschelTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039306574X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GrannPeacock_mountain|title=Into The Lost City of Z: Mountain, A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the Amazon|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=For Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett there was more to the Amazonian jungle than El Dorado. His target was a treasure of a different nature – a lost city to be discovered because it was a city, not for any spurious material wealth it might hold. Could an entire civilisation have been founded in the inhospitable tracks Life of rain forest, and left remains he might find fame in locating? As this brilliant biography shows, Fawcett was the best man around to find it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374360</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham|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>}} {{newreview|author=John Matteson|title=Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Louisa May Alcott and her father, Amos Bronson, shared the same birthday, she being born on 29 November 1832, his thirty-third. Throughout their lives, father and daughter remained extraordinarily close, and even almost died together. When he finally succumbed after a stroke and long-drawn out illness on 4 March 1888, she was too ill to be told and followed him two days later. Between them, they saw life as 'a persistent but failed quest for perfection', regarding themselves in their vain pursuit of paradise on earth as Eden's outcasts, hence the title of this dual biography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393333590</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ranginui Walker |title=Paki Harrison: Tohunga Whakairo : the Story of a Master Carver Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=It was an inspired choice that Ranginui Walker was commissioned Mostly we choose what books 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 read because there is very much a man with his personal conflicts, successes so little time and devotion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143010069</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Megan Hutching|title=Over the Wide and Trackless Sea: the Pioneer Women and Girls of New Zealand|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This book offers a valuable insight into so many books… I can understand the lives of twelve pioneer women who sufferedapproach, endured and triumphed in New Zealand. Their journey but I also think we sell ourselves short 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 vacuumit, and couldn't believe there could be such a vast expanse of ocean without we sell the existence of a great landmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Some also believed that without a land mass south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the world would be tipped upside down, So 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 Crime|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Joanne Drayton successfully introduces us to the reclusive Ngaio Marshlike most other people I have my favourite genres, her extraordinary successand favoured authors, and her love for the theatrewhile, like most other people I read the arts, her friends reviews and the country she loved and would always call home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869506359</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Wendy Kendall|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 Olympicsfollow up on what appeals, she is a mother, an IOC representative, public speaker and mentor. This biography, written by her sister, tells the inspiring story 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 Robinson: A Footnote to The Hound of the Baskervilles |rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Bertram Fletcher Robinson was I also have a great friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and a prolific writer, who tragically died aged just thirtythird-six in 1907. His collaboration was crucial string to the revival of Sherlock Holmes in ACD's best-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 uncoveredmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312403</amazonuk>
}}
