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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Clayton1788360702|title=Charles, The Richard Beckinsale StoryAlternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the UK Gold TV channelsPrince's opinions, beliefs and from occasional mentions in aims against the background of the context scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of 'how great he would treatments which have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped no scientific support has done considerable damage to the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as reputation of a rising major star of the 80s man who would blossom into one is proud of the great allhis refusal to apply evidence-round stage actors. One year laterbased, he was deadlogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1739805100|title=Sons, Servants and StatesmenLoving the Enemy: The Men Building bridges in Queen Victoria's Lifea time of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Like ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the unusual step early days of using the men Nazi regime in her life to illuminate the 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some dark corners vague ideas of "building bridges" which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course may guard against the most famous man growing hostilities between nations unfolding in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isnEurope at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by the title of the book, universally successful but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as did make friendships and connections that lasted for a difficult woman to please, would always have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate herlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen EmersonWill Brooker|title=Escape to ProvenceThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5|genre=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 Warwick|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the Countess thousands of Warwick lived a colourful life by any standardsless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. She was notoriously promiscuousThis book starts with the two meeting each other, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try and provoke a royal scandal to shore up her parlous financesas well, and although she relished her lifestyle to shows how 2021 drew the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for the pioneer socialists in Britaintwo closer and closer together.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title= The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband meeting was a little taken aback to see me curled up on some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the sofa engrossed in a words of her latest book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it she was going to be about American Football. Wellreciting, I knew it was about and her being in a boy who ''playedblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' American Football(certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but I'd thought that was just going to be the background storypulled Brooker, you knowa professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, like in ''Jerry Maguire'down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. So Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the first chapter seemed to go on and on foreverpublished author's life, 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 working to the real heart make a success of the story; latest title, and struggling with the story of Michael Ohernext in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, a young African-American from agrees. And this is 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 ageresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Billy HopkinsMartha Leigh|title=Tommy's WorldInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=General FictionBiography|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in October 1886 in Collyhursta slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, one forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the poorerphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterhis life's work. His father had quite Her mother is a good job and there wasn't a lot of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughterconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt Neither parent is hugely interested in terms the practicalities of affection rather than life. There is love in the form of worldly goods. All house but also darker undercurrents that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgings. Even that tenuous security wasn't to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire TomalinPolly Barton|title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn ManFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I came don't know the answer to this biography having read three the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of Hardythe question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' ''s novels– which she describes as being, two quite recentlyamong other things, and some the sound of his poetry, but knowing very little about him as a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably ''every party where you have to life in these pagesintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsFrederic Gros|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I A Philosophy of PortugalWalking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time I confess I picked this one up from the richest and most opulent city library in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historymy pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Married Now I have to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune return to be born in during the 'age of reason', its varying wisdom when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach I need to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Graham McCann|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was Some books draw you 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 aroundslowly. He was certainly This one of had me in the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grinfirst two pages, cigarette holder and inimitable wherein Gros explains why '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 Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III was walking is not the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years of his life were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman |title=Elizabethsport's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times of England's longest-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through the women closest to her.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224082264</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 Caricatured|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Have you ever been asked to buy a book in aid of a charity and wished that you'd given a donation and not taken the book? Well, if you have I'm hoping to persuade you that there are exceptions to every rule and this book in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is definitely worth the cover price.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Jeremy Nicholas |title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K Jerome: A 150th Anniversary CelebrationJohn Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Although he The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was a prolific novelistjust three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, short story writershe remained with her grandparents, dramatist who doted on her and journalistsaw that she received a good education, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first both in and foremost as out of school. She was the author of ''Three Men only child in a Boat''the household and her childhood was glorious. This fascinating anthologyBy contrast, published on her family had become pioneer farmers in the 150th anniversary mid-west of his birththe United States and life was hard, reminds us that there as Clara was far more to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to 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 died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the man than that one admittedly enduring bookeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard D Ryder1789017977|title=Nelson, Hitler Ronnie and DianaHilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy 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 Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for 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 Fraternity of non-fiction will enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Osborne|title=the Estranged: The Bolter|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Life in London just after the Great War must have been jolly, even frightfully good fun, what – Fight for the right (or the wrong?) people. The early 1920s were the years of the bright young things, the men who had been lucky enough to return from the fighting still Homosexual Rights in one pieceEngland, determined to make up for years of tedium in the trenches by whooping it up with the equally pleasure1891-loving gals barely out of their teens, 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 of the family pearls – and nothing else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084809</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908|author=Doris Kearns Goodwin|title=Team of RivalsBrian Anderson|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This hefty tomeOriginally passed in 1885, the cover tells uslaw 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, is 'three books on the book that inspired Barack Obama'nature of homosexuality appeared. For what it's worthThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, Obama's name appears no less than nine times as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the cover and spineEuropean Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, while Lincoln's appears only sixso the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and that beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of the author a mere twosame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gribbin and Michael WhiteBuckland_Zoo|title=DarwinThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: A Life in ScienceFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard 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 did. The light pollution covering so much 17th Regiment of our planet makes it impossible to see nearly as much as he mightFoot. Conversely, he would have adored living He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a time such as ours – with the technology ship sailing from Plymouth to show him so much he couldn't seeSydney, so much he daren't dream of. Sitting happily between those two extremes was William Herschel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039306574X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Grann|title=The Lost City of ZAustralia: 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 Doradohis wife and young son accompanied him. His target He was a treasure of a different nature – a lost city not destined to be discovered because it was live a citylong life, not for any spurious material wealth it might hold. Could an entire civilisation have been founded in dying suddenly at the inhospitable tracks age of rain forest34 at Bangalore, and leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left remains he might find fame his widow in locating? As this brilliant biography showsa difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, Fawcett but she was also responsible for the best man around to find itconvicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374360</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy ClaphamPeacock_mountain|title=People of the Day 3: Into 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 fatherMountain, 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 A Life of paradise on earth as Eden's outcasts, hence the title of this dual biography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393333590</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|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 so many books… I can understand 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 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 artsreviews and follow up on what appeals, her friends and the country she loved and would always call homeI also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869506359</amazonuk>
}}
