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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Robert Crawford|title=The Bard: Robert Burns <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-- a biography|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own Bard, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils the equivalent role in Scottish iconography more than adequately. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstrates, there is much more to the man than the wordsmith of 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Porter1788360702|title=Katherine the QueenCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr|rating=4.5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Katherine Parr was the last and arguably the most fortunate of King Henry VIII's six wives. Apart from Anne of Cleves, the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare', she was the only one to survive him. And while all six of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figures, this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Clayton|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryEdzard 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
}}
{{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!', walking is not a sport'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845134419</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=ItMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's a story which has been told by many authors during the last centurystories were equally fascinating. The Victorian age, or at any rate A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the woman who gave her name to city during the erawar years, came about largely if but only five thousand survived and Martin could not wholly because of understand how this could be allowed to happen in a crisis of sorts among King George III's familycountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. By Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the time his seven surviving sons reached middle age, city were convinced that they had managed to produce one legitimate child between them, namely Princess Charlotte. Her unexpected deathwould soon be pushed back, and the need for at least some if not all of that the others Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to do their dynastic duty and produce an heir or two, resulted escalate in an undignified mass scramble to the altar. Edwardway that it did, Duke of Kent won but initial protests melted away as the lotteryorganisers became more circumspect. It was he and his wife, 's an atrocity on a widow with two small children by her first marriage, whose daughter Victoria became the saviour vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of the royal successionindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099451824</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martyn Downer1786893452|title=The Queen's KnightUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The title sounds more indicative of a novel by [[:Category:Dorothy Dunnett|Dorothy Dunnett]] or Jean Plaidy than a biography. Then a brief prologue starts the story at Here in the very endWest, when Queen Victoria receives the unexpected we see news of the death of Sir Howard Elphinstonereports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. An equally short first chapter gives us a glimpse But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the man some thirty years earlier in investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the thick of battle at world and the Crimea. Only after situations that do we 'reach' his birth refugees find themselves in 1829. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken, and itIt's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a good way of introducing rare opportunity to do that, in this very interesting life. As intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the husband middle of his subject's greata revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-greatyear-granddaughter, the author is well qualified to write itold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055215508X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Coxe and Peter Danckwerts (Editor)0857058320|title=Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=Written by Lord Of All 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>}} {{newreviewDead|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 Javier Cercas 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>}} {{newreview|author=Victor Schoelcher Anne McLean (Authortranslator), Anton de Moresco (Editor), James Lowe (Translator) |title=The Life of Handel
|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 Man Who Ate the Great War must have been jollyZoo: Frank Buckland, even frightfully good fun, what – 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 in one piece, determined to make up for years forgotten hero of tedium in the trenches by whooping it up with the equally pleasure-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>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Doris Kearns Goodwin|title=Team of RivalsRichard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This hefty tome, As a conservationist in Victorian England before the cover tells usterm existed, is 'the book that inspired Barack Obama'Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. For what it's worthSurgeon, naturalist, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on the cover veterinarian and spine, while Lincoln's appears only sixeccentric sums him up perfectly, and that of the author any biographer is immediately presented with a mere twocolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gribbin and Michael WhiteWilliams_Captain|title=Darwin: A Life in Science|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This straightforward and likeable biography of Charles Darwin charts the evolution Captain Ronald Campbell of his theories of evolutionBombala Station, while providing solid insights into the man in the context of his upbringing, education and family life. Importantly, it makes you want to read ''On the Origin of the Species'', acting as a primer for the ideas introduced in that famous volume. ''DarwinCambalong: A His Military Life in Science'' is pitched beautifully for 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>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Michael D Lemonick|title=The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the CosmosIvor 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: 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. Into The books are a delight and it's all in aid Mountain, A Life of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095481102X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=John Matteson|title=Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Louisa May Alcott Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and her fatherso many books… I can understand the approach, Amos Bronsonbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, shared and we sell the same birthday, she being born on 29 November 1832, his thirtymyriad lesser-thirdknown authors short as well. Throughout their livesSo while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, father and daughter remained extraordinarily closefavoured authors, and even almost died together. When he finally succumbed after a stroke while, like most other people I read the reviews and long-drawn out illness follow up on 4 March 1888what appeals, she was too ill I also have a third-string 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 biographymy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393333590</amazonuk>
}}
