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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Birch1788360702|title=Ian DuryCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Definitive Biography|rating=4.5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical world. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardom, he was no oil painting. During the pub rock era, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'n'roll, and his songs extolled the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or California. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in the rock press, he was comparatively middle-aged. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark Simpson|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sEdzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the 1950s when a more gentle humour was Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the order background of the dayscientific evidence. Yet the man hated There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to know about him. How he would have fared twenty years later in the age reputation of a more intrusive pressman who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, one cannot but wonderlogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford1739805100|title=The BardLoving the Enemy: Robert Burns - Building bridges in a biographytime of war|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=If Shakespeare is England''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's own Bardgrandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils early days of the equivalent role Nazi regime in Scottish iconography more than adequatelythe 1930s. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesFred, there is much more to a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the man than growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the wordsmith of time. Fred'Auld Lang Synes attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren' t universally successful but he did make friendships and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda PorterWill Brooker|title=Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Katherine Parr was the last and arguably Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most fortunate of King Henry VIIIsuccessful British authors I's six wivesve never knowingly read. Apart from Anne Now meet Will Brooker, one of Clevesthe thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the only one author events I get to survive himattend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. And while all six Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figureslatest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this biography gives is the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David ClaytonMartha Leigh|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the UK Gold TV channels, and from occasional mentions in the context complete correspondence of 'how great he would have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30philosopher Jean-year-old sitcom favourite as Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a rising major star of concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the 80s who would blossom into one practicalities of life. There is love in the great all-round stage actors. One year later, he was deadhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KistePolly Barton|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's LifeFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Like Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary 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 been written about Queen Victoriavisited by now. I may get there later this year, but John Van der Kiste has taken I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the unusual step question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of using the men question in her life to illuminate some dark corners the first essay, which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course is on the most famous man in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isnsound ''giro't 'son, servant or statesman' – which she describes as promised by being, among other things, the title sound of the book, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always ''every party where you have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate herintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen EmersonFrederic Gros|title=Escape to ProvenceA Philosophy of Walking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In the 1920s two women, one American, I confess I picked this one British, settled in up from the south of France, both for different reasons. Elisabeth Starr had left her home library in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood and the death, possibly suicide, my pre-lockdown forage of her fiancé, a nephew of the American Presidentrandom stuff. Drawn Now I have to Paris, 'go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the chosen European city for the sophisticated pages I have marked and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as a nurse during the Great War, then moved return to its varying wisdom when I need 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 Some books draw you in financial terms) military historianslowly. 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 This one had me in Provence partly by the lifestylefirst two pages, partly by wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a favourable exchange ratesport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sushila Anand Sharon Blackie|title=Daisy: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861, the Countess of Warwick lived I normally say that you can tell how much a colourful life book means to me by any standardshow many pages have corners turned down. She was notoriously promiscuous, a spendthrift who did not hesitate Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to try and provoke a royal scandal buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to shore up her parlous finances, avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and although she relished her lifestyle to only time will tell about the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly third – but clichés exist for the pioneer socialists in Britaina reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Lewis0241446732|title=The Blind SideOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=45|genre=SportPolitics and Society|summary=I think my husband The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was a little taken aback to see me curled up an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the sofa engrossed in a book about American Footballparenting of their two daughters. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was going to be about American Footballhappening. WellIn such circumstances, I knew it was about 's natural to seek a boy who ''played'' American Footballsolution close to home, but I'd thought that was just going eventually, it became clear to be the background story, you know, like in family that they were ''Jerry Maguireburned-out people on a burned-out planet''. So the first chapter seemed If they were to go on and on forever, 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 find a way to 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 live happily again their solution would need to social services at a young agebe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy Hopkins0648684806|title=Tommy's WorldClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times The path of EnglandClara Dorothy Bewick's longestlife was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-lived years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and longest reigning sovereign three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and herchildhood was glorious. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the story mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her life through grandparents eventually went to join the women closest to family. Clara would only know hermother 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 eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Lever1789017977|title=Me CheetaRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionHistory|summary=Straight out of Ronnie Williams was the golden age son of Hollywood comes the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its starsThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There are scores 's some doubt as to be settledwhether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, stars to be insultedbut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while, secrets the family was quite well-to be hinted at none too subtley, -do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and lost opportunities five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to be longed fora very different lifestyle. Oh, and the star telling all? Well, for those of you who can't tell One thing he did inherit from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta his father was his need to be well-turned- chimpanzee star of out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the Tarzan filmsarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philippe Auclair Patti Smith|title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be KingYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Even todayOn the coast of Santa Cruz, London is a remarkable compromise Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the old monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and the newunexpected moments. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volumeIn a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changed. There have been a handful year of books in the past on monkey'Holmes's London', but this is . As Smith wanders the first coast of its kind to place equal emphasis Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on places associated with , as it the detective and his creatorshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1912242052|title=Bobbles & Plum: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson and PG WodehouseO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=P.G. Wodehouse needs little if any introduction''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life because he wanted to for pleasure and career were cut short and he is little known outside his connections with Sir Arthur Conan Doyleadventure. This set of satirical playlets on which they collaboratedHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, published in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sinceits literary consequences, are presented in book form for the first time. As such they show how the careers changed our view 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 fictionworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>
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|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 Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and John Christopher SmithAnne McLean (translator)|rating=34
|genre=Biography
|summary=Written by ''Lord Of All the stepson of John Christopher Smith (a friend of Handel and composer in his own right), Dead''Anecdotesis a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor' s life and death. Cercas is an overview of two men who searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in their own ways were remarkablethe Spanish Civil War. HandelManuel Mena, of courseCercas' great uncle, was a musical genius while Smith was a man of great kindness — a good friend of Coxeis the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's father, he married forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his widow great uncle to ensure she and her children would be cared a hero whilst having fought forthe wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799396</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barney Hoskyns1788037812|title=Lowside The Fraternity of the RoadEstranged: A Life of Tom WaitsThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Born and raised Originally passed in Los Angeles1885, Tom Waits probably enjoys a status comparable to the UK's Richard Thompson. He has never sold out to law that had made homosexual relations a mass pop audience, preferring instead to sustain an engagingly low-key career crime remained in place for over 30 82 years. But during this time, feted by criticsrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, fellow artists and a cult following while only achieving modest record salesthree books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. While his 80s albums 'Swordfishtrombones' They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded John Addington Symonds, as well as among the finest heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the decadeEuropean Continent, most but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of his royalties have come through cover versions these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of his songs. Twohomosexuality, 'Downtown Train' and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits beginning the struggle for Rod Stewartrecognition and equality, who once said that they paid for leading to the swimming pool in Tom's garden, while milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in his early days the Eagles gave him a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third album1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235522</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victor Schoelcher (Author), Anton de Moresco (Editor), James Lowe (Translator) Buckland_Zoo|title=The Life of Handel|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Although he is probably best remembered for his active role in Man Who Ate the abolition of slavery in the French colonies, and as a campaigner for women's rights, Victor Schoelcher was also a noted musicologist. His biography of the composer Handel, first published in 1857, was one of the first scholarly works on the subjectZoo: Frank Buckland, and at the time it was generally regarded as one of the finest portraits forgotten hero of a musician or composer ever written.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799388</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Iain McCalman|title=Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of EvolutionRichard Girling|rating=34.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The BeagleAs a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, as well as journeys by Joseph Hookerveterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes any biographer is immediately presented with a different tone colourful tale to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy ittell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances OsborneWilliams_Captain|title=The BolterCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Life in London just after In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the Great War must have been jolly, even frightfully good fun, what – for the right (or the wrong?) people17th Regiment of Foot. The early 1920s were the years He was in command of the bright troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young thingsson accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the men who had been lucky enough to return from the fighting still in one pieceage of 34 at Bangalore, determined leaving his widow to make up for years of tedium raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in the trenches by whooping it up with the equally pleasure-loving gals barely out of a difficult position: not only did she have their teensfarm to manage, just as willing to throw morals and discretion to the winds and party round the clock. This but she was also responsible for the age when women thought nothing of receiving invited company while in convicts who worked the bath and slowly getting dressed in front of themland. One hostess even greeted her guests walking down the staircase of her Belgrave Square mansion wearing a string of the family pearls – and nothing elseTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084809</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Doris Kearns GoodwinPeacock_mountain|title=Team Into The Mountain, A Life of RivalsNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This hefty tomeMostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, the cover tells usbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, is 'and we sell the book that inspired Barack Obama'myriad lesser-known authors short as well. For what it's worthSo while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, Obama's name appears no less than nine times on the cover and spinefavoured authors, and while Lincoln's appears only six, like most other people I read the reviews and that of the author follow up on what appeals, I also have a mere twothird-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>
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