Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Grove1788360702|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be the envy of many a young bookworm. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, the children’s division of Penguin. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt MacAllester|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenEdzard Ernst

|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalistFor over forty years, used to covering the horrors Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of waralternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the life Prince's opinions, beliefs and death aims against the background of his mother Annethe scientific evidence. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly There are few instances of a heart attack his beliefs being vindicated and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusual, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter relentless promotion of a century, trapped in her own private world of madness. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always at treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the centre reputation of family life and with the help a man who is proud of Elizabeth Davidhis refusal to apply evidence-based, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought logical reasoning to find his mother through the food she cookedambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Welch and Lucian Randall1739805100|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Redheads, they say, feel more pain than the rest of us. They may even have a layer of skin too few. However literally true this might be, it certainly seems to be Loving the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says in this excellent book, 'There's nothing between him and all the sensations the world has to give us'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Donald Spoto|title=High SocietyEnemy: Grace Kelly and Hollywood|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=In his defence, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not Building bridges in any way shape or form claim to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. It is an analysis time of her film career: a consideration of the "Hollywood years".|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Alison Maloney|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Andrew March|rating=34.5

|summary=I was a bit ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of a patriotauthor Andrew March's grandparents, even who first met when it wasn't as fashionable as it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to my once having played St. George teach in a Cub Scout celebration and getting the chance to personally slay early days of the dragon Nazi regime in knitted chain mail with a plastic swordthe 1930s. In Fred, a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the flag of Sttime. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist, itFred's perhaps unsurprising that more attempts to separate individual people celebrate St. Patrickfrom ideology weren's Day than St. George's Dayt universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RogersWill Brooker|title=The Last ResortTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the country many years agomost successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, but has one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never been able to persuadehis parents – have read. This book starts with the two white farmersmeeting each other, as well, Lyn and Roz – to follow him out shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, oftheir homelandher anecdote about cup cakes, despite the resettlement policies words of Robert Mugabeher 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 author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the hyperrabbit-inflationhole that is Jewell's diverse output. 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 latest title, and struggling with the corruption next in the countryline. Instead Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodgeresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderMartha Leigh|title=Strength in What RemainsInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary='Strength Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in What Remains' 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 inspirational account complete correspondence of Deogratiasthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a man concert pianist who has fled from practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the genocide and civil war practicalities of life. There is love in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear and want of house but also darker undercurrents that a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promisedchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Catrine ClayPolly Barton|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendFifty Sounds

|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'You t gone into melt-down I would have to learn to be hard menvisited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to accept sacrifice without ever succumbingthe question '. Such did Hitler say at 'why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies question in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neckfirst essay, such which is on the lifetime of difference between the two references. But that lifetimesound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, as packed and varied as it wasamong other things, is in the pages sound of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured book''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela ThirlwellFrederic Gros|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves A Philosophy of Ford Madox Brown Walking|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born I confess I picked this one up from the library in 1821 in Calais my pre-lockdown forage of a Scottish family, raised in France random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and Belgium before settling return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in England, was one of the foremost Victorian artistsslowly. Throughout his career he was closely associated with This one had me in the Pre-Raphaelites, and shared many of their same idealsfirst two pages, style and subject matter, though he never officially became wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a member of the groupsport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris SkidmoreSharon Blackie|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart If Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband and securing the successionnormally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master Perhaps an even greater measure of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married impact is setting out to Amy Robsart did little to quell buy my own copy before I've finished reading the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked Ambition|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Until one I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure've borrowed. I was familiar with the picture of the loinclothwant to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-clad man who fell victim to an assassinchanging's bullet shortly after Indian independence, but knew little more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Shephard|title=The Surprising Life of Constance Spry|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention of – although it is definitely the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging first two and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps it was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made a celebrity of her, as it did of only time will tell about the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name third – but two. Even so, she enjoyed clichés exist for a remarkably successful career, reason and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personalityI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rob Chapman0241446732|title=Syd BarrettOur House is on Fire: A Very Irregular Head Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary=Roger BarrettThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) struggled with what was born in Cambridge in 1946happening. The fourth of five childrenIn such circumstances, he was the only one it's natural to seek a solution close to inherit any lasting artistic talenthome, but eventually, which came from his father Maxit became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. The latter was If they were to find a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painterway to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Stonor Saunders0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Josephine Wilkinson|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michele Monro|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's SingerJohn Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=In terms The path of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potentialClara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. When measured against At the achievements time she was just three-years-old but because of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way shortthree brothers. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on the light entertainment circuit, her and overseassaw that she received a good education, particularly both in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one out of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he school. She was the biggest selling artist only child in Spainthe household and her childhood was glorious. His idol Frank SinatraBy contrast, to whom he her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was often comparedhard, often said that Matt as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only British singer he ever really listened toknow 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 eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 1789017977|title=Dancing to the Precipice Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French RevolutionTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=Two hundred years ago, with Ronnie Williams was the fall son of the monarchy Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after anotherEthel 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, but he was already many who witnessed years older than Ethel and experienced the volatile he might well have shaved a few years off his age at first hand. For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but few left disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a more detailed record than very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=A.Roger Ekirch Patti Smith|title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedYear of the Monkey

|summary=At school I remember spending a lot On the coast of time on Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites lunar year of the history teacher monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, 'meaningful'Anything is possible: after all, it' period – s the Victorian erayear of the monkey''. The importance As Smith wanders the coast of William and Mary was completely overlooked Santa Cruz in favour of solitude, she reflects on a quick mention of the fact year that William wasn't brings huge shifts in direct line of succession to the throne her life - loss and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successorageing are faced head-on, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bakewell1912242052|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about first person to walk the next book for review. I'll allow myself mountains alone, not because he had to fall for work, as a quirky title miner, quarryman, shepherd or appealing coverpack-horse driver, despite only a smattering of interest in the subject matterbut because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. Just occasionally this wayHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewerits literary consequences, changed our view of the world''. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David BaldwinGraff_Find|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the RosesFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Due to the small amount When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of surviving personal sourceshandwritten notes from his journal, any book which purports to be a biography he didn't take much notice of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a lifeit. In At the case age of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves24, Graff didn't realise the lack gravity of data will be even more acutethe pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1789016304|title=The Private Lives War and Love: A family's testament of the Impressionistsanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=4.5

|summary=In the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen Melanie Martin read about what happened to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by the Salonwhat she discovered, the French equivalent particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at city during the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refuséswar years, where crowds but only five thousand survived and critics came Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to view - and jeerhappen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. When they held Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said city were convinced that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty'would soon be pushed back, while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in paint, smeared the way that it onto yards of canvasdid, and signed but initial protests melted away as the result with several different namesorganisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Birch1786893452|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Ian Dury was always one of Here in the most individualWest, even contrary characters in the musical world. In a branch of showbiz where people often relied we see news reports about immigrants on good looks as a short cut to stardomregular basis – some media welcoming them, he was no oil paintingsome scaremongering about them. During the pub rock eraBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, he and his groupalmost always, no matter how deep the Blockheadsinvestigative journalism they carry out, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more outsiders to jazz-funk than rockthe world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It'n'roll, and his songs extolled s rare that we find out the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those journeys from Memphis or California. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in the rock pressthis intelligent, he powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was comparatively born in the middle-aged. As if that was not enoughof a revolution in Iran, in his own words childhood illness had left him fleeing to America as a permanent 'raspberry ripple'ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson0857058320|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and the Belles of St Trinian'sAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during ''Lord Of All the 1950s when Dead'' is a more gentle humour was journey to uncover the order of the dayauthor's lost ancestor's life and death. Yet Cercas is searching for the man hated and did meaning behind his best to avoid publicitygreat uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, claiming that is the person figure who looms large over the public saw book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about himwhy his uncle fought for this dictator. How he would have fared twenty years later in The question at the age centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonderhero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford1788037812|title=The Bard: Robert Burns - 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 Fraternity of 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Linda Porter|title=Katherine the QueenEstranged: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr|rating=4.5|genre=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 Story|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on the UK Gold TV channels, and from occasional mentions in the context of 'how great he would have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of the great all-round stage actors. One year later, he was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Like the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might other wise have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her life, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'son, servant or statesman' as promised by the title of the book, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always have a man in her life who would, to a greater or lesser extent, dominate her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Maureen Emerson|title=Escape to Provence|rating=4.5|genre=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 Fight for them to make ends meet Homosexual Rights 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 1861, the Countess of Warwick lived a colourful life by any standards. She was notoriously promiscuous, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try and provoke a royal scandal to shore up her parlous finances, and although she relished her lifestyle to the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for the pioneer socialists in Britain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Well, I knew it was about a boy who ''played'' American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be the background story, you know, like in ''Jerry Maguire''. So the first chapter seemed 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 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 to social services at a young age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one of the poorer, inner1891-city suburbs of Manchester. His father had quite a good job and there wasn't a lot of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughter. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form of worldly goods. All 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 old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn ManBrian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=I came to Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this biography having read time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of Hardy's novels, homosexuality appeared. They were written by two quite recentlyhomosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and some of his poetrystudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but knowing very little barely talked about him as a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to life the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in these pages1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer RobertsBuckland_Zoo|title=The Madness of Queen MariaMan Who Ate the Zoo: The Remarkable Life Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese natural history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Graham McCann|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasRichard Girling

|summary=When I was As a conservationist in my early teensVictorian England before the term existed, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas Frank Buckland was one very much a man ahead of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film aroundhis time. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grinSurgeon, naturalist, cigarette holder veterinarian and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!'eccentric sums him up perfectly, and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Tillyard Williams_Captain|title=A Royal AffairCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George III and His Troublesome SiblingsWilliams

|summary=King George III was not In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the luckiest 17th Regiment of English sovereignsFoot. AmericaHe was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and then his sons, in that order, gave young son accompanied him no end of grief. He was not destined to live a long life, and dying suddenly at the last few years age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his life were clouded by madnesswidow to raise their two young sons. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to haunt this most conscientious monarchmanage, he but she was also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblingsresponsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman Peacock_mountain|title=Elizabeth's Women: Into The Hidden Story Mountain, A Life of the Virgin QueenNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=So Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many biographies have been written about books… I can understand the life approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and times of England's longestwe sell the myriad lesser-lived known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, 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 favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the story of her life through the women closest reviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string to hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>

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