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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Firstbrook1788360702|title=Charles, The ObamasAlternative Prince: The Untold Story of an African FamilyAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The book jacket states that this is Alternative Prince''critically assesses the untold story of an African familyPrince' s opinions, beliefs and with a presidential photograph aims against the background of Barack Obama, the book is certainly eye-catchingscientific evidence. Along with, I'm sure, millions There are few instances of others, I've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' his beliefs being vindicated and was charmed and blown away in almost equal measurehis relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, so I was keen logical reasoning to get started on this bookhis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein1739805100|title=Leonardo's LegacyLoving the Enemy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is Building bridges in a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece time of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Valerie Grove|title=So Much To TellAndrew March

|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be ''Loving the envy Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of many a young bookworm. From 1961 author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, teach in the children’s division early days of Penguinthe Nazi regime in the 1930s. I still have Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some paperbacks vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front coverlasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Matt MacAllester|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's Kitchen|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, used to covering the horrors of war, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anne. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack 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 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 the centre of family life and with the help of Elizabeth David, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cooked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris Welch and Lucian RandallWill Brooker|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian StanshallTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=RedheadsMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], they sayone of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, feel more pain than one of the rest thousands of usless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. They may even have a layer of skin too few This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. However literally true this might be The meeting was some unspecified combination, it certainly seems to be , of her anecdote about cup cakes, the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says in this excellent words of her latest bookshe was reciting, and her being in a 'There'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 rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing between him more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of the latest title, and all struggling with the sensations next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the world has to give us'result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donald SpotoMartha Leigh|title=High SocietyInvisible Ink: Grace Kelly and HollywoodA Family Memoir|rating=35|genre=Biography|summary=In 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 defencetypewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we must acknowledge Spotohis life's subtitlework. It underlines that this does not Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in any way shape or form claim to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace practicalities of Monacolife. It There is an analysis of her film career: love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a consideration of the "Hollywood years"child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MaloneyPolly Barton|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Fifty Sounds|rating=34.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Where do I was start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a bit of a patriot, even when it wasnwhile and if the world hadn't as fashionable as it is gone into melt-down I would have visited by now becoming. Perhaps I may get there later this is due to my once having played Styear, but I am not hopeful. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting And like Barton, I don't know the chance answer to personally slay the dragon question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag of St. George first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being used by a political party condemned as racist, itamong other things, the sound of ''s perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrickevery party where you have to introduce yourself's Day than St. George's Day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RogersFrederic Gros|title=The Last ResortA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayI confess I picked this one up from the country many years ago, but has never been able library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – to follow him go out oftheir homeland, despite an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, pages I have marked and the corruption return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in the countryslowly. Instead, This one had me in thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Driftersfirst two pages,their backpackerswherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport'' lodge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderSharon Blackie|title=Strength in What RemainsIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'Strength in What Remainslife-changing' – although it is definitely the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide first two and civil war in Burundi (just south of only time will tell about the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear third – but clichés exist for a reason and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isnI't quite what m not sure I can succinctly put it promisedany better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay0241446732|title=Trautmann's JourneyOur House is on Fire: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Such did Hitler say at Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in the 1930sparenting of their two daughters. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with a broken neck, such is the lifetime of difference between the two referenceswhat was happening. But that lifetimeIn such circumstances, as packed and varied as it was's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, is in it became clear to the pages of this everfamily that they were ''burned-interesting and swiftlyout people on a burned-devoured bookout planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela Thirlwell0648684806|title=Into The FrameClara Colby: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born in 1821 in Calais of a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in England, was one of the foremost Victorian artists. Throughout his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, and shared many of their same ideals, style and subject matter, though he never officially became a member of the group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewInternational Suffragist|author=Chris Skidmore|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |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 succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked AmbitionJohn Holliday

|summary=Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with the picture The path of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim to an assassinClara Dorothy Bewick'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 life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone eraUSA. Perhaps it At the time she was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made a celebrity three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her, as it did of the likes of Fanny Cradock parents and Nigella Lawson, to name but twothree brothers. Even soInstead, she enjoyed a remarkably successful careerremained with her grandparents, who doted on her and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career womansaw that she received a good education, but quite an unconventional personality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born both in Cambridge in 1946and out of school. The fourth of five children, he She was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of child in the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist household and watercolour painter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=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 rebelsher childhood was glorious. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet GibsonBy contrast, 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>}} {{newreview|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 family had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband pioneer farmers in the mid- west of the United States and possibly saved her from her eventual end on the scaffold. The first life was her Irish cousin James Butlerhard, later Earl of Ormond, whom she as Clara was at one time intended to marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title find out when she 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 her grandparents eventually went to join the Duke of Northumberlandfamily. With Clara would only know her mother for a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolseyfew months: she was married for fifteen years, the Duke, who had little time for his sonten pregnancies, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long 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 Singer|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potentialClara arrived. When measured against As the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinckeldest girl, he fell some way short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture heavy burden would fall on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, Clara and at one point he Wisconsin was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened to.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Caroline Moorehead |title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A.Roger Ekirch 1789017977|title=BirthrightRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The True Story That Inspired KidnappedTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on factEthel Wall. So it was in the case of Robert Louis StevensonThere's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scottsome doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's ''Guy Mannering''birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and at least three others, all of which can point to the saga of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=At school I remember spending he might well have shaved a lot of time on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening few years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian eraoff his age. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of For a quick mention of while, the fact that William wasn't family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in direct line of succession to the throne 1929 Depression and Mary five-year-old Ronnie had never wanted to marry adjust to a 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 in the first placethroughout his life. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BakewellPatti Smith|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer |rating=5|genre=Biography|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard Beck, the Chicago School sociologist. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about the next book for review. I'll allow myself to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering of interest in the subject matter. Just occasionally this way, I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewer. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Baldwin|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars Year of the RosesMonkey

|summary=Due to On the small amount coast of surviving personal sourcesSanta Cruz, any book which purports to be a biography Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a 15-century subject stranger's words, ''Anything is almost inevitably going to be more a possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey'life and times' than a life. In As Smith wanders the case coast of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselvesSanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the lack of data will be even more acuteshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Roe1912242052|title=The Private Lives of the ImpressionistsO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen mountains alone, not because he had to exhibit their for work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned by the Salonas a miner, the French equivalent of the Royal Academyquarryman, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparaginglyshepherd or pack-named Salon des Refuséshorse driver, where crowds and critics came but because he wanted to view - for pleasure and jeeradventure. When they held the first of His rapturous encounters with their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on natural beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paintand its literary consequences, smeared it onto yards changed our view of canvas, and signed the result with several different namesworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will BirchGraff_Find|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive BiographyFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical world. In When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a branch plastic folder of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardomhandwritten notes from his journal, he was no oil paintingdidn't take much notice of it. During At the pub rock eraage of 24, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'nGraff didn'roll, and his songs extolled t realise the virtues gravity 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, pages he was comparatively middle-agedholding. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Simpson1789016304|title=Alastair SimWar and Love: The Star A family's testament of Scrooge anguish, endurance and the Belles of St Trinian'sdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=Melanie 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 mere mention Diary of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the 1950s when war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a more gentle humour was country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the order of occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the day. Yet Germans might reach the man hated and did his best to avoid publicitycity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, claiming that the person Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the public saw on screen revealed all way that anybody needed to know about himit did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. How he would have fared twenty years later in the age of It's an atrocity on a more intrusive press, one cannot vast scale but wondermade up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crawford1786893452|title=The Bard: Robert Burns - a biographyUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own BardHere in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – who lived almost always western, and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils almost always, no matter how deep the equivalent role in Scottish iconography more than adequately. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesinvestigative journalism they carry out, there is much more outsiders to the man than world and the wordsmith of 'Auld Lang Synesituations that refugees find themselves in. It' s rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and 'Weethis is a rare opportunity to do that, sleekitin this intelligent, cowrin'powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran, tim'rous beastie'fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Porter0857058320|title=Katherine Lord Of All the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine ParrDead|ratingauthor=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Katherine Parr was the last Javier Cercas 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 StoryMcLean (translator)

|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the UK Gold TV channels, author's lost ancestor's life and from occasional mentions death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the context of Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas'how great he would have been if only…uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco' In 1978 s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The Sunday Times Magazine tipped question at the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of hero whilst having fought for the great all-round stage actors. One year later, he was deadwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1788037812|title=Sons, Servants and StatesmenThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Men Fight for Homosexual Rights in Queen Victoria's LifeEngland, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=Like Originally passed in 1885, the first Elizabeth more 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 than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoria, but John Van der Kiste has taken on the unusual step nature of using the homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual 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 : Edward Carpenter and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonJohn Addington Symonds, servant or statesman' as promised by well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the title margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the bookEuropean Continent, but he established a trend. Victoriabarely talked about in the UK, often regarded as a difficult woman so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to pleasethe scientific understanding of homosexuality, would always have a man in her life who wouldand beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to a greater or lesser extent, dominate herthe milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maureen EmersonBuckland_Zoo|title=Escape to ProvenceThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=In the 1920s two women, one American, one British, settled As a conservationist in Victorian England before 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 fiancéterm existed, Frank Buckland was very much a nephew man ahead of the American Presidenthis time. Drawn to ParisSurgeon, naturalist, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated veterinarian 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 Castelloeccentric sums him up perfectly, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 any biographer is immediately presented 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 colourful tale to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange ratetell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sushila Anand Williams_Captain|title=DaisyCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: The Lives His Military Life and Loves of the Countess of WarwickTimes|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861, In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the Countess 17th Regiment of Warwick lived a colourful life by any standardsFoot. She He was notoriously promiscuous, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try in command of the troops and provoke convicts on board a royal scandal ship sailing from Plymouth to shore up her parlous financesSydney, Australia: his wife and although she relished her lifestyle to the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for the pioneer socialists in Britainyoung son accompanied him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband He was a little taken aback not destined to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in live a book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Welllong life, I knew it was about a boy who ''played'' American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be dying suddenly at 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 age of the story; the story of Michael Oher34 at Bangalore, a young African-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never around, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him leaving his widow to social services at a raise their two young agesons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Billy Hopkins|title=TommyEdwards's World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born death left his widow in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one of the poorer, inner-city suburbs of Manchester. His father had quite a good job and there wasn't a lot of money difficult position: not only did she have their farm to spare manage, but Tommy remembered she was also responsible for 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 convicts who worked the form of worldly goodsland. 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 Two years oldlater she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire TomalinPeacock_mountain|title=Thomas Hardy: Into The Time-Torn ManMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=I came Mostly we choose what books to this biography having read three of Hardy's novelsbecause there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, two quite recentlylike most other people I have my favourite genres, and some of his poetryfavoured authors, but knowing very little about him as and while, like most other people I read the reviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably third-string to life in these pagesmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life 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 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-Thomas|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When I was 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 around. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Tillyard |title=A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=King George III was not the luckiest of English sovereigns. America, and then his sons, in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years of his life were clouded by madness. It is thus often overlooked that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman |title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=So many biographies have been written about the life and times of England's longest-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether there is anything new left to say about her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle – by telling the story of her life through the women closest to her.|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]]