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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Charles Margerison|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The cover of this book tells the reader that these short ''bioviews'' or biographies can be read in 10 mins or so. This is one of a series within ''The Amazing People Club'' courtesy of the ''Amazing People Team''. There is a rather fulsome ''Author's Note'' followed by a one<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-page introduction. I was immediately struck by the fact that, given the various feats of these women, I was anxious to read about them - and not about Dr Margerison. Less is more. He goes on to say (by now I'm getting a bit tired of the smiling Margerison) that 'The stories are inspirational and can help you achieve your ambitions in your own journey through life.' All of this and especially that last sentence sits rather uneasily with me, I'm afraid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921629940</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Selina Hastings1788360702|title=Charles, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham|rating=4.5|genre=Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|summary=These days, W. Somerset Maugham seems to be something of an anachronism. In his heyday, for much of a career which lasted from the end of the Victorian era to the 1950s, he was one of the most successful and widely read of all British writers, with his novels, short stories and plays spawning more film adaptations than any other author. Yet over the last thirty years or so he seems to have slipped from favour, as if his preoccupation with the Edwardian England in which he grew up and his end-of-empire settings are deeply embedded in an age we would rather forget. Moreover, as this very comprehensive biography demonstrates, he was not the most pleasant of individuals. The unhappy child, orphaned by the time he was ten, afflicted with a lifelong stammer and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affection, grew up to lead a long and unhappy life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew McConnell Stott|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest ComedianEdzard Ernst

|summary=This book For over forty years, Prince Charles has won several prestigious awards, so my expectations were raised before I'd even opened the bookbeen an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. And of all the plaudits given on the back cover''Charles, my favourite was Simon CallowsThe Alternative Prince' '(A) great big Christmas pudding critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of a book the scientific evidence...' Stott has researched There are few instances of his subject thoroughly. First up, there's a Grimaldi family tree, a Prologue, an Introduction beliefs being vindicated and all this before you get his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the story properreputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, so logical reasoning to speakhis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Davidson1739805100|title=The Perfect NaziLoving the Enemy: Uncovering My SS Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced Building bridges in a Generation|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Meet Martin Davidson. Now, when I start my reviews like that, normally it means he's the main character, but he's not here. He's big in the world time of BBC History documentaries, and grew up in the UK, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of his older relatives lived through the Second World War. Foremost among them was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, who would have been of fighting age - in his 30s - during the Third Reich. Nothing much was ever said about Bruno's own history during the war, except for many inflammatory, rising comments by Bruno himself. It took the old man to die for the truth to be admitted by Martin's mother - their forefather was in the SS.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sjeng Scheijen|title=Diaghilev: A LifeAndrew March

|summary=Sergey Diaghilev was one of ''Loving the towering figures in Enemy'' tells the artistic world quite extraordinary story of Russiaauthor Andrew March's grandparents, and indeed Europe, at who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the start early days of the 20th century. Born Nazi regime in 1872 the ambitious son of 1930s. Fred, a bankrupt vodka producer from Perm, sensitive and a mother who died a few days later probably from puerperal fever, by his early twenties he was on close terms with such names as Tolstoythoughtful man, Zola, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. He worked his way into the ranks had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the cultural cognoscenti growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at St Petersburg and launched the itinerant troupe which would become the Ballets Russes, playing time. Fred's attempts to packed houses as far west as Britain separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and the United Statesconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681642</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HowarthWill Brooker|title=We Die AloneThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Consider taking a five day sail in a small fishing boat Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the height thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the North Sea from Shetlandtwo meeting each other, as well, to try and establish, train shows how 2021 drew the two closer and supply closer together. The meeting was some potentially vital anti-German resistance in the farunspecified combination, it seems, far north of occupied Norwayher anecdote about cup cakes, your homeland. Imagine the sight words of heavy naval parades where you intended 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 author events I get to landattend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, as galling proof down the rabbit-hole that your intel is ages out of dateJewell's diverse output. Ponder too Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the fact that you get reported published author's life, working to make a success of the Nazis latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due to diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the most ridiculous slight of fortuneresult. |isbn=1529136024}}{{Frontpage|author= Martha Leigh|title= Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= All your colleagues are dead or capturedMartha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, your equipment blown up with your trawler to keep it safe from Jerry hands, half your big toe has been shot offimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, and you're forced to go forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the run in one complete correspondence of Europethe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's last, and coldest, wildernesseswork. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is going to getthere.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet SoskicePolly Barton|title=Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden GospelsFifty Sounds

|genre=Biography|summary=Sisters of Sinai tells the story of two extraordinary, Victorian women who unearthed an important early copy of the Gospels from a remote monastery in Egypt. It hardly seems possible that they organised and executed such remarkable feats of unaccompanied travel during an age in which women's freedom was hidebound by their status as the inferior sex. Janet Soskice is well-placed as a feminist philosopher and theologian to explore their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954654X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Natasha McElhone|title=After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband Politics and Father|rating=3.5|genre=BiographySociety|summary=What would you Where do if, without warning, your brilliant, loving, superman partner died from a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age of 43I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, leaving you with two young boys and a third on the wayquestion ''Why Japan? Most of us would probably reach '' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the Valium and book a very long course of counseling. But Natascha McElhone couldnworld hadn't because she was already stretched, juggling a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young family. Coping as a single parent left no spare time for selfgone into melt-indulgence; within months she had a new baby as welldown I would have visited by now. So she found her own wayI may get there later this year, grabbing instead at odd moments to write in her well-established diarybut I am not hopeful. These short entries … e-mailsAnd like Barton, almost … I don't know the answer to her dead husband form the basis of question 'After You'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Firstbrook|title=The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The book jacket states that this is why Japan?'the untold story of an African family' and with a presidential photograph She explains her feelings in respect of Barack Obamathe question in the first essay, which is on the book is certainly eye-catching. Along withsound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, I'm sureamong other things, millions the sound of others, I've read 'The Audacity Of Hopeevery party where you have to introduce yourself'' and was charmed and blown away in almost equal measure, so I was keen to get started on this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stefan KleinFrederic Gros|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the WorldA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with I confess I picked this one up from the most populist and some library in my pre-lockdown forage of the most awkwardly scientificrandom stuff. Basically it throws modern-day science at Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the Mona Lisa, which pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you might think is 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 of Italian art, and she’s survived much worseslowly. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also This one had me in the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himselffirst two pages, which all helps us know partly wherein Gros explains why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreview|author=Valerie Grove|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=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 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 RandallSharon Blackie|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian StanshallIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=Redheads, they I normally say, feel more pain than the rest of usthat you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. They may Perhaps an even have a layer greater measure of skin too few. However literally true this might be, it certainly seems impact is setting out to be buy my own copy before I've finished reading the case for Vivian Stanshallone I've borrowed. As his second wife says in this excellent book, I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'Therelife-changing's nothing between him – although it is definitely the first two and all only time will tell about the sensations the world has to give usthird – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donald Spoto0241446732|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and Hollywood|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=In his defence, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not 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 Our House is an analysis of her film career: a consideration of the "Hollywood years".|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Maloney|title=St Georgeon Fire: Let's Hear it for England!|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I was a bit Scenes of a patriot, even when it wasn't as fashionable as it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in Family and a Cub Scout celebration and getting the chance to personally slay the dragon Planet 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 is being used by a political party condemned as racist, it's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Day.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Douglas Rogers|title=The Last ResortMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the country many parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years agoold, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, but has never been able it's natural to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – seek a solution close to follow him out oftheir homelandhome, despite the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabebut eventually,it became clear to the hyperfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-inflation, and the corruption in the countryout planet''. Instead, thepair just wanted If they were to stay on the farm welcoming people find a way to Drifters,live happily again their backpackers' lodgesolution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Kidder0648684806|title=Strength in What RemainsClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick'Strength in What Remains' is s life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the inspirational account time she was just three-years-old but because of Deogratiassome childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, a man who has fled from the genocide doted on her and civil war saw that she received a good education, both in Burundi (just south and out of school. She was the equator only child in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda)the household and her childhood was glorious. He escapes to New York By contrast, out her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of fear the United States and want of a safer life; was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only his new found American life isn't quite what it promisedknow 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>186197857X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay1789017977|title=TrautmannRonnie and Hilda's JourneyRomance: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There'You have s some doubt as to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without whether or not they were ever succumbingmarried or even Harry'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies s birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the 1930s1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at For a FA Cup final with a broken neckwhile, such is the lifetime of difference between the two references. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it family was, is quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the pages of this ever1929 Depression and five-interesting and swiftlyyear-devoured book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Angela Thirlwell|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ford Madox Brown, born in 1821 in Calais of old Ronnie had to adjust to a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in England, was one of the foremost Victorian artistsvery different lifestyle. Throughout One thing he did inherit from his career he father was closely associated with the Prehis need to be well-turned-Raphaelites, out and shared many of their same ideals, style and subject matter, though he never officially became a member of this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the grouparmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris SkidmorePatti Smith|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 Year 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 AmbitionMonkey

|summary=Until I read this bookOn the coast of Santa Cruz, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with Patti Smith enters the picture lunar year of the loinclothmonkey -clad man who fell victim to an assassinone packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's bullet shortly words, ''Anything is possible: after Indian independenceall, but knew little moreit's the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa 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 shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Shephard1912242052|title=The Surprising Life of Constance Spry|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention of the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging 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 the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name but two. Even so, she enjoyed a remarkably successful career, and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewO Joy for me!|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=EntertainmentArt|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (letOh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''s make him Syd from now on) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five childrenthe first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he was the only one had to inherit any lasting artistic talentfor work, which came from his father Max. The latter was as a senior pathologistminer, member of the local Philharmonic Societyquarryman, gifted singershepherd or pack-horse driver, pianist but because he wanted to for pleasure and watercolour painteradventure.|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 His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and 20th centuries have produced their fair share its literary consequences, changed our view 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 Disraeliworld''s government during the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Josephine WilkinsonGraff_Find|title=The Early Loves of Anne BoleynFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|genre=HistoryAutobiography|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 When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him 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 plastic folder of Northumberland. With a little help handwritten notes from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his sonjournal, insisted that any idea he didn't take much notice of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwithit. Soon after this At the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured age of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign24, and her destiny was sealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michele Monro|title=Matt Monro: The SingerGraff didn's Singer|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against t realise the achievements gravity of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture 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, and at one point pages he was the biggest selling artist in Spainholding. 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>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 1789016304|title=Dancing to the Precipice War and Love: 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 Pin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped|rating=4|genre=History|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on fact. So it was in the case of Robert Louis Stevensonfamily's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Mannering''testament of anguish, endurance 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 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 years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him devotion in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Sarah Bakewell|title=How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Melanie Martin

|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 'Chance … really '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 city during the way things war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen,' wrote Howard Beck, the Chicago School sociologistin a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. I visit Bookbag Towers with few preconceived ideas about Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the next book for review. I'll Amsterdammers would never allow myself what happened to fall for a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering of interest escalate in the subject matter. Just occasionally this waythat it did, I stumble on a golden nugget so fascinating and well-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewerbut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. IIt'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>individual tragedies.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Baldwin1786893452|title=The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Due to the small amount of surviving personal sources, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a life. In the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves, the lack of data will be even more acute.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewUngrateful Refugee|author=Sue Roe|title=The Private Lives of the ImpressionistsDina Nayeri

|summary=In Here in the early 1860s West, we see news reports about immigrants on a group of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their workregular basis – some media welcoming them, despite opposition from the official art worldsome scaremongering about them. Their protests at being spurned But all of those stories are written by the Salonjournalists – almost always western, the French equivalent of the Royal Academyand almost always, resulted in their paintings being shown at no matter how deep the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusésinvestigative journalism they carry out, where crowds and critics came outsiders to view - the world and jeerthe situations that refugees find themselves in. When they held It's rare that we find out the journeys from the first of their own exhibitions refugees themselves – and this is a few years laterrare opportunity to do that, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty'in this intelligent, while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the powerful and moving work of some practical joker by Dina Nayeri -someone who had dipped his brushes was born in paint, smeared it onto yards the middle of canvasa revolution in Iran, and signed the result with several different namesfleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Birch0857058320|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography|rating=4.5|genre=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 Lord Of All 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>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Mark Simpson|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge 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 BardFraternity of the Estranged: Robert Burns The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891- a biography1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=If Shakespeare is England's own BardOriginally passed in 1885, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils the equivalent role law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in Scottish iconography more than adequatelyplace for 82 years. Yet as But during this very thorough biography demonstratestime, there is much more to restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the man than nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the wordsmith heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of 'Auld Lang Syne' society and 'Weestudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, sleekitbut barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, cowrin'and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, tim'rous beastie'leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda PorterBuckland_Zoo|title=Katherine The Man Who Ate the QueenZoo: The Remarkable Life Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Katherine Parrnatural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Katherine Parr As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was the last and arguably the most fortunate very much a man ahead of King Henry VIII's six wiveshis time. Apart from Anne of ClevesSurgeon, the speedily divorced 'Flanders mare'naturalist, she was the only one to survive veterinarian and eccentric sums him. And while all six of the queens consort remain rather shadowy figuresup perfectly, this biography gives the impression that she was probably the most intelligent and well-rounded personality of them allany biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710395</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David ClaytonWilliams_Captain|title=The Richard Beckinsale StoryCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from repeats on the UK Gold TV channelsPlymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and from occasional mentions in young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the context age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards'how great he would death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have been if only…' In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s convicts who would blossom into one of worked the great all-round stage actorsland. One year Two years later, he was deadshe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KistePeacock_mountain|title=SonsInto The Mountain, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's A Lifeof Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=Like Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the first Elizabeth more books than are strictly necessary have been written about Queen Victoriaapproach, but John Van der Kiste has taken I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the unusual step of using the men in her life to illuminate some dark corners which might myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other wise people I have remained unexplored. Of course the most famous man in her lifemy favourite genres, and favoured authors, husband and Prince Consort Albert isn't 'sonwhile, servant or statesman' as promised by like most other people I read the title of the bookreviews and follow up on what appeals, but he established a trend. Victoria, often regarded as a difficult woman to please, would always I also have a man in her life who would, third-string to a greater or lesser extent, dominate hermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750937882</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Maureen Emerson|title=Escape Move on 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 [[Newest Business and the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancé, a nephew of the American President. Drawn to Paris, 'the chosen European city for the sophisticated and well-heeled of the New World', she worked as a nurse during the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone house, the Castello, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was the wife of the Royal Librarian at Windsor, who retired in 1926 with a knighthood and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historian. After the fall of the pound, it was hard for them to make ends meet in England, and they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestyle, partly by a favourable exchange rate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]