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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual1788360702|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla BruniCharles, The Alternative Prince: The True Story|rating=3.5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=In November 2007 the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonely. He accepted an invitation to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Bruni. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by the attentions of a beautiful, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were married.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Roland Huntford|title=Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and AmundsenEdzard Ernst

|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out for the AntarcticFor over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. 'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership of Captain Robert ScottCharles, while The Alternative Prince'Fram' sailed with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The basic facts can be briefly summarized. Amundsen arrived at critically assesses the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned home to a heroPrince's welcomeopinions, while Scott reached beliefs and aims against the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on background of the return journeyscientific evidence. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they had died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Margerison|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The cover There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of this book tells treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reader that these short ''bioviews'' or biographies can be read in 10 mins or so. This is one reputation of a series within ''The Amazing People Club'' courtesy of the ''Amazing People Team''. There man who is a rather fulsome ''Author's Note'' followed by a one-page introduction. I was immediately struck by the fact that, given the various feats proud of these women, I was anxious his refusal to read about them apply evidence- and not about Dr Margerison. Less is more. He goes on based, logical reasoning 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 his 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 Hastings1739805100|title=The Secret Lives Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of Somerset Maughamwar|author=Andrew March

|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 ''Loving the 1950s, he was one of Enemy'' tells the most successful and widely read quite extraordinary story of all British writersauthor Andrew March's grandparents, 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 who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to have slipped from favour, as if his preoccupation with teach in the Edwardian England in which he grew up and his end-early days of-empire settings are deeply embedded the Nazi regime in an age we would rather forgetthe 1930s. MoreoverFred, as this very comprehensive biography demonstratesa sensitive and thoughtful man, he was not had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the most pleasant of individuals. The unhappy child, orphaned by 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 was ten, afflicted with a lifelong stammer did make friendships and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affection, grew up to lead connections that lasted for a long and unhappy lifelifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew McConnell StottWill Brooker|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest ComedianTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=This book has won several prestigious awardsMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], so my expectations were raised before one of the most successful British authors I'd even opened ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This bookstarts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. And The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of all her anecdote about cup cakes, the plaudits given on the back coverwords of her latest book she was reciting, my favourite was Simon Callowsand her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade' '(Acertainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend) great big Christmas pudding , but pulled Brooker, a professor of a book ...cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell' Stott has researched his subject thoroughlys diverse output. First up, thereBrooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's a Grimaldi family treelife, working to make a Prologuesuccess of the latest title, an Introduction and all struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this before you get to is the story proper, so to speakresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin DavidsonMartha Leigh|title=The Perfect NaziInvisible Ink: Uncovering My SS Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced a GenerationA Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Meet Martin Davidson. NowMartha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, when I start my reviews like thatimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, normally it means he's the main character, but forever clacking away on his typewriter as he's not here. He's big in edits the world complete correspondence of BBC History documentaries, and grew up in the UKphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of his older relatives lived through the Second World Warlife's work. Foremost among them was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, Her mother is a concert pianist who would have been of fighting age - practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested 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 himselfpracticalities of life. It took the old man to die for the truth to be admitted by Martin's mother - their forefather was There is love in the SShouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjeng ScheijenPolly Barton|title=Diaghilev: A LifeFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Sergey Diaghilev was one of Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the towering figures in question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the artistic world of Russiahadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, and indeed Europebut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, at I don't know the answer to the start question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the 20th century. Born question in 1872 the ambitious son of a bankrupt vodka producer from Permfirst essay, and a mother who died a few days later probably from puerperal fever, by his early twenties he was which is on close terms with such names the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as Tolstoybeing, Zolaamong other things, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. He worked his way into the ranks sound of the cultural cognoscenti at St Petersburg and launched the itinerant troupe which would become the Ballets Russes, playing ''every party where you have to packed houses as far west as Britain and the United Statesintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681642</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HowarthFrederic Gros|title=We Die AloneA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Consider taking a five day sail I confess I picked this one up from the library in a small fishing boat the height of the North Sea from Shetland, to try and establish, train and supply some potentially vital antimy pre-German resistance in the far, far north lockdown forage of occupied Norway, your homelandrandom stuff. Imagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended Now I have to land, as galling proof go out an buy my own copy so that your intel is ages out of date. Ponder too I can turn down the fact that you get reported pages I have marked and return to the Nazis due its varying wisdom when I need to the most ridiculous slight of fortune. Some books draw you in slowly. All your colleagues are dead or capturedThis one had me in the first two pages, your equipment blown up with your trawler to keep it safe from Jerry hands, half your big toe has been shot off, and youwherein Gros explains why 're forced to go on the run in one of Europe's last, and coldest, wildernesses. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario walking is going to getnot a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet SoskiceSharon Blackie|title=Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden GospelsIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Sisters of Sinai tells the story of two extraordinary, Victorian women who unearthed an important early copy of the Gospels from I normally say that you can tell how much a remote monastery in Egyptbook means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. It hardly seems possible that they organised and executed such remarkable feats Perhaps an even greater measure of unaccompanied travel during an age in which womenimpact is setting out to buy my own copy before I's freedom was hidebound by their status as ve finished reading the inferior sexone I've borrowed. Janet Soskice I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is well-placed as definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a feminist philosopher reason and theologian to explore their livesI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009954654X</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasha McElhone0241446732|title=After YouOur House is on Fire: Letters Scenes of Lovea Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, and LossGreta Thunberg, to a Husband Beata Thunberg and FatherSvante Thunberg|rating=3.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=What would you do if, without warning, your brilliant, loving, superman partner died from a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age of 43, leaving you with two young boys The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and a third Svante Thunberg took on the way? Most most of us would probably reach for the Valium and book a very long course parenting of counselingtheir two daughters. But Natascha McElhone couldn't because she Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was already stretchedhappening. In such circumstances, juggling it's natural to seek a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the family. Coping as that they were ''burned-out people on a single parent left no spare time for selfburned-indulgence; within months she had a new baby as wellout planet''. So she found her own If they were to find a way, grabbing instead at odd moments to write in her well-established diary. These short entries … e-mails, almost … live happily again their solution would need to her dead husband form the basis of 'After You'be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Firstbrook0648684806|title=The ObamasClara Colby: The Untold Story of an African FamilyInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=The book jacket states that this is path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the untold story USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of an African familysome childhood ailment, she wasn' t allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a presidential photograph good education, both in and out of Barack Obama, school. She was the only child in the book is certainly eye-catchinghousehold and her childhood was glorious. Along withBy contrast, I'm sure, millions her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of othersthe United States and life was hard, I've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was charmed married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and blown away died in almost equal measurechildbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, so I a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was keen to get started on this booka rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein1789017977|title=LeonardoRonnie and Hilda's LegacyRomance: How Da Vinci Reinvented the Towards a New Life after WorldWar II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=54|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=This excellent combination Ronnie Williams was the son of science history and biography starts with the most populist Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and some of the most awkwardly scientificEthel Wall. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona LisaThere'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, which you but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might think is well have shaved a little unfair – can she cope with being analysedfew years off his age. For a while, and the neuroscience we now know used family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best1929 Depression and five-year-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worseold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci One thing he did know inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out 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>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Grove|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career this would be the envy of many a young bookwormstay with him throughout his life. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, He joined the children’s division of Penguinarmy at eighteen in 1942. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt MacAllesterPatti Smith|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenYear of the Monkey

|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalistOn the coast of Santa Cruz, used to covering Patti Smith enters the horrors lunar year of warthe monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anneunexpected moments. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusualstranger's words, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter of a century''Anything is possible: after all, trapped in her own private world it's the year of madnessthe monkey''. His earliest memories were As Smith wanders the coast of an idyllic childhoodSanta Cruz in solitude, where wonderful food was always at the centre of family she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and with the help of Elizabeth Davidageing are faced head-on, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through as it the food she cookedshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Welch and Lucian Randall1912242052|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 the case O Joy 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>}} {{newreviewme!|author=Donald Spoto|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and HollywoodKeir Davidson

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In his defence''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not in any way shape because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or form claim pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monacofor pleasure and adventure. It is an analysis of her film career: a consideration His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the "Hollywood years"world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MaloneyGraff_Find|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=I was When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a bit plastic folder of a patriothandwritten notes from his journal, even when it wasnhe didn't as fashionable as take much notice of it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting At the chance to personally slay the dragon in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag age of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist24, itGraff didn's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Dayt realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rogers1789016304|title=The Last ResortWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom the country many years ago, but has never been able Melanie Martin read about what happened to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and Roz – to follow him out oftheir homelandwas entranced by what she discovered, despite the resettlement policies particularly in ''The Diary of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, and the corruption in the country. Instead, thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackersAnn Frank' lodge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Kidder|title=Strength in What Remains|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary='Strength in What Remainsbut then realised that her own family' is s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from city during the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africayears, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear but only five thousand survived and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promised.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Catrine Clay|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary='You have to learn to Martin could not understand how this could be hard men, allowed to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies happen in the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final country with a broken neck, such is the lifetime of difference between the two referencesliberal values who were resistant to German occupation. But Most people believed that lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-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 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 occupation could never officially became a member of the group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Skidmore|title=Death and the Virginhappen: Elizabeth, Dudley and even those who thought that the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended Germans might reach 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 city were convinced that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to they would soon be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked Ambition|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Until I read this bookpushed back, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with that the picture of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to an assassin'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 escalate in the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps it was her misfortune way 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>}} {{newreview|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired initial protests melted away as the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five children, he was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist 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 rebelsorganisers became more circumspect. 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 DisraeliIt'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 had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end an atrocity 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 vast scale but made up of the Earldom tens of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face thousands 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 sealedindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michele Monro1786893452|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's SingerUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=In terms Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of British chart statistics those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and record salesalmost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against outsiders to the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones world and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way shortthe situations that refugees find themselves in. Yet It's rare that we find out the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on journeys from the light entertainment circuit, refugees themselves – and overseasthis is a rare opportunity to do that, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports everthis intelligent, powerful and at one point he moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the biggest selling artist middle of a revolution in Spain. His idol Frank SinatraIran, fleeing to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened toAmerica as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Moorehead 0857058320|title=Dancing to Lord Of All the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin Dead|author=Javier Cercas and the French RevolutionAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=At school I remember spending ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a lot of time on journey to uncover the Tudors author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the early Stuarts – obviously meaning behind his great favourites of uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through figure who looms large over the intervening years until we reached another book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco''meaningful'' period – the Victorian eras forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of question at the fact that William wasn't in direct line centre of succession this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the throne and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bakewell1788037812|title=How to LiveThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A Life of Montaigne The Fight for Homosexual Rights in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary='Chance … really the way things happen,' wrote Howard BeckOriginally passed in 1885, 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 law that had made homosexual relations a quirky title or appealing cover, despite only a smattering of interest crime remained in the subject matterplace for 82 years. Just occasionally But during this waytime, I stumble restrictions on a golden nugget so fascinating and wellsame-written that I realise how lucky I am to be a reviewersex relationships did not go unchallenged. I'm so pleased to have chanced upon this inviting biography Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of Montaigne homosexuality appeared. They were written by Sarah Bakewell!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178922</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Baldwin|title=The Kingmaker's Sisterstwo homosexual men: Six Powerful Women Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the Wars UK, so the publications of the Roses|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Due these men were hugely significant – contributing to the small amount scientific understanding of surviving personal sourceshomosexuality, 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 beginning the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselvesstruggle for recognition and equality, leading to the lack milestone legalisation of data will be even more acutesame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750950765</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue RoeBuckland_Zoo|title=The Private Lives Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of the Impressionistsnatural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=In the early 1860s As a group of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned by the Salon, the French equivalent of the Royal Academy, resulted conservationist in their paintings being shown at Victorian England before the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusésterm existed, where crowds and critics came to view - and jeer. When they held the first of their own exhibitions Frank Buckland was very much a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work man ahead of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in painttime. Surgeon, naturalist, smeared it onto yards of canvasveterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and signed the result any biographer is immediately presented with several different namesa colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099458349</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will BirchWilliams_Captain|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ian Dury was always one Captain Ronald Campbell of the most individualBombala Station, 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 Cambalong: His Military Life and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'n'roll, and his songs extolled the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or California. Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in the rock press, he was comparatively middle-aged. As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Mark Simpson|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian'sIvor George Williams

|summary=The mere mention In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of Alastair Sim conjures up visions the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of pictures made during the 1950s when troops and convicts on board a more gentle humour ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the order age of the day34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Yet the man hated and Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did his best she have their farm to avoid publicitymanage, claiming that but she was also responsible for the person convicts who worked the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about himland. How he would have fared twenty Two years later in the age of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wondershe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert CrawfordPeacock_mountain|title=Into The Bard: Robert Burns - a biographyMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=If Shakespeare Mostly we choose what books to read because there is England's own Bardso little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, the comparatively shortlived Robert Burns – who lived and worked nearly two centuries later – fulfils we sell the equivalent role in Scottish iconography more than adequatelymyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Yet as this very thorough biography demonstratesSo while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, there is much more to the man than the wordsmith of 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'Weefavoured authors, sleekitand while, cowrin'like most other people I read the reviews and follow up on what appeals, tim'rous beastie'I also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844139301</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Linda Porter|title=Katherine the Queen: 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 Move 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 [[Newest Business 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 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]]