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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosamund Bartlett1788360702|title=Tolstoy: A Russian Life|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Count Lev Tolstoy came from a privileged family. He was born on 28 August 1828; unfailingly superstitious for the rest of his days, he therefore adopted 28 as his lucky number. Like most young men from a similar backgroundCharles, he joined the Russian army. The Crimean war proved to be the making of him in that it developed his social conscience, opened his eyes to the conditions endured by those born to a less lofty position in the social order than himself, and impressed on him the fervent belief that everybody in Russia ought to have the chance to learn to read and write. As a result he became a born-again repentant nobleman in the light of having seen how the other half (or more than half) lived, he took a long hard look at the world around him, turning into a rebel against organized religion and the authority of the state in the process. All this was exacerbated by his travels throughout Europe shortly afterwards, in which he was impressed with the comparative freedom he saw in other countries and then found the return to his homeland thoroughly depressing in the few years before the emancipation of the serfs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681383</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla BruniAlternative 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
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Selina Hastings1739805100|title=The Secret Lives Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of Somerset Maughamwar|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=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 ''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>
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{{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
|genre=Biography
|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
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{{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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjeng ScheijenPolly Barton|title=Diaghilev: A LifeFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HowarthFrederic Gros|title=We Die AloneA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|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
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{{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
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{{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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Firstbrook0648684806|title=The ObamasClara Colby: The Untold Story of an African FamilyInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|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>
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{{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 few years off his age. For a little unfair – can she cope with being analysedwhile, 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 this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowablearmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Valerie GrovePatti Smith|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be the envy Year 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 KitchenMonkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|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 of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always at As Smith wanders the centre coast of family life and with the help of Elizabeth DavidSanta Cruz in solitude, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through the food she cooked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Welch reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and Lucian Randall|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 beageing are faced head-on, as it certainly seems to be the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says shifting political waters in this excellent book, 'There's nothing between him and all the sensations the world has to give us'America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donald Spoto1912242052|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and HollywoodO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson
|rating=3
|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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MaloneyGraff_Find|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff
|rating=3.5
|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>
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{{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
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|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 but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to New York, out of fear and want of happen in 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 country with liberal values who were resistant to FA Cup Legend|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'German occupation. Such did Hitler say at Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies in Germans might reach the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neckcity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, such is that the lifetime of difference between Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the two references. But way that lifetimeit did, but initial protests melted away as packed and varied as it was, is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured bookorganisers became more circumspect.|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 It's an atrocity on a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in England, was one vast scale but made up of the foremost Victorian artists. Throughout his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, and shared many tens of their same ideals, style and subject matter, though he never officially became a member thousands of the groupindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Skidmore1786893452|title=Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart The Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended Here in the throne in November 1558West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, everyone's dominant concern was the matter some scaremongering about them. But all of her taking an appropriate husband those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and securing almost always, no matter how deep the succession. The man most likely investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse world and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivitiesthe situations that refugees find themselves in. The fact It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that he , in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell born in the speculationmiddle of a revolution in Iran, especially since she was believed fleeing to be dying of breast cancerAmerica as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jad Adams0857058320|title=Gandhi: Naked AmbitionLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a very shadowy figurejourney to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. I was familiar with Cercas is searching for the picture of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the loincloth-clad man figure who fell victim to an assassinlooms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's bullet shortly after Indian independence, but knew little moreforces.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Shephard|title=The Surprising Life of Constance Spry|rating=4Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention of question at the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts centre of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps this book is whether 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, is possible for his great uncle to name but two. Even so, she enjoyed be a remarkably successful career, and the woman behind hero whilst having fought for the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personalitywrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rob Chapman1788037812|title=Syd BarrettThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A Very Irregular Head The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In terms of British chart statistics Originally passed in 1885, the 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 record sales1908, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against three books on the achievements nature of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and Engelbert HumperdinckJohn Addington Symonds, he fell some way shortas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Yet Exploring the former Terry Parsons margins of society and studying homosexuality was a regular fixture common on the light entertainment circuitEuropean Continent, and overseas, particularly but barely talked about in Latin America and the PhilippinesUK, he was undoubtedly one so the publications of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he 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 these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years agoscientific understanding of homosexuality, with the fall of the monarchy and beginning the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed struggle for recognition and experienced the volatile age at first handequality, but few left a more detailed record than leading to the subject milestone legalisation of this biography, Luciesame-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinsex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A.Roger Ekirch Buckland_Zoo|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 Man Who Ate the case of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Mannering'', and at least three othersZoo: Frank Buckland, all of which can point to the saga forgotten hero of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious RevolutionRichard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=At school I remember spending As a lot of time on conservationist in Victorian England before 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 term existed, Frank Buckland was completely overlooked in favour of very much a quick mention man ahead of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and Mary had never wanted to marry eccentric sums him in the first place. Their successorup perfectly, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'and any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>
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|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|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>
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{{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
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|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>
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