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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Duffy1788360702|title=Disaster was my God|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Charles, The life of Arthur Rimbaud must be one of the most outrageous in literary history, more scandalous than Wilde, more self-destructive than Malcolm Lowery, Rimbaud was the boy poet and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment at end of the nineteenth century and won. So Duffy's fictional account, based closely around the actual facts of Rimbaud's life, was bound to be an exciting and furious, and he doesn't disappoint. This is a difficult book to put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAlternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Paul Oppenheimer|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Machiavelli, 'the first philosopher to define politics as treachery'For over forty years, Prince Charles has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being a synonym for duplicity in statecraft, than as a historical personardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. Interestingly''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the term Prince'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective s opinions, beliefs and noun around 1570, although none aims against the background of the scientific evidence. There are few instances of his works were translated into beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the language for another seventy years or so after thatreputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger Hutchinson1739805100|title=The Silent WeaverLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=There is no question but that ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of Angus has all author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the right ingredients for a fascinating study. Taken from his Scottish Lowlands agricultural early childhood to the isolation days of a Hebridean island of South Uist, joining the last ever horse platoon Nazi regime in the British Army at the outbreak of the Second World War1930s. Fred, then mental breakdown a sensitive and effective incarceration for almost all the rest of his lifethoughtful man, he created had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the most unusual works of folk art that have existed this centurytime. And Hutchison tackles every angle of this rich narrative, exploring the military thinking behind how horse regiments were Fred's attempts to combat Hitler, through to the operations of mental health care in later twentieth century Scotland, separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and all points in betweenconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589713</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry ThompsonWill Brooker|title=Tintin: Herge and His CreationThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I love Tintin've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I love his quiff quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and his innocencecloser together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, his plus-fours and his foreign adventuresof her anecdote about cup cakes, I love Snowy the dog and most words of all I love Captain Haddock 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 flamboyance author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of his blistering barnacles languagecultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. So I was thrilled Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to see make a biography success of the character latest title, and Hergéstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, his creatordue diligence appropriately done, and I picked it up with enthusiasmagrees. And this is the result. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen GamesMartha Leigh|title=Pevsner: The Early LifeInvisible Ink: Germany and ArtA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Nikolai Pewsner – the minor changes of name came as Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a young adult - was born childhood spent in Saxony in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Just too young to avoid having to take part in Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the warphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the age practicalities of 22life. He then became an assistant keeper at There is love in the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen Universityhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441190937</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nancy MitfordPolly Barton|title=The Sun KingFifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIVWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, who ascended with the throne when he was four years old question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and reigned for well over seventy two yearsif the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehallmay get there later this year, lasted through the English Civil Warbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, Oliver CromwellI don's Commonwealth, t know the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into answer to the beginning question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged question in the gap between first essay, which is on the middle ages and sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the early modern erasound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew KellyFrederic Gros|title=Finding PolandA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find I confess I picked this one up from the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep library in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity my pre-lockdown forage of the Polish homelandrandom stuff. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921. It was I have to go out an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough to warrant a town hall, was situated. These wild borderlands – known as the Kresy - were fought over for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. It was here buy my own copy so that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed I can turn down the values pages I have marked and élan of the dashing officer class, Rafal Ryzewscy, came return to teach with his clever young wife, Hanna. They were deeply committed its varying wisdom when I need to progress through education and to peaceably raising their two little daughters. However, the dreadful and calamitous year of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland Some books draw you in the most cynical pact.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cita Stelzer|title=Dinner with Churchill: The Prime Minister's Tabletop Diplomacy|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Winston Churchill was never a man to don the hair shirtslowly. A comfortable upbringing This one had me in the days when elaborate multiple courses were the done thing imbued in him from an early age a taste for the good things in lifefirst two pages, and wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a bon viveur he remained until the very end. Throughout his life he loved his food, and until near the end of his life, his appetite and digestion remained excellent, whereas many men in their advancing years might have cut back a littlesport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595422</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David SavageSharon Blackie|title=Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their CraftIf Women Rose Rooted
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsBiography|summary=David Savage is I normally say that you can tell how much a master furniture maker and one of the artists featured in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who means to include in the bookme by how many pages have corners turned down. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture Perhaps an even greater measure of great beauty and – often – originality. Itimpact is setting out to buy my own copy before I's the text that makes ve finished reading the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one womanI's work, but to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the badve borrowed. It is, if you I want to avoid clichés like, ten in'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium changing' – although it is definitely the first two and ten shorter pieces only time will tell about those we should look out the third – but clichés exist for in the futurea reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D R Thorpe0241446732|title=SupermacOur House is on Fire: The Life Scenes of Harold Macmillana Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The great-grandson Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of a crofter, and son-in-law the parenting of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894their two daughters. Despite the wellThen eleven-toyear-do aristocratic backgroundold Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, his Beata, then nine years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him old, struggled with lifelong war woundswhat was happening. In such circumstances, and his early service as it's natural to seek a Conservative Member of Parliament by solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stocktonfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both If they were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastlyfind a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Ross0648684806|title=Marty FeldmanClara Colby: The Biography of a Comedy LegendInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Some years ago, I was given a Penguin edition The path of WildeClara Dorothy Bewick's 'The Picture life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of Dorian Graysome childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the front coverhousehold and her childhood was glorious. A year or two laterBy contrast, I saw a photograph her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of Marty Feldman the United States and life was hard, 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 convinced he must have inspired it if married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not actually been long after Clara arrived. As the modeleldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bettany Hughes1789017977|title=The Hemlock CupRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Towards a New Lifeafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his death, his life is something Ronnie Williams was the son of a mysteryThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. He didn There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry't like s birthdate: he claimed to write things downhave been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may he might well have something of shaved a 'Socrates-sized hole' in itfew years off his age. What we do see is the city of Athens For a while, and the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates family was alive. In Athens we see quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the beginnings of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, 1929 Depression and the right five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a fair trialvery different lifestyle. This One thing he did inherit from his father was an important time in the development of modern values, his need to be well-turned-out and Socrates was an important manthis would stay with him throughout his life. He was not only a brilliant thinker, he was also a man that didn't quite fit, infuriating to converse with, yet fascinating to be aroundjoined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stacy SchiffPatti Smith|title=Cleopatra: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductress, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period Year of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tina Brown|title=The Diana Chronicles|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' was first published in 2007, ten years after Diana's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already know, but prior to reading this book, I was one of the small group of people in this country happily oblivious to the Princess Diana industry). The book has been re-released in shocking pink, white and gold livery, as a 'commemorative edition' to coincide with The Royal Wedding. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Diana's life and reaction to Will and Kate's marriage, had she survived.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Wilson|title=How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=As I read 'How to Survive the Titanic' I was conscious that we're only a matter of months away from the centenary of the sinking – and a slew of media to mark the occasion. Given that the subject has been mined extensively over the years it will be interesting to see whether there's anything new to be said about the tragedy. It's a subject which has always fascinated me – and it was with a sense of anticipation that I opened the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Crowther|title=Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan: His Life and Character|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Gilbert and Sullivan were the Rice and Lloyd Webber of the late Victorian era. Some might regard their work as slightly dated these days, especially the satirical lyrics which were so much a product of their time, but their appeal has never really faded and it surely never will.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D J Taylor|title=ThackerayMonkey|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Today, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered almost exclusively as On the writer coast of 'Vanity Fair'Santa Cruz, considered as among Patti Smith enters the greatest novels lunar year of its timethe monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. Yet he was In a prolific writerstranger's words, also responsible for 'Pendennis' and 'The Newcomes', as well as several sketches, essays and much poetry. However most of his work Anything is largely forgotten todaypossible: after all, while as a person he remains little known, and he has been somewhat overshadowed by his better-known contemporary, old friend and rival Charles Dickens, born one year later. This biography does an excellent job in rescuing him from such semi-obscurity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563258</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lindsey Fraser|title=J K Rowling: the Mystery of Fiction|rating=4|genre=Childrenit's Non-Fiction|summary=Easily one of the most renowned authors year of the 21st century, J.K. Rowlingmonkey''s incredibly successful Harry Potter series shook the core of the literary world. It provoked a reaction, As Smith wanders the likes coast of which have never been seen beforeSanta Cruz in solitude, and likely never will. A unique set of factors combined she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in order for the Harry Potter books to reach the level of success they enjoyed, her life - loss and these factors ageing are explored in this biography of Rowling. It is difficult not to be fascinated by the person who is responsible for the phenomenon that is Harry Potterfaced head-on, and although writing is a profession that doesn't have a typical path by which as it can be reached, Rowling's story is anything but orthodox, and her personal 'rags to riches' story only enhances the Harry Potter legacyshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906134693</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlotte Frost1912242052|title=Sir William Knighton: The Strange Career of a Regency PhysicianO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson
|rating=3
|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Sir William Knighton came from humble beginnings: in later life ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the memories of his mother selling butter and eggs from a market stall would frequently be brought up and it was never first person to illustrate just how well walk the mountains alone, not because he'd done. The fact that he became a physician would normally be quite an achievementhad to for work, but his baronetcy and fame didn't come from his work as a physician miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but from his less well-publicised work for George IV. Although his work at court would span just over a decade it was far from being what because he wanted to do – for pleasure and for the most part it would not bring him a great deal of happinessadventure. At the end His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of his career as a physician he simply wanted to retire to his cottage in the country - but found himself unable to desert a king who had become dependent on himworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755213017</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodney BoltGraff_Find|title=As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Since I hadn't previously heard of Archbishop Benson, let alone his wife, I must commend the title, cover and advertising of this book. All of the above provided an accurate and irresistible glimpse of the biography within, and I wasn't one whit disappointed in my choice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548615</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFind Another Place|author=Barbara Sinatra|title=Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank SinatraBen Graff|rating=43.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Barbara Blakeley, born in 1926, was married firstly to Robert Oliver, an executive, with whom she had When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a sonplastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, and secondly to Zeppo Marxhe didn't take much notice of it. But it was At the already thrice-married and thrice-divorced Francis Albert Sinatraage of 24, whom she had idolized as a singer for a long time, with whom she would make her most enduring marriage, and vice versa. They tied Graff didn't realise the gravity of the knot in 1976, and stayed together until his death in 1998pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937248</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Manning Marable1789016304|title=Malcolm XWar and Love: A Life family's testament of Reinventionanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=People's preconceptions Melanie Martin read about Malcolm X are vast. This is no surprise given his dramatic lifewhat happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, untimely death, and subsequent increased fame through the likes particularly in ''The Diary of {{amazonurl|title=Spike LeeAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's 1992 film|isbn=B00005A7TO}}stories were equally fascinating. {{amazonurl|title=His autobiography|isbn=0141185430}} is a must-read for anyone interested in his life, or A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the tumultuous race struggle in city during the US in the 1960swar years, but it must only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be viewed allowed to happen in contexta country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. It was completed after Malcolm X's death, by co-author Alex Haley, and many aspects Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were highlighted or played downconvinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to suit Malcolm X's endsescalate in the way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. Manning Marable It's biography, years in the making, looks at his life with an atrocity on a new perspectivevast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0713998954</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duncan Hamilton1786893452|title=The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel ThiefUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The story of Harry Here in the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readersWest, but he was something of we see news reports about immigrants on a celebrity in the Victorian ageregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. He achieved notoriety But all of those stories are written by stealing thousands of pounds worth of jewels from journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland - much investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the delight of many people who disliked world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the ladyrefugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, which appears to have been pretty much everyone who ever met her. Having pulled off in this audacious theftintelligent, Harry seemed to be invincible powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri - but he someone who was brought down by his love for born in the middle of a Gaiety Girlrevolution in Iran, and ended up facing fleeing to America as a trial which the papers fell over themselves to report onten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>
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{{newreview|title=The Fetish Room|author=Redmond O'Hanlon and Rudi Rotthier|rating=4.5Frontpage|genreisbn=Biography|summary=An ongoing debate in our family has centred on the value of biographies, particularly of writers. I've always loved the touchstone of the places people lived and wrote, the banality of their lives, the detail, the insight, and the fact that it can tell you everything or nothing at all about the work. My Dad held that the work was what mattered; the rest is just social history. He said that almost disparagingly, which is odd, because if you presented it as social history rather than biography, he'd lap it up. I guess I just don't make the distinction. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684145</amazonuk>}} {{newreview0857058320|title=House of Exile: War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angeles|author=Evelyn Juers|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kröger-Mann were in a constant state of hazardous exile after the rise of fascism in Germany in 1933. He became like Zola, his favourite author, a socially committed novelist and political activist and fierce critic of militarism. He was convivial, having a wide circle of friends that contained many creative artists, playwrights, socialists. He seemed drawn to the bohemians and the demi-monde. This elegant and sometimes formal gentleman came from the Hanseatic town of Lubeck where his father belonged to a renowned grain merchant family. These might be described as the haute-bourgeoisie. There was an unusual degree of sibling rivalry between him and his less robust brother, the famous author of ''The Magic Mountain'', Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed a sensual nature and fell passionately and easily in love with a number of women. Lord Of these his relationship with Nelly, a fascinating woman, a seamstress and nightclub hostess, as full of contradictions as himself, was the most successful and long lasting. She followed him on All the long painful journey into exile at first in Nice and later to the United States.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Simon Stephenson|title=Let Not The Waves of the SeaJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The book opens after ''Lord Of All the catastrophic event and Dead'' is a journey to uncover the narrator/author Simon 's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the local area of Phi PhiSpanish Civil War. He describes it in glowing terms (which may sound a little strange) as he aimsManuel Mena, on a rather arduous climbCercas' great uncle, to be rewarded with a stunning viewis the figure who looms large over the book. And immediately I'm struck with StephensonHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's lilting style of writingforces. For example, ' Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator... an elderly lady carrying bags The question at the centre of rice over each shoulder as if they were no more than foam guesthouse pillows.' How lovely and evocative this book is whether it is that, I'm thinking possible for his great uncle to myselfbe a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848545584</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Norman1788037812|title=John LennonThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The LifeFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Peal BuckOriginally passed in 1885, the 5th of 7 children, was born law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in 1892 to American missionary parents working in Chinaplace for 82 years. But during this time, where she was then brought uprestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. She learned Chinese before she learned EnglishBetween 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and only realised that she was considered a foreigner when anti foreigner riots known to John Addington Symonds, as well as the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 forced heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the family out margins of her childhood home. Later she became famous for her novels society and short stories set in China, especially The Good Earth. She won America's most famous literary prize, studying homosexuality was common on the PulitzerEuropean Continent, but barely talked about in 1932the UK, and so the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Yet her work is mostly forgotten in publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the US and Europescientific understanding of homosexuality, and in beginning the country she lovedstruggle for recognition and equality, her books were banned by Mao's regime after they came leading to power the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 19491967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978529</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy LewisBuckland_Zoo|title=Shades of GreeneThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: One Generation Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of an English Familynatural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Graham Greene's father actually had six childrenAs a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, and his brother six Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his owntime. (WellSurgeon, there were nine in their generation for a start...) The surprising naturalist, veterinarian and joyous thing about this book is that it can show that Graham Greene's remarkable life is by no means the only standout in that whole generation of family history. It can continuously throw eccentric sums him up surprises - we know Hugh Greene was high up in the BBC, but it wasn't him who helped found Canadian public service broadcasting. We are familiar with Graham himself traipsing around the worldperfectly, reporting back in fact and fiction from unusual circumstances and exotic climes any biographer is immediately presented with dubious systems of government, but it wasn't he who was noted for being an ardently public supporter of pro-Communist Chinaa colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551888</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Benjamin MandelkernWilliams_Captain|title=Escape from the Nazis: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga Captain Ronald Campbell of Two Young Jews on the Run in World War II Poland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Do we all have it in us? Would you as a Pole in 1940s PolandBombala Station, who like as not had been 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats Cambalong: His Military Life and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be said, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Richard Lucas|title=Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi GermanyIvor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Irene Nemirovsky In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was born in Kiev in 1903 command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to a wealthy Jewish familySydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. Even as a child she He was used not destined to travel and regularly spent time in live a long life, dying suddenly at the South age of France34 at Bangalore, but the family was forced leaving his widow to flee Russia when they were threatened by the revolutionraise their two young sons. They lived for a time in Finland and Stockholm, eventually settling Edwards' death left his widow in France. Nemirovsky's father was something of a rough diamond and her mother selfish and unfaithful, vain and difficult – her motherposition: not only did she have their farm to manage, particularly but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would form the basis for several characters in Nemirovsky's booksmarry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523981</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles MiltonPeacock_mountain|title=Wolfram: Into The Boy Who Went To WarMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Giles Milton's daughter was set the task of designing an heraldic shield which represented the most important elements of her family's history. Aware that one of her grandparents Mostly we choose what books to read because there is German she included so little time and so many books… I can understand the only German symbol which she knew: a Swastika. It was this incidentapproach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, which was an awkward mixture of funny and disquieting which brought about 'Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War'. It's we sell the story of Giles' fathermyriad lesser-in-law, Wolfram Aïchele, who was nine years old when Hitler came to power and who found himself caught up in a situation which was none of his making and didn't accord with his own beliefsknown authors short as well. He was a man who wanted to be a sculptor or to paintSo while, but he was forced to become a soldier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dudley Green|title=Patrick Bronte: Father of Genius|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=There like most other people I have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë my favourite genres, and her siblingsfavoured authors, but very little about their father. It is tempting to speculate whether he would be quite so deserving of one if he had not been the father of such a famous family. Yet Dudley Green, a retired Classics teacher, has demonstrated here that he did lead an interesting life himself. Born in rural Ireland in 1777, he spent his early years there before arriving in England in 1802 and settled in Yorkshire seven years later, where he remained the rest of his days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Donald Spoto|title=Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford|rating=3.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Thanks to the memoir 'Mommie Dearest' by her adopted daughter Christinawhile, like most other people I read the enduring image of movie star Joan Crawford is one of an alcoholic, sadistic monster. Spoto clearly believes that this portrait is a gross exaggeration, reviews and is at pains to rectify the balance. Having previously written biographies of Alfred Hitchcock and Marilyn Monroe among othersfollow up on what appeals, he clearly knows the subject of cinema inside out, and has written I also have a very thorough chronicle of Crawford's career. The impression the reader is left with, however, is that in looking at her family life and art he has perhaps striven too far third-string to present her as a person more sinned against than sinning, a legendary talent, beauty and above all a grossly maligned adoptive mothermy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091931274</amazonuk>
}}
