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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick O'Shea1788360702|title=Amy WinehouseCharles, The Alternative Prince: A Losing GameAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=At the risk For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of stating the obvious, this is a sad bookalternative medicine and complementary therapies. Writing this review some five months after her death''Charles, now The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the immediate smoke has clearedPrince's opinions, it is apparent from this book (as well as other general sources) that she was a gifted performer, with a jazz voice which could have qualified her for a lengthy career long after scores beliefs and aims against the background of aspiring X-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous, more steady careersthe scientific evidence. After all, her idols had been not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and Missy Elliott, but also those his relentless promotion of an earlier generation such as treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the classic 1960s girl groupsreputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, with whom she was thrilled logical reasoning to record a duet four months before she diedhis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Hollis1739805100|title=Now All Roads Lead to FranceLoving the Enemy: The Last Years Building bridges in a time of Edward Thomaswar|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Most historians tend to refer to Edwardian England as the thirteen-year interlude between ''Loving the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated Enemy'' tells the First World War, an era quite extraordinary story of relative stability. Howeverauthor Andrew March's grandparents, there had been ominous rumblings from who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the new order early days of things during the two years or so prior to June 1914, particularly from a new spirit among Nazi regime in the younger literary generation1930s. The old Victorian writersFred, notably the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good sensitive and thoughtful man, but an almost comically inept writer had some vague ideas of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the likes of Rupert Brooke and Wtime.H. Davies. For a short time London was the poetry capital of the world, Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and the book opens with the opening in January 1913 of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became connections that lasted for a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readerslifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia BlackburnWill Brooker|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain Village|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for many years, but they had drifted apart. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned a cottage he had discovered in Liguria and which he was renovating. Some time later there was another postcard and an invitation to visit. Over time the cottage would become her home and Herman her husband. 'Thin Paths' is the stories of the people who inhabit this harsh, wild landscape and of the way in which the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join the people and the places together in a way of life which is rare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Erica Heller|title=Yossarian Slept HereTruth About Lisa Jewell
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=ItMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I's now ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as a bit thousands of a shock when less successful authors I glanced at quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the bookcase two meeting each other, as well, and realised that my copy dated back to 1974 shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was still some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in regular use for a quick guide as to who might have been who. It's advertised as 'black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the greatauthor events I get to attend), the goodbut pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the notrabbit-so-great and the downright wicked' and ithole that is Jewell's difficult to better that summarydiverse output. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from Brooker decides he''Whod like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's Who'' life, working to make a success of the latest title, and struggling with it's thirty thousand entries the next in that covers line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the dead as well as the living and the ''interesting'' rather than those who need to be included because they have achieved a certain positionresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire TomalinMartha Leigh|title=Charles DickensInvisible Ink: A LifeFamily Memoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Having already written biographies of Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, among othersimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, to say nothing forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of a study of Dickens and the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his mistress Nelly Ternan, Claire Tomalin life's work. Her mother is admirably qualified to produce a major life of the author to mark concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the bicentenary practicalities of his birth life. There is love in 1812. (Sadly, she says this will be her last large-scale book)the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jermaine JacksonPolly Barton|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's EyesFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It is inevitable that Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the books we world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have already seen about Michael Jackson in visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the two years since his sudden passing will be merely answer to the tip question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the iceberg. Yet for those question in the first essay, which comprise and are based is on first-hand knowledge the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of his life and death, there will surely be few if any ''every party where you have to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve Dennisintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham HoldernessFrederic Gros|title=Nine Lives A Philosophy of William ShakespeareWalking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=There is a subtle irony I confess I picked this one up from the library in the fact my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the world’s best-known playwright, pages I have marked and possibly return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the most famous author of all timefirst two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a character about whom so little is known for certain. Nevertheless, as we are looking at someone who died nearly 400 years ago, the indisputable documentary evidence is bound to be lackingsport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne IsbaSharon Blackie|title=Dickens's If Women: His Life and LovesRose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=The subject of the several women in the life of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme to build I normally say that you can tell how much a biography around, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose wellmeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens was a man who Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I'craved a love so unconditional that ve finished reading the yearning was unlikely one I've borrowed. I want to be satisfied in this world, avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a man in thrall to a vision of a womanhood so idealized that reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it was incompatible with everyday domesticity'any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Duffy0241446732|title=Disaster was my GodOur House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=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 Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was the boy poet an opera singer and iconoclast who Svante Thunberg took on most of the literary establishment at end parenting of the nineteenth century their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and wonher sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. So Duffy In such circumstances, it's fictional accountnatural to seek a solution close to home, based closely around but eventually, it became clear to the actual facts of Rimbaudfamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet's life, was bound to be an exciting and furious, and he doesn't disappoint. This is If they were to find a difficult book way to put downlive happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Oppenheimer0648684806|title=MachiavelliClara Colby: A Life Beyond Ideology The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=MachiavelliThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn'the first philosopher t allowed to define politics as treachery'sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, has probably been better known as an adjectiveshe remained with her grandparents, Machiavellian being who doted on her and saw that she received a synonym for duplicity good education, both in statecraft, than as a historical personand out of school. Interestingly, She was the term 'Machiavel' became common only child in English usage as an adjective the household and noun around 1570her childhood was glorious. By contrast, although none her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of his works were translated into the language 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 another seventy a few months: she was married for fifteen years or so , had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after thatClara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger Hutchinson1789017977|title=The Silent WeaverRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Winston Churchill Ronnie Williams was never a man to don the hair shirtson of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. A comfortable upbringing in the days when elaborate multiple courses There's some doubt as to whether or not they were the done thing imbued ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in him from an early age a taste for the good things in life1863, and a bon viveur but 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 was already many men in their advancing years older than Ethel and he might well have cut back shaved a littlefew years off his age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595422</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Savage|title=Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft|rating=5|genre=Crafts|summary=David Savage is For a master furniture maker and one of while, the artists featured family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer 1929 Depression and nor can he be neutral in choosing who five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to include in the booka very different lifestyle. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that One thing he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and – often – originalitythis would stay with him throughout his life. It's He joined the text that makes the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one woman's work, but to look army at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the bad. It is, if you like, ten eighteen in-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the future1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=D R ThorpePatti Smith|title=Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency Year of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Ross|title=Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy LegendMonkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Some years agoOn the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, I was given and unexpected moments. In a Penguin edition of Wildestranger's words, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'Anything is possible: after all, with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face on it's the year of the front covermonkey''. A year or two laterAs Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, I saw she reflects on a photograph of Marty Feldman year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and was convinced he must have inspired ageing are faced head-on, as it if not actually been the modelshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bettany Hughes1912242052|title=The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search O Joy for the Good Lifeme!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|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 of a mystery. He didn't like to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being 'Socrates-sized hole' in it. What we do see is the city of Athens, and first person to walk the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracymountains alone, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take not because he had to for granted todaywork, such as freedom of speecha miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and the right to a fair trialadventure. This was an important time in the development of modern values His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and Socrates was an important man. He was not only a brilliant thinkerits literary consequences, he was also a man that didnchanged our view of the world''t quite fit, infuriating to converse with, yet fascinating to be around.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stacy SchiffGraff_Find|title=Cleopatra: A LifeFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Stacey SchiffWhen Ben Graff's biography starts more grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of less handwritten notes 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 seductressjournal, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatrahe didn's t take much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end notice of the Ptolemaic dynastyit.|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 At the small group age of people in this country happily oblivious to the Princess Diana industry). The book has been re-released in shocking pink, white and gold livery24, as a 'commemorative edition' to coincide with The Royal Wedding. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Diana's life and reaction to Will and KateGraff didn's marriage, had she survived.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Wilson|title=How to Survive the Titanic or t realise the Sinking gravity 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 pages he was with a sense of anticipation that I opened the bookholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Crowther1789016304|title=Gilbert of Gilbert War and SullivanLove: His Life A family's testament of anguish, endurance and Characterdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Gilbert Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and Sullivan was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the Rice war years, but only five thousand survived and Lloyd Webber of the late Victorian eraMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Some Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might regard their work as slightly dated these days, especially reach the satirical lyrics which city were so much a product of their timeconvinced that they would soon be pushed back, but their appeal has that the Amsterdammers would never really faded and allow what happened to escalate in the way that it surely never willdid, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D J Taylor1786893452|title=ThackerayThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=TodayHere in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost exclusively as always, no matter how deep the writer of 'Vanity Fair'investigative journalism they carry out, considered as among outsiders to the world and the greatest novels of its timesituations that refugees find themselves in. Yet he was a prolific writer, also responsible for 'PendennisIt' s rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and 'The Newcomes'this is a rare opportunity to do that, as well as several sketchesin this intelligent, essays powerful and much poetry. However most moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of his work is largely forgotten todaya revolution in Iran, while fleeing to America as a person he remains little known, and he has been somewhat overshadowed by his betterten-known contemporary, old friend and rival Charles Dickens, born one year later. This biography does an excellent job in rescuing him from such semi-obscurityold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563258</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsey Fraser0857058320|title=J K Rowling: Lord Of All the Mystery of FictionDead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Sir William Knighton came from humble beginnings: in later ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the memories of meaning behind his mother selling butter and eggs from a market stall would frequently be brought up and it was never to illustrate just how well hegreat uncle'd dones death in the Spanish Civil War. The fact that he became a physician would normally be quite an achievementManuel Mena, but his baronetcy and fame didnCercas't come from his work as a physician but from his less well-publicised work great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for George IVFrancisco Franco's forces. Although Cercas ruminates on why his work at court would span just over a decade it was far from being what he wanted to do – and uncle fought for the most part it would not bring him a great deal of happinessthis dictator. At The question at the end centre of this book is whether it is possible for his career as great uncle to be a physician he simply wanted to retire to his cottage in hero whilst having fought for the country - but found himself unable to desert a king who had become dependent on himwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755213017</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodney Bolt1788037812|title=As Good as God, as Clever as The Fraternity of the DevilEstranged: The Impossible Life of Mary BensonFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Since I hadn't previously heard of Archbishop Benson, let alone his wifeOriginally passed in 1885, I must commend the titlelaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, cover restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and advertising 1908, three books on the nature of this bookhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. All Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the above provided an accurate and irresistible glimpse publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the biography withinscientific understanding of homosexuality, and I wasn't one whit disappointed beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in my choice1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548615</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara SinatraBuckland_Zoo|title=Lady Blue EyesThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: My Life With Frank SinatraBuckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=People's preconceptions about Malcolm X are vast. This is no surprise given his dramatic life, untimely death, and subsequent increased fame through the likes of {{amazonurl|title=Spike Lee's 1992 film|isbn=B00005A7TO}}. {{amazonurl|title=His autobiography|isbn=0141185430}} is As a must-read for anyone interested in his life, or the tumultuous race struggle in the US conservationist in Victorian England before the 1960sterm existed, but it must be viewed in contextFrank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. It was completed after Malcolm X's deathSurgeon, by co-author Alex Haleynaturalist, veterinarian and many aspects were highlighted or played downeccentric sums him up perfectly, to suit Malcolm X's ends. Manning Marable's biography, years in the making, looks at his life and any biographer is immediately presented with a new perspectivecolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0713998954</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duncan HamiltonWilliams_Captain|title=The Unreliable Life Captain Ronald Campbell of Harry the ValetBombala Station, Cambalong: The Great Victorian Jewel ThiefHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The story In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of Harry the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readers, but he 17th Regiment of Foot. He was something in command of the troops and convicts on board a celebrity in the Victorian ageship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He achieved notoriety by stealing thousands of pounds worth of jewels from the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland - much was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the delight age of many people who disliked the lady34 at Bangalore, which appears leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have been pretty much everyone who ever met her. Having pulled off this audacious thefttheir farm to manage, Harry seemed to be invincible - but he she was brought down by his love also responsible for a Gaiety Girl, and ended up facing a trial which the papers fell over themselves to report onconvicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Into The Fetish RoomMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Redmond O'Hanlon and Rudi RotthierCharlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=An ongoing debate in our family has centred on the value of biographies, particularly of writers. Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… 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 understand the work was what mattered; the rest is just social history. He said that almost disparaginglyapproach, which is odd, because if you presented but I also think we sell ourselves short by 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>}} {{newreview|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 we sell the demimyriad lesser-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 known authors short as the haute-bourgeoisiewell. There was an unusual degree of sibling rivalry between him and his less robust brotherSo while, the famous author of ''The Magic Mountain''like most other people I have my favourite genres, Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed a sensual nature and fell passionately and easily in love with a number of women. Of these his relationship with Nellyfavoured authors, a fascinating woman, a seamstress and nightclub hostesswhile, as full of contradictions as himself, was the like most successful and long lasting. She followed him on other people I read the long painful journey into exile at first in Nice reviews and later to the United States.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Stephenson|title=Let Not The Waves of the Sea|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The book opens after the catastrophic event and the narrator/author Simon is in the local area of Phi Phi. He describes it in glowing terms (which may sound a little strange) as he aims, follow up on a rather arduous climbwhat appeals, to be rewarded with I also have a stunning view. And immediately I'm struck with Stephenson's lilting style of writing. For example, ' ... an elderly lady carrying bags of rice over each shoulder as if they were no more than foam guesthouse pillows.' How lovely and evocative is that, I'm thinking third-string to myselfmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848545584</amazonuk>
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