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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Hendrickson1788360702|title=Hemingway's BoatCharles, The Alternative Prince: Everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934-1961An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Ernest Hemingwayalternative medicine and complementary therapies. In fact''Charles, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and fall’aims against the background of the scientific evidence. Its theme is more or less the second half There are few instances of his life, from 1934, when he returned from an African safari beliefs being vindicated and took delivery his relentless promotion of his boat Pilar, treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it to be an account the reputation of the writer, bringing together the different elements a man who is proud of his life – fishing, friendship, wives and family refusal to apply evidence- and above all, naturallybased, logical reasoning to his writingambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bradford1739805100|title=Queen Elizabeth IILoving the Enemy: Her Life Building bridges in Our Timesa time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a biographer ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who has previously written substantial biographies first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Queen (published Nazi regime in 1996), of her father George VIthe 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and her daughter-in-law Dianathoughtful man, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages had some vague ideas of text, this is barely half "building bridges" which may guard against the length of her other titles, and probably aimed more growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee markettime. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mick O'SheaWill Brooker|title=Amy Winehouse: A Losing GameThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=At Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the risk most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of stating the obviousthousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, this is a sad bookas well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. Writing this review The meeting was some five months after unspecified combination, it seems, of her deathanecdote about cup cakes, now the immediate smoke has cleared, it is apparent from this words of her latest book (as well as other general sources) that she was reciting, and her being in a gifted performer, ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a jazz voice which could have qualified her for get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a lengthy career long after scores professor of aspiring Xcultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous, more steady careershole that is Jewell's diverse output. After all, Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her idols had been not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliottthrough a year in the published author's life, but also those working to make a success of an earlier generation such as the classic 1960s girl groupslatest title, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennettstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, with whom she was thrilled to record a duet four months before she dieddue diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew HollisMartha Leigh|title=Now All Roads Lead to FranceInvisible Ink: The Last Years of Edward ThomasA Family Memoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Most historians tend to refer to Edwardian England as the thirteen-year interlude between the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated the First World War Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, an era of relative stabilityimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. HoweverHer father is a Cambridge don, there had been ominous rumblings from forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the new order complete correspondence of things during the two years or so prior to June 1914philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, particularly from his life's work. Her mother is a new spirit among the younger literary generationconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. The old Victorian writers, notably the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good man, but an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by Neither parent is hugely interested in the likes practicalities of Rupert Brooke and Wlife.H. Davies. For a short time London was There is love in the poetry capital of the world, and the book opens with the opening in January 1913 of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became house but also darker undercurrents that a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readerschild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia BlackburnPolly Barton|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain VillageFifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for many yearsWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, but they had drifted apart. She put with the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a cottage he had discovered in Liguria while and which he was renovatingif the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. Some time I may get there later there was another postcard and an invitation this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to visit. Over time the cottage would become her home and Herman her husband. question ''why Japan?'Thin Paths' is She explains her feelings in respect of the stories of question in the people who inhabit this harshfirst essay, wild landscape and of which is on the way in sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join the people and the places together in a way sound of life which is rare''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erica HellerFrederic Gros|title=Yossarian Slept HereA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary='To live forever or die in the attempt' was I confess I picked this one up from the essential glory library in life and living my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that is at I can turn down the heart of John Yossarian pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]slowly. This autobiography of one had me in the daughter of his creatorfirst two pages, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and vervewherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chambers and Joan BakewellSharon Blackie|title=Chambers Biographical DictionaryIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=It's now the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as a bit of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised normally say that my copy dated back to 1974 and was still in regular use for you can tell how much a quick guide as book means to who might me by how many pages have been whocorners turned down. It's advertised as Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the great, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wicked' and itone I's difficult to better that summaryve borrowed. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful'Who's Whoinspiring'' with life-changing' – although it's thirty thousand entries in that covers is definitely the dead as well as first two and only time will tell about the living third – but clichés exist for a reason and the I''interesting'' rather than those who need to be included because they have achieved a certain positionm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin0241446732|title=Charles DickensOur House is on Fire: A LifeScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Having already written biographies The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of Thomas Hardy the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and Jane Austentalking and her sister, among othersBeata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to say nothing of seek a study of Dickens and his mistress Nelly Ternansolution close to home, but eventually, Claire Tomalin is admirably qualified it became clear to produce the family that they were ''burned-out people on a major life of the author to mark the bicentenary of his birth in 1812burned-out planet''. (Sadly, she says this will If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be her last large-scale book)radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jermaine Jackson0648684806|title=You Are Not AloneClara Colby: Michael Through A Brother's Eyes|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=It is inevitable that the books we have already seen about Michael Jackson in the two years since his sudden passing will be merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet for those which comprise and are based on first-hand knowledge of his life and death, there will surely be few if any to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve Dennis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe International Suffragist|author=Graham Holderness|title=Nine Lives of William ShakespeareJohn Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=There is a subtle irony in The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the fact that USA. At the world’s besttime she was just three-years-known playwrightold but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and possibly the most famous author of all timethree brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, is who doted on her and saw that she received a character about whom so little is known for certaingood education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. NeverthelessBy contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as we are looking at someone who died nearly 400 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 married for fifteen years ago, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the indisputable documentary evidence is bound to be lackingeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Isba1789017977|title=DickensRonnie and Hilda's WomenRomance: His Towards a New Life and Lovesafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=The subject of Ronnie Williams was the several women in the life son of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to build a biography aroundhave been born in 1863, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose he was already many years older than Ethel and he might wellhave shaved a few years off his age. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens was For a man who 'craved a love so unconditional that while, the yearning family was unlikely quite well-to be satisfied -do but disaster struck in this world, a man in thrall the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a vision of a womanhood so idealized that it very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was incompatible his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with everyday domesticity'him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruce DuffyPatti Smith|title=Disaster was my God|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|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 was the boy poet and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment at end Year 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>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Oppenheimer|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=MachiavelliOn the coast of Santa Cruz, 'Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the first philosopher to define politics as treachery'monkey - one packed with mischief, has probably been better known as an adjectivesorrow, Machiavellian being and unexpected moments. In a synonym for duplicity in statecraftstranger's words, than as a historical person. Interestingly''Anything is possible: after all, it's the term year of the monkey'Machiavel' became common . As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in English usage as an adjective solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and noun around 1570ageing are faced head-on, although none of his works were translated into as it the language for another seventy years or so after thatshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger Hutchinson1912242052|title=The Silent WeaverO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=BiographyArt|summary=There is no question but that ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the story of Angus has all first person to walk the right ingredients mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a fascinating study. Taken from his Scottish Lowlands agricultural early childhood to the isolation of a Hebridean island of South Uistminer, quarryman, joining the last ever shepherd or pack-horse platoon in the British Army at the outbreak of the Second World Wardriver, then mental breakdown but because he wanted to for pleasure and effective incarceration for almost all the rest of his life, he created some of the most unusual works of folk art that have existed this centuryadventure. And Hutchison tackles every angle of this rich narrative His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, exploring the military thinking behind how horse regiments were to combat Hitlerand its literary consequences, through to changed our view of the operations of mental health care in later twentieth century Scotland, and all points in betweenworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589713</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry ThompsonGraff_Find|title=Tintin: Herge and His CreationFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff
|rating=3.5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=I love Tintin. I love his quiff and When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his innocencejournal, his plus-fours and his foreign adventureshe didn't take much notice of it. At the age of 24, I love Snowy Graff didn't realise the dog and most gravity of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles language. So I pages he was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasmholding. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Games1789016304|title=Pevsner: The Early LifeWar and Love: Germany A family's testament of anguish, endurance and Artdevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=Nikolai Pewsner – the minor changes of name came as a young adult - Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was born entranced by what she discovered, particularly in Saxony ''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 war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish familycountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Just too young Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to avoid having to take part escalate in the warway that it did, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by but initial protests melted away as the age of 22organisers became more circumspect. He then became It's an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen Universityatrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441190937</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nancy Mitford1786893452|title=The Sun King|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two years. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern era.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewUngrateful Refugee|author=Matthew Kelly|title=Finding Poland|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity of the Polish homeland. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921. It was 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 that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed the values and élan of the dashing officer class, Rafal Ryzewscy, came to teach with his clever young wife, Hanna. They were deeply committed 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 in the most cynical pact.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cita Stelzer|title=Dinner with Churchill: The Prime Minister's Tabletop DiplomacyDina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The great-grandson Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of a crofterthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and son-in-law of a Dukealmost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, Harold Macmillan was born outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in London in 1894. Despite It's rare that we find out the journeys from the well-refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to-do aristocratic backgroundthat, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war woundsthis intelligent, powerful and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the plight middle of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much a revolution in common with another future Prime MinisterIran, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected fleeing to America as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastlya ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Ross0857058320|title=Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy LegendLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Some years ago, I was given a Penguin edition of Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian GrayLord Of All the Dead'', with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face on the front cover. A year or two later, I saw is a photograph of Marty Feldman and was convinced he must have inspired it if not actually been journey to uncover the model.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bettany Hughes|title=The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens 's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the Search for meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Good Life|rating=4Spanish Civil War.5|genre=Biography|summary=We donManuel Mena, Cercas't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his deathgreat uncle, his life is something of a mysterythe figure who looms large over the book. He didndied relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco't like to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a 'Socrates-sized hole' in its forces. What we do see is the city of Athens, and the hugely important changes which were going Cercas ruminates on there while Socrates was alivewhy his uncle fought for this dictator. In Athens we see The question at the beginnings centre of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take this book is whether it is possible for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and the right his great uncle to be a fair trial. This was an important time in hero whilst having fought for the development of modern values, and Socrates was an important man. 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 aroundwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stacy Schiff1788037812|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 The Fraternity 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 Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised deathEngland, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1891-1908|author=Tina Brown|title=The Diana ChroniclesBrian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' was first published Originally passed in 20071885, ten the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years after Diana's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already know. But during this time, but prior to reading this bookrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, I was one of three books on the small group nature of people in this country happily oblivious to the Princess Diana industry)homosexuality appeared. The book has been re-released in shocking pink, white They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and gold liveryJohn Addington Symonds, as a 'commemorative edition' to coincide with The Royal Weddingwell as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Diana's life Exploring the margins of society and reaction studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to Will the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and Kate's marriageequality, had she survivedleading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances WilsonBuckland_Zoo|title=How to Survive the Titanic or The Man Who Ate the Sinking Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of J. Bruce Ismaynatural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=As I read 'How to Survive a conservationist in Victorian England before the Titanic' I term existed, Frank Buckland was conscious that we're only very much a matter man ahead of months away from the centenary of the sinking – his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian 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 – eccentric sums him up perfectly, and it was any biographer is immediately presented with a sense of anticipation that I opened the bookcolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew CrowtherWilliams_Captain|title=Gilbert Captain Ronald Campbell of Gilbert and SullivanBombala Station, Cambalong: His Military 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>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=D J Taylor|title=Thackeray|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Today, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered almost exclusively as the writer of 'Vanity Fair', considered as among the greatest novels of its time. Yet he was a prolific writer, also responsible for 'Pendennis' and 'The Newcomes', as well as several sketches, essays and much poetry. However most of his work is largely forgotten today, 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 FictionIvor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=People's preconceptions about Malcolm X are vastIn March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. This is no surprise given He was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his dramatic life, untimely death, wife and subsequent increased fame through the likes of {{amazonurl|title=Spike Lee's 1992 film|isbn=B00005A7TO}}young son accompanied him. {{amazonurl|title=His autobiography|isbn=0141185430}} is He was not destined to live a must-read for anyone interested in his long life, or dying suddenly at the tumultuous race struggle in the US in the 1960sage of 34 at Bangalore, but it must be viewed in contextleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. It was completed after Malcolm XEdwards's deathleft his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, by co-author Alex Haley, and many aspects were highlighted or played down, to suit Malcolm X's endsbut she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Manning Marable's biography, Two years in the making, looks at his life with a new perspectivelater she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0713998954</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Duncan HamiltonPeacock_mountain|title=Into The Unreliable Mountain, A Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel ThiefNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The story of Harry Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readersapproach, but he was something of a celebrity in the Victorian age. He achieved notoriety I also think we sell ourselves short by stealing thousands of pounds worth of jewels from it, and we sell the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland myriad lesser- much to the delight of many known authors short as well. So while, like most other people who disliked the ladyI have my favourite genres, which appears to have been pretty much everyone who ever met her. Having pulled off this audacious theftand favoured authors, Harry seemed to be invincible - but he was brought down by his love for a Gaiety Girland while, like most other people I read the reviews and ended follow up facing on what appeals, I also have a trial which the papers fell over themselves third-string to report onmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>
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