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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd1788360702|title=DickensCharles, The Alternative Prince: A Memoir of Middle AgeAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=With publishers falling For over each other in forty years, Prince Charles has been an effort to outdo each other in celebrating the bicentenary ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles Dickens’ birth, it was perhaps inevitable that we should see a reappearance The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of what has become the modern standard life, by Peter Ackroydscientific evidence. The 1200There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-page original was first published in 1990based, while this 600-page abridged edition surfaced in 1994, and now makes another timely appearancelogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Hendrickson1739805100|title=Hemingway's BoatLoving the Enemy: Everything he loved Building bridges in life, and lost, 1934-1961a time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise and fall’. Its theme is more or less ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the second half quite extraordinary story of his life, from 1934author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when he returned from an African safari and took delivery of his boat Pilar, grandfather Fred Clayton went to his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it Dresden to be an account teach in the early days of the writer, bringing together Nazi regime in the different elements of his life – fishing1930s. Fred, friendshipa sensitive and thoughtful man, wives had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and family - and above all, naturally, his writingconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BradfordWill Brooker|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our TimesThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the Queen (published in 1996)two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her father George VIlatest book she was reciting, and her daughterbeing in a ''black lace mini-indress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-law Dianaup never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, Sarah Bradford needs little introductiondown the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. At around 260 pages Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a success of textthe latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is barely half the length result.|isbn=1529136024}}{{Frontpage|author= Martha Leigh|title= Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of her other titlesthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and probably aimed more at his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the general reader with an eye on practicalities of life. There is love in the Diamond Jubilee markethouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mick O'SheaPolly Barton|title=Amy Winehouse: A Losing GameFifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=At the risk of stating the obviousWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, this is a sad book. Writing this review some five months after her death, now with the immediate smoke question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has cleared, 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 been on my radar for a lengthy career long after scores of aspiring Xwhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous, more steady careersdown I would have visited by now. After allI may get there later this year, her idols had been but I am not only near-contemporaries hopeful. And like Michael Jackson and Missy ElliottBarton, but also those I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of an earlier generation such as the classic 1960s girl groupsquestion in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennettbeing, among other things, with whom she was thrilled the sound of ''every party where you have to record a duet four months before she diedintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew HollisFrederic Gros|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years A Philosophy of Edward ThomasWalking
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Most historians tend to refer to Edwardian England as I confess I picked this one up from the thirteenlibrary in my pre-year interlude between the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated the First World War, an era lockdown forage of relative stabilityrandom stuff. However, there had been ominous rumblings from the new order of things during the two years or so prior Now I have to June 1914, particularly from a new spirit among the younger literary generation. The old Victorian writers, notably the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good man, but go out an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by buy my own copy so that I can turn down the likes of Rupert Brooke pages I have marked and Wreturn to its varying wisdom when I need to.H. Davies. For a short time London was the poetry capital of the world, and the book opens with the opening Some books draw you in January 1913 of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julia Blackburn|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 apartslowly. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned a cottage he This one had discovered me 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. first two pages, wherein Gros explains why 'Thin Paths' walking 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 not a way of life which is raresport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erica HellerSharon Blackie|title=Yossarian Slept HereIf Women Rose Rooted
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyBiography|summary='To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life and living I normally say that is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 you can tell how much a book means to me by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creator, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller familymany pages have corners turned down. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chambers and Joan Bakewell|title=Chambers Biographical Dictionary|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It's now the ninth edition Perhaps an even greater measure of this famous volume and that came as a bit of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised that impact is setting out to buy my own copy dated back to 1974 and was still in regular use for a quick guide as to who might have been who. It's advertised as before I've finished reading the great, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wickedone I' and it's difficult to better that summaryve borrowed. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful''Whoinspiring's Who'life-changing' with – 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 the parenting of Thomas Hardy their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and Jane Austentalking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, among othersstruggled 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 1812. (Sadly, she says this will be her last largeburned-scale book).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jermaine Jackson|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brotherout planet''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 If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be few if any to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve Dennisradical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham Holderness0648684806|title=Nine Lives of William ShakespeareClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John 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 the several women in Ronnie Williams was 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 was incompatible with everyday domesticity'very different lifestyle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bruce Duffy|title=Disaster One thing he did inherit from his father was my God|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The life of Arthur Rimbaud must his need to be one of the most outrageous in literary history, more scandalous than Wilde, more selfwell-turned-destructive than Malcolm Lowery, Rimbaud was the boy poet out and iconoclast who took on this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the literary establishment army at end of the nineteenth century and woneighteen in 1942. 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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul OppenheimerPatti Smith|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Year of the 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 in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. Just too young to avoid having to take part in A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the waryears, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by the age of 22but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. He then became an assistant keeper at Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the Dresden Gemaldegaleriecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen University.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441190937</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nancy Mitford|title=The Sun King|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to Louis XIVescalate in the way that it did, who ascended but initial protests melted away as the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two yearsorganisers became more circumspect. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver CromwellIt's Commonwealth, the reigns an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning tens of the reign thousands of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern eraindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Kelly1786893452|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>}} {{newreviewThe Ungrateful Refugee|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 a photograph of Marty Feldman and was convinced he must have inspired it if not actually been the model.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bettany Hughes|title=The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|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 journey to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a 'Socrates-sized hole' in it. What we do see is uncover the city of Athens, and the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and the right to a fair trial. This was an important time in 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 around.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stacy Schiff|title=Cleopatra: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatralost ancestor's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sacklife and death. This Cercas is one of searching for 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 of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatrameaning behind his great uncle's much dramatised death, and beyond, to in the end of the Ptolemaic dynastySpanish Civil War.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tina Brown|title=The Diana Chronicles|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' was first published in 2007Manuel Mena, ten years after DianaCercas's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already knowgreat uncle, but prior to reading this book, I was one of is the small group of people in this country happily oblivious to figure who looms large over 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 KateHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's marriage, had she survivedforces.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Wilson|title=How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of JCercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Bruce Ismay|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=As I read 'How to Survive The question at the Titanic' I was conscious that we're only a matter centre 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 this book is whether it will be interesting to see whether there's anything new is possible for his great uncle 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 hero whilst having fought for the bookwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Crowther1788037812|title=Gilbert The Fraternity of Gilbert and Sullivanthe Estranged: His Life and CharacterThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Gilbert Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and Sullivan 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the Rice heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and Lloyd Webber of studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the late Victorian era. Some might regard their work as slightly dated these daysUK, especially so the satirical lyrics which publications of these men were so much a product hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of their timehomosexuality, but their appeal has never really faded and it surely never willbeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D J TaylorBuckland_Zoo|title=ThackerayThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Today, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered almost exclusively as As a conservationist in Victorian England before the writer of 'Vanity Fair'term existed, considered as among the greatest novels Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of its his time. Yet he was a prolific writerSurgeon, naturalist, also responsible for 'Pendennis' veterinarian and 'The Newcomes'eccentric sums him up perfectly, as well as several sketches, essays and much poetry. However most of his work any biographer is largely forgotten today, while as immediately presented with 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-obscuritycolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563258</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsey FraserWilliams_Captain|title=J K RowlingCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: the Mystery of FictionHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|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 Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the value of biographiesapproach, particularly of writers. but I've always loved the touchstone of the places people lived and wrote, the banality of their lives, the detail, the insightalso think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell 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 myriad lesser-known authors short as social history rather than biography, he'd lap it upwell. I guess I just don't make the distinction. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684145</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=House of Exile: War, Love and LiteratureSo while, 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 most other people I have my favourite authorgenres, 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, playwrightsfavoured authors, 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 brotherwhile, like most other people I read the famous author of ''The Magic Mountain'', Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed a sensual nature reviews and fell passionately and easily in love with a number of women. Of these his relationship with Nellyfollow up on what appeals, I also have 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 the long painful journey into exile at first in Nice and later third-string to the United Statesmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>
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