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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna Adorjan1788360702|title=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Exclusive LoveUnauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4.5

|summary=This moving memoir tells of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Stephen) alternative medicine and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in Octobercomplementary therapies. The story is told by their granddaughter, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera ''Charles, with whom the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the systematic persecution of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation Prince's opinions, beliefs and describes their perilous flight to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with aims against the police reports background of the duty officer dated 15.10scientific evidence.91 with the discovery There are few instances of their bodies in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, a town his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the Capital Region reputation of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith man who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fatefulproud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorablelogical reasoning to his ambitions. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blumenthal1739805100|title=Steve JobsLoving the Enemy: The Man Who Thought DifferentBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5

|summary=Framed by Jobs' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremony, and 'Loving the three stories he told Enemy'' tells the students, about connecting the dots, love and loss, and mortality, this biography gives a succinct and balanced account quite extraordinary story of Jobsauthor Andrew March' lifes grandparents, his successes and his failures, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personality. The author actively annotates who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the backstory early days of Jobs with references from this speech, as well as future events, carefully chosen statisticsthe Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, and Jobs' own reminiscence, giving a rich context to his story. Jobs' achievements are incredible sensitive and they're not simply down to his geniusthoughtful man, but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charisma. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot|title=Dotter had some vague ideas of Her Father's Eyes|rating=4"building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=If thereFred's one person able attempts to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joyceseparate individual people from ideology weren's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, t universally successful but he did make friendships and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with the same names too - James and Nora, both took to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but it's the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similarities, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now as more than able to produce connections that lasted for a delightful graphic novel - [[:Category:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]]lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael HolroydWill Brooker|title=A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent FathersThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Picture the crowded atelier Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpemost successful British authors I's mansionve never knowingly read. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour Now meet Will Brooker, one of the balconies thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled livestwo meeting each other, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrastas well, energetically inspired to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of and shows how 2021 drew the famous, like Etwo closer and closer together.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there The meeting was that tempestuous iconoclastsome unspecified combination, D.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lustit seems, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavourher anecdote about cup cakes, like the many charms words of Eve Fairfax. Sheher latest book she was reciting, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from and her friends being in the pages of annotated diaries which became a ''A Book of Secretsblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|(certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author=Colin Grant|title=events I & I: The Natural Mystics|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Just mention the word reggaeget to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and down the name rabbit-hole that nearly always springs to mind is that of Bob Marley and the WailersJewell's diverse output. The music has always been very much Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a product success of the Jamaican culturelatest title, nurtured and struggling with the next in years of turbulent historyline. In this book Colin GrantJewell, born in Britain of Jamaican parentsdue diligence appropriately done, goes back deep into its roots, and in agrees. And this is the process examines the childhood lives of the Wailers’ three main personalities, namely Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Neville Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer, to provide an account of the group – but much more than thatresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526727</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter AckroydMartha Leigh|title=DickensInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir of Middle Age|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=With publishers falling over each other Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in an effort to outdo each other in celebrating 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 bicentenary complete correspondence of Charles Dickens’ birththe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it was perhaps inevitable that we should see his life's work. Her mother is a reappearance concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of what has become the modern standard life, by Peter Ackroyd. The 1200-page original was first published There is love in 1990, while this 600-page abridged edition surfaced in 1994, and now makes another timely appearancethe house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul HendricksonPolly Barton|title=Hemingway's Boat: Everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934-1961Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography of Ernest Hemingway. In factWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, it might almost have with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been subtitled ‘The rise on my radar for a while and fall’if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. Its theme is more or less the second half of his lifeI may get there later this year, from 1934but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, when he returned from an African safari and took delivery of his boat Pilar, to his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it I don't know the answer to be an account of the writer, bringing together the different elements of his life – fishing, friendship, wives and family - and above all, naturally, his writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Bradford|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in Our Times|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies respect of the Queen (published question in 1996), of her father George VI, and her daughter-in-law Diana, Sarah Bradford needs little introduction. At around 260 pages of textthe first essay, this which is barely half on the length of her sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other titlesthings, and probably aimed more at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee marketsound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mick O'SheaFrederic Gros|title=Amy Winehouse: A Losing Game|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=At the risk of stating the obvious, this is a sad book. Writing this review some five months after her death, now the immediate smoke 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 for a lengthy career long after scores of aspiring X-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous, more steady careers. After all, her idols had been not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliott, but also those of an earlier generation such as the classic 1960s girl groups, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, with whom she was thrilled to record a duet four months before she died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Hollis|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years Philosophy of Edward ThomasWalking

|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

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erica HellerSharon Blackie|title=Yossarian Slept HereIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=AutobiographyBiography|summary=I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I'To live forever or die in ve finished reading the attemptone I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' ' was the essential glory in life and living that -changing' – although it is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creator, Joseph Heller, reveals how definitely the same excitement first two and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, only time will tell about the madcap exploits third – but clichés exist for a reason and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verveI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chambers and Joan Bakewell0241446732|title=Chambers Biographical Dictionary|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=It's now the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as a bit Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised that my copy dated back to 1974 Family and was still in regular use for a quick guide as to who might have been who. It's advertised as 'the great, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wicked' and it's difficult to better that summary. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from ''Who's Who'' with it's thirty thousand entries Planet in that covers the dead as well as the living and the ''interesting'' rather than those who need to be included because they have achieved a certain position.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCrisis|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Charles Dickens: A LifeMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Isba1789017977|title=DickensRonnie and Hilda's WomenRomance: His Towards a New Life and Lovesafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul OppenheimerPatti Smith|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Year of the Monkey

|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

 {{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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry ThompsonGraff_Find|title=Tintin: Herge and His CreationFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|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>

{{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

|summary=Nikolai Pewsner – the minor changes of name came as a young adult - was born in Saxony in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish family. Just too young Melanie Martin read about what happened to avoid having to take part Dutch Jews in the waroccupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by the age particularly in ''The Diary of 22. He Ann Frank'' but then became an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, 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 realised that youher own family'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he was four years old s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred 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 seven thousand Jews were deported from the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, city during the reigns of Charles I, James IIwar years, William III but only five thousand survived and into the beginning of the reign of Queen AnneMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. He bridged Most people believed that the gap between occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the middle ages and Germans might reach the early modern era.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|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 city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that it is founded deep the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate 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 way that 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 halldid, was situated. These wild borderlands – known but initial protests melted away as the Kresy - were fought over for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuaniansorganisers became more circumspect. It was here that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed the values and élan an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens 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 thousands of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pactindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cita Stelzer1786893452|title=Dinner with Churchill: The Prime Minister's Tabletop DiplomacyUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Ross0857058320|title=Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy LegendLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Some years ago, I was given ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a Penguin edition of Wildejourney to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle'The Picture of Dorian Grays death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas'great uncle, with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the front cover. A year or two later, I saw a photograph centre of Marty Feldman and was convinced he must have inspired this book is whether it if not actually been is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the modelwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bettany Hughes1788037812|title=The Hemlock CupFraternity of the Estranged: SocratesThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, Athens and the Search for the Good Life1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his deathOriginally passed in 1885, his life is something of the law that had made homosexual relations a mysterycrime remained in place for 82 years. He didn't like to write things downBut during this time, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a 'Socratesrestrictions on same-sized hole' in itsex relationships did not go unchallenged. What we do see is Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the city nature of Athenshomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, and as well as the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was aliveheterosexual Havelock Ellis. In Athens we see Exploring the beginnings margins of democracysociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so the seedlings of some publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom scientific understanding of speechhomosexuality, and beginning the right struggle for recognition and equality, leading to a fair trial. This was an important time in the development milestone legalisation 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 aroundsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stacy SchiffBuckland_Zoo|title=CleopatraThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: A LifeFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in As a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra conservationist in Victorian England before the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductressterm existed, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for Frank Buckland was very much a considerable period man ahead of his time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up to Cleopatra's much dramatised deathperfectly, and beyond, any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to the end of the Ptolemaic dynastytell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tina BrownWilliams_Captain|title=The Diana ChroniclesCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=54

|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was first published in 2007command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, ten years after Diana's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already know, but prior Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to reading this booklive a long life, I was one of dying suddenly at the small group age of people in this country happily oblivious 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to the Princess Diana industry)raise their two young sons. The book has been re-released Edwards' death left his widow in shocking pink, white and gold livery, as a 'commemorative edition' difficult position: not only did she have their farm to coincide with The Royal Weddingmanage, but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Diana's life and reaction to Will and Kate's marriage, had Two years later she survivedwould marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances WilsonPeacock_mountain|title=How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking Into The Mountain, A Life of J. Bruce IsmayNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=As Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I read 'How to Survive can understand the Titanic' approach, but I was conscious that also think we're only a matter of months away from the centenary of the sinking – sell ourselves short by it, and a slew of media to mark we sell the occasionmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. 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 So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the tragedy. It's a subject which has always fascinated me – reviews and it was with follow up on what appeals, I also have a sense of anticipation that I opened the bookthird-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Andrew Crowther|title=Gilbert of Gilbert Move on to [[Newest Business and Sullivan: His Life and Character|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Gilbert and Sullivan were the Rice and Lloyd Webber of the late Victorian era. Some might regard their work as slightly dated these days, especially the satirical lyrics which were so much a product of their time, but their appeal has never really faded and it surely never will.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D J Taylor|title=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>}}Finance Reviews]]