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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Fantastic Mr Dahl|rating=5|genre=Children's Non<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-Fiction|summary=Reading this book is rather like curling up in a deep, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa and some squashed-fly biscuits while a favourite uncle chats to you about books. He tells you interesting things about Roald Dahl's life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in the knowledge that you already know and love the stories. Just as important, he pauses in his chat from time to time to ask your opinion — and it's clear he's really interested in your answer. Do you prefer the original version of ''James and the Giant Peach'', or the one which was eventually published? Can you imagine how funny it would be to see your grandfather looking in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leo McKinstry1788360702|title=Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest Cricketer|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Back in the early 1920sCharles, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the world. Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert K Massie|title=Catherine the GreatThe Alternative Prince: Portrait of a Woman|rating=4.5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas and Alexandra, and of Peter the Great, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of the late eighteenth-century reigning Empress.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Ewart|title=The Treasures of Queen Elizabeth|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Tim Ewart is Royal Correspondent for ITV News, which must be one of the perfect starting points for writing a biography of the Queen as she celebrates her diamond jubilee. She's only the second British monarch to achieve this landmark - the other being Queen Victoria. After sixty years on the throne - and eighty six in public life - there's not much which isn't known about the Queen and few pictures which haven't previously seen the light of day, but Ewart's book is marked out by the inclusion of memorabilia which will have a freshness for many readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780970064</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennie Bond|title=Elizabeth: A Diamond Jubilee PortraitEdzard Ernst
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Jennie Bond was For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the BBCPrince's Royal Correspondent for fourteen years from 1989 opinions, beliefs and covered a period aims against the background of particular turbulence in the Royal familyscientific evidence. It might not have been unprecedented but it was the first time that what was happening was so widely reported throughout the world. This book covers a much wider period with the emphasis There are few instances of his beliefs being on pictures rather than words. It's a heavy, well-produced vindicated and lavishly-presented book his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the type which would make reputation of a good present or souvenir man who is proud of a visit his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to the United Kingdomhis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847329608</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christina Schmid1739805100|title=Always By My SideLoving the Enemy: Losing the love of my life and the fight to honour his memory|rating=2.5|genre=Biography|summary=On Halloween 2009 bomb disposal expert Olaf (Oz) Schmid became another mortality statistic from the conflict Building bridges in Afghanistan. Many people enjoy magazines like ''Hello'' who will absorb the stories of Oz's early years, how he met Christina, the family holidays, stories about both sets of parents etc. But for me, this is like looking at someone else's personal photo album; even if you have a connection with the album's owner, after a while it becomes boring and lacks meaning. Although I wouldn't have had half the inner strength and courage that Christina showed after the death time of a soul mate, the emphasis of ''Always By My Side'' is out of kilter, the descriptions of life in Afghanistan and the subsequent campaign being almost lost in the family detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184605947X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Penelope Hughes-Hallett|title=The Immortal Dinner: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=June 2012 will see ''Loving the centenary of Enemy'' tells the birth quite extraordinary story of Alan Turingauthor Andrew March's grandparents, brilliant mathematician, the man who played a major part first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in breaking the Enigma codes early days of the Nazi regime in the Second World War and is widely thought to be the father of computer science1930s. To celebrate the anniversary Cambridge University Press have reprinted Fred, a short biography written by Turing's mother sensitive and included a memoir written by his older brotherthoughtful man, Johnhad some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. IFred'm rarely impressed by biographies written by [[No Ordinary Man by Dominic Carman|family members]] particularly when theys attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren're still coming to terms with their own grief, t universally successful but this book is startling he did make friendships and connections that lasted for what it says about the family members as much as for what it says about Alan Turinga lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107020581</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sally E SvensonWill Brooker|title=Lily, Duchess of Marlborough (1854 - 1909): A Portrait with HusbandsThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=The woman we will eventually come to know as LilyMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], Duchess one of Marlborough was born Eliza Warren Price in Troythe most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, New York in 1854one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. Her father hailed from Bluegrass Country in Kentucky This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and met his future wife (who was from Troy) in Washington DCcloser together. The family meeting was comfortably off some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but not rich) and became part pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the Troyrabbit-hole that is Jewell's social elite when they returned to live therediverse output. Lily (as she became known) had an unremarkable childhood and youth but became wealthy though Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her marriage through a year in the published author's life, working to Louis Hammersleymake a success of the latest title, who died when she was twenty eight and left her a wealthy widowstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. His will would leave her legal problems which would simmer all her life and even after her own death twenty one years and two more husbands laterAnd this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1457507765</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane BrownMartha Leigh|title=Lancelot 'Capability' BrownInvisible Ink: The Omnipotent Magician 1716-1783A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Among those who helped their contemporaries living through the Age of Enlightenment to see the world around them Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a different lightslightly eccentric, Brown was unquestionably one of the most influentialimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Having trained as Her father is a gardenerCambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as a young man he acquired an exhaustive knowledge edits the complete correspondence of plants and treesthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as of drainage and water managementhis life's work. To this was added Her mother is a rare ability to look at concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the dullest practicalities of gardens and landscapes, decide that they had 'capabilities' for improvement (hence the time-honoured epithet), and persuade life. There is love in the owner house but also darker undercurrents that a transformation was both possible and desirablechild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845951794</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Johanna AdorjanPolly Barton|title=An Exclusive LoveFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This moving memoir tells of Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the double suicide of both István (question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a Hungarianwhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in Octoberdown I would have visited by now. The story is told by their granddaughterI may get there later this year, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with VeraI am not hopeful. And like Barton, with whom I don't know the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with the systematic persecution of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation and describes their perilous flight answer to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in 1956. It ends with the police reports respect of the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies in their bungalow question in the Charlottenlundfirst essay, a town of the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It which is on the charm and lyricism with sound ''giro' '' – which this tale is related which makes this fatefulshe describes as being, among other things, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorablethe sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlumenthalFrederic Gros|title=Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought DifferentA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Framed by Jobs' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremony, and I confess I picked this one up from the three stories he told library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the students, about connecting the dots, love pages I have marked and loss, and mortality, this biography gives a succinct and balanced account of Jobs' life, his successes and his failures, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personalityreturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. The author actively annotates This one had me in the backstory of Jobs with references from this speechfirst two pages, as well as future events, carefully chosen statistics, and Jobswherein Gros explains why '' own reminiscence, giving walking is not a rich context to his story. Jobssport' achievements are incredible and they're not simply down to his genius, but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charisma. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan TalbotSharon Blackie|title=Dotter of Her Father's EyesIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsBiography|summary=If thereI 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's ve finished reading the one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James JoyceI's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbotve borrowed. SheI want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the same names too - James first two and Nora, both took to only time will tell about the stage when younger after going to dance school, third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put 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 a delightful graphic novel - [[:Category:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]]better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Holroyd0241446732|title=A Book Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Secretsa Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Illegitimate DaughtersGreta Thunberg, Absent FathersBeata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Picture the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansionThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour of the balconies Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants parenting of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired to passionate love affairstwo daughters. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, like E.M.ForsterBeata, Virginia Woolfthen nine years old, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there struggled with what was that tempestuous iconoclast, Dhappening.H.Lawrence. Many In such lives were inspired by both landscape and lustcircumstances, fashioned by each otherit's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavournatural to seek a solution close to home, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. Shebut eventually, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends in it became clear to the pages of annotated diaries which became family that they were ''A Book of Secretsburned-out people on a burned-out planet''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colin Grant0648684806|title=I & IClara Colby: The Natural MysticsInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Just mention The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the word reggaeUSA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, and the name that nearly always springs she wasn't allowed to mind is that of Bob Marley sail with her parents and the Wailersthree brothers. The music has always been very much Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a product of the Jamaican culturegood education, nurtured both in years and out of turbulent historyschool. In this book Colin Grant, born She was the only child in Britain of Jamaican parentsthe household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, goes back deep into its roots, and her family had become pioneer farmers in the process examines the childhood lives mid-west of the Wailers’ three main personalitiesUnited States and life was hard, namely Bob Marleyas 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, Peter Toshhad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and Neville Livingstondied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, better known as Bunny Wailer, to provide an account of the group – but much more than thata heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526727</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd1789017977|title=DickensRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Memoir of Middle AgeTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=With publishers falling over each other in an effort to outdo each other in celebrating Ronnie Williams was the bicentenary son of Charles Dickens’ birth, it was perhaps inevitable that we should see a reappearance of what has become the modern standard life, by Peter AckroydThomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. The 1200-page original was first published in 1990, while this 600-page abridged edition surfaced in 1994, and now makes another timely appearance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Hendrickson|title=HemingwayThere's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's Boatbirthdate: Everything he loved claimed to have been born in life1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and lost, 1934-1961|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly he might well have shaved a full biography of Ernest Hemingwayfew years off his age. In factFor a while, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and fall’five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Its theme is more or less the second half of his life, from 1934, when One thing he returned did inherit from an African safari and took delivery of his boat Pilar, to father was his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it need to be an account of the writer, bringing together the different elements of his life – fishing, friendship, wives and family well-turned- out and above all, naturally, this would stay with him throughout his writinglife. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BradfordPatti Smith|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our TimesYear of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the Queen (published in 1996)monkey - one packed with mischief, of her father George VIsorrow, and her daughter-in-law Diana, Sarah Bradford needs little introductionunexpected moments. At around 260 pages of textIn a stranger's words, this ''Anything is barely half possible: after all, it's the length year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her other titles, life - loss and probably aimed more at the general reader with an eye ageing are faced head-on , as it the Diamond Jubilee marketshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1912242052|authortitle=Mick O'SheaJoy for me!|titleauthor=Amy Winehouse: A Losing GameKeir Davidson|rating=43|genre=BiographyArt|summary=At ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the risk of stating first person to walk the obviousmountains alone, this is not because he had to for work, as a sad book. Writing this review some five months after her deathminer, now the immediate smoke has clearedquarryman, it is apparent from this book (as well as other general sources) that she was a gifted performershepherd or pack-horse driver, with a jazz voice which could have qualified her but because he wanted to for a lengthy career long after scores of aspiring X-Factor contestants had given up singing pleasure and opted for less glamorous, more steady careersadventure. After allHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, her idols had been not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliottits literary consequences, but also those changed our view 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 diedworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew HollisGraff_Find|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas|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, an era of relative stability. However, there had been ominous rumblings from the new order of things during the two years or so prior 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 an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by the likes of Rupert Brooke and W.H. Davies. For a short time London was 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 a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFind Another Place|author=Julia Blackburn|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain VillageBen Graff|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for many years, but they had drifted apart. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned a cottage he had discovered in Liguria and which he was renovating. Some time later there was another postcard and an invitation to visit3. Over time the cottage would become her home and Herman her husband. 'Thin Paths' is the stories of the people who inhabit this harsh, wild landscape and of the way in which the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join the people and the places together in a way of life which is rare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Erica Heller|title=Yossarian Slept Here|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=When Ben Graff'To live forever or die in the attempts grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn' was the essential glory in life and living that is at the heart t take much notice of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]it. This autobiography of At the daughter age of his creator24, Joseph Heller, reveals how Graff didn't realise the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout gravity of the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and vervepages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chambers and Joan Bakewell1789016304|title=Chambers Biographical Dictionary|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=ItWar and Love: A family's now the ninth edition testament of this famous volume and that came as a bit of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised that my 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 'the greatanguish, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wicked' endurance 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 devotion 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>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Charles Dickens: A LifeMelanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Having already written biographies of Thomas Hardy Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and Jane Austenwas entranced by what she discovered, among others, to say nothing particularly in ''The Diary of a study of Dickens Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and his mistress Nelly Ternanseven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, Claire Tomalin is admirably qualified but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to produce happen in a major life of country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. 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 author Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to mark escalate in the bicentenary of his birth in 1812way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. (Sadly, she says this will be her last large-It's an atrocity on a vast scale book)but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jermaine Jackson1786893452|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's EyesThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=It is inevitable that Here in the books West, we have already seen see news reports about Michael Jackson in immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the two years since his sudden passing will be merely investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the tip of world and the icebergsituations that refugees find themselves in. Yet for those which comprise It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and are based on firstmoving work by Dina Nayeri -hand knowledge someone who was born in the middle of his life and deatha revolution in Iran, there will surely be few if any fleeing to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve DennisAmerica as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham Holderness0857058320|title=Nine Lives of William ShakespeareLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=There ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a subtle irony journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the fact that the world’s best-known playwrightSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, and possibly the most famous author of all timeCercas' great uncle, is a character about whom so little is known 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 certainthis dictator. Nevertheless, as we are looking The question at someone who died nearly 400 years ago, the indisputable documentary evidence centre of this book is whether it is bound possible for his great uncle to be lackinga hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Isba1788037812|title=Dickens's WomenThe Fraternity of the Estranged: His Life and LovesThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45
|genre=Biography
|summary=The subject of Originally passed in 1885, the several women 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 1908, three books on the life nature of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme to build a biography aroundhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose as wellas the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was a man who 'craved a love common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so unconditional that the yearning was unlikely publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to be satisfied in this worldthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, a man in thrall leading to a vision the milestone legalisation of a womanhood so idealized that it was incompatible with everyday domesticity'same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce DuffyBuckland_Zoo|title=Disaster was my GodThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Machiavelli, 'the first philosopher to define politics as treachery', has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being As a synonym for duplicity conservationist in statecraftVictorian England before the term existed, than as Frank Buckland was very much a historical personman ahead of his time. InterestinglySurgeon, the term 'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective naturalist, veterinarian and noun around 1570eccentric sums him up perfectly, although none of his works were translated into the language for another seventy years or so after thatand any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger HutchinsonWilliams_Captain|title=The Silent WeaverCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=There is no question but that In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the story 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of Angus has all the right ingredients for troops and convicts on board a fascinating study. Taken ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his Scottish Lowlands agricultural early childhood wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to the isolation of live a Hebridean island of South Uistlong life, joining the last ever horse platoon in the British Army dying suddenly at the outbreak age of the Second World War34 at Bangalore, then mental breakdown and effective incarceration for almost all the rest of leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his life, he created some of the most unusual works of folk art that widow in a difficult position: not only did she have existed this century. And Hutchison tackles every angle of this rich narrativetheir farm to manage, exploring but she was also responsible for the military thinking behind how horse regiments were to combat Hitler, through to convicts who worked the operations of mental health care in land. Two years later twentieth century Scotland, and all points in betweenshe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589713</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry ThompsonPeacock_mountain|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I love Tintin. I love his quiff and his innocenceInto The Mountain, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles language. So I was thrilled to see a biography A Life of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasm. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Stephen Games|title=Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and ArtCharlotte Peacock|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|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 Mostly we choose what books to avoid having to take part in read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the warapproach, he had studied art history at no less than four universities but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the age of 22myriad lesser-known authors short as well. He then became an assistant keeper at So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the Dresden Gemaldegaleriereviews and follow up on what appeals, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen UniversityI also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441190937</amazonuk>
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