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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Harrison1788360702|title=Sylvia PankhurstCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Rebellious SuffragetteAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=To some extentFor over forty years, the history Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of the suffragettes was also the history of the Pankhurst familyalternative medicine and complementary therapies. Sylvia''Charles, born in 1882, was The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline PankhurstPrince's opinions, beliefs and one aims against the background of three sistersthe scientific evidence. The family had always been heavily politicised, Richard There are few instances of his beliefs being a founder member vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took reputation of a sudden turn for the worse in 1898, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business and Sylvia was left in charge man who is proud of her younger siblings as well as having his refusal to nurse himapply evidence-based, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With logical reasoning to his passing the family were left strangely detached from each other. His widow became heavily involved in public work and political agitation, an increasingly remote mother from the young children who needed herambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Borman1739805100|title=MatildaLoving the Enemy: Wife Building bridges in a time of the Conqueror, first Queen of Englandwar|author=Andrew March
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Writing ''Loving the biography of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless task. There will always be huge gaps in Enemy'' tells the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she was quite short extraordinary story of stature. In a male-dominated societyauthor Andrew March's grandparents, there are approximate records of who first met when her sons were born, but not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down grandfather Fred Clayton went to us throughout history are quite probably false. It is hardly surprising that this appears Dresden to be teach in the first full-length life early days of her yet to appear the Nazi regime in Englishthe 1930s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Fantastic Mr Dahl|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Reading this book is rather like curling up in a deepFred, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa sensitive and thoughtful man, had 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 vague ideas of "building bridges" which may have affected his writing, secure guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the knowledge that you already know and love the storiestime. Just as important, he pauses in his chat Fred's attempts to separate individual people from time to time to ask your opinion — and itideology weren's clear t universally successful but he's really interested in your answerdid make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime. 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>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leo McKinstryWill Brooker|title=Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest CricketerThe Truth About Lisa Jewell
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Jennie Bond was Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the BBCmost successful British authors I's Royal Correspondent for fourteen years from 1989 and covered a period ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of particular turbulence in the Royal familythousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. It might not have been unprecedented but it was This book starts with the first time that what was happening was so widely reported throughout two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the worldtwo closer and closer together. This The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book covers she was reciting, and her being in a much wider period ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the emphasis being on pictures rather than wordsrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. ItBrooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to make a heavysuccess of the latest title, well-produced and lavishly-presented book of struggling with the type which would make a good present or souvenir of a visit to next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the United Kingdomresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847329608</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christina SchmidMartha Leigh|title=Always By My SideInvisible Ink: Losing the love of my life and the fight to honour his memoryA Family Memoir|rating=2.5|genre=Biography|summary=On Halloween 2009 bomb disposal expert Olaf (Oz) Schmid became another mortality statistic from the conflict Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in Afghanistana slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Many people enjoy magazines like ''Hello'' who will absorb the stories of Oz's early yearsHer father is a Cambridge don, how forever clacking away on his typewriter as he met Christina, edits the family holidays, stories about both sets complete correspondence of parents etc. But for methe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this is like looking at someone elsehis life's personal photo album; even if you have work. Her mother is a connection with the album's owner, after a while it becomes boring and lacks meaningconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. Although I wouldn't have had half the inner strength and courage that Christina showed after the death of a soul mate, the emphasis of ''Always By My Side'' Neither parent is out of kilter, hugely interested in the descriptions practicalities of life . There is love in Afghanistan and the subsequent campaign being almost lost in the family detailhouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184605947X</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Penelope Hughes-HallettPolly Barton|title=The Immortal Dinner: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817Fifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a little extraordinarywhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. But the hostI may get there later this year, painter Benjamin Robert Haydonbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, was no ordinary artist. He was a friend of many I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the major artistic and literary figures of question in the dayfirst essay, in addition to which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being an ambitious painter of historical scenes. Sadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortuneamong other things, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and a half centuries after his death he is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years the sound of despair, and perhaps his diary as well''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara TuringFrederic Gros|title=Alan M Turing: Centenary EditionA Philosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=June 2012 will see I confess I picked this one up from the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, brilliant mathematician, the man who played a major part library in breaking the Enigma codes in the Second World War and is widely thought to be the father my pre-lockdown forage of computer sciencerandom stuff. To celebrate the anniversary Cambridge University Press Now I have reprinted a short biography written by Turing's mother and included a memoir written by his older brother, John. I'm rarely impressed by biographies written by [[No Ordinary Man by Dominic Carman|family members]] particularly when they're still coming to terms with their go out an buy my own grief, but this book is startling for what it says about copy so that I can turn down the family members as much as for what it says about Alan Turing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107020581</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sally E Svenson|title=Lily, Duchess of Marlborough (1854 - 1909): A Portrait with Husbands|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The woman we will eventually come pages I have marked and return to know as Lily, Duchess of Marlborough was born Eliza Warren Price in Troy, New York in 1854. Her father hailed from Bluegrass Country in Kentucky and met his future wife (who was from Troy) in Washington DC. The family was comfortably off (but not rich) and became part of the Troy's social elite its varying wisdom when they returned I need to live there. Lily (as she became known) had an unremarkable childhood and youth but became wealthy though her marriage to Louis Hammersley, who died when she was twenty eight and left her a wealthy widow Some books draw you in slowly. His will would leave her legal problems which would simmer all her life and even after her own death twenty This one years and two more husbands later.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1457507765</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Brown|title=Lancelot 'Capability' Brown: The Omnipotent Magician 1716-1783|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Among those who helped their contemporaries living through the Age of Enlightenment to see the world around them had me in a different light, Brown was unquestionably one of the most influential. Having trained as a gardenerfirst two pages, as a young man he acquired an exhaustive knowledge of plants and trees, as well as of drainage and water management. To this was added a rare ability to look at the dullest of gardens and landscapes, decide that they had wherein Gros explains why 'capabilities' for improvement (hence the time-honoured epithet), and persuade the owner that a transformation was both possible and desirable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951794</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Johanna Adorjan|title=An Exclusive Love|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This moving memoir tells of the double suicide of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in October. The story walking is told by their granddaughter, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but in particular with Vera, with whom 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 to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1956. It ends with the police reports of the duty officer dated 15.10.91 with the discovery of their bodies in their bungalow in the Charlottenlund, not a town of the Capital Region of Denmark. Entry is gained by a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorablesport''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlumenthalSharon Blackie|title=Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought DifferentIf Women Rose Rooted
|rating=5
|genre=Biography|summary=Framed I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by Jobshow many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremony, and ve finished reading the three stories he told the students, about connecting the dots, love and loss, and mortality, this biography gives a succinct and balanced account of Jobsone I' life, his successes and his failures, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personalityve borrowed. The author actively annotates the backstory of Jobs with references from this speech, as well as future events, carefully chosen statistics, and Jobs I want to avoid clichés like ' own reminiscence, giving a rich context to his story. Jobspowerful' achievements are incredible and they're not simply down to his genius, but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charisma. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot|title=Dotter of Her Fatherinspiring's Eyes|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=If there's one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joycelife-changing's daughter, – although it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with 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 Ronnie Williams was the son of 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 outdo each other have been born in celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth1863, it but he was perhaps inevitable that we should see already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a reappearance of what has become few years off his age. For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the modern standard life, by Peter Ackroyd1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. The 1200One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-page original was first published in 1990, while out and this 600-page abridged edition surfaced would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1994, and now makes another timely appearance1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul HendricksonPatti Smith|title=Hemingway's Boat: Everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934-1961Year of the Monkey
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography On the coast of Ernest Hemingway. In factSanta Cruz, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise and fall’. Its theme is more or less Patti Smith enters the second half lunar year of his lifethe monkey - one packed with mischief, from 1934sorrow, when he returned from an African safari and took delivery of his boat Pilarunexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, to his tragic death 27 years later. Hendrickson intends it to be an account 's the year of the writer, bringing together monkey''. As Smith wanders the different elements coast of his Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life – fishing, friendship, wives - loss and family ageing are faced head- and above allon, naturally, his writingas it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bradford1912242052|title=Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our TimesO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=BiographyArt|summary=As ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies of the Queen (published in 1996)miner, of her father George VIquarryman, and her daughter-inshepherd or pack-law Dianahorse driver, Sarah Bradford needs little introductionbut because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. At around 260 pages of textHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, this is barely half the length changed our view of her other titles, and probably aimed more at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee marketworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick O'SheaGraff_Find|title=Amy Winehouse: A Losing GameFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=At the risk When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of stating the obvioushandwritten notes from his journal, this is a sad bookhe didn't take much notice of it. Writing this review some five months after her death, now At 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 age of aspiring X-Factor contestants had given up singing and opted for less glamorous24, more steady careers. After all, her idols had been not only near-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliott, but also those Graff didn't realise the gravity of an earlier generation such as the classic 1960s girl groups, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, with whom she pages he was thrilled to record a duet four months before she diedholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Hollis1789016304|title=Now All Roads Lead to FranceWar and Love: The Last Years A family's testament of Edward Thomasanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Most historians tend Melanie Martin read about what happened to refer to Edwardian England as the thirteen-year interlude between the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated the First Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World WarII and was entranced by what she discovered, an era particularly in ''The Diary of relative stabilityAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. However, there had been ominous rumblings A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the new order of things city during the two war years or so prior , but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to June 1914, particularly from happen in a new spirit among the younger literary generationcountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. The old Victorian writersMost 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, notably that the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good manAmsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, but an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed initial protests melted away as irredeemably old hat by the likes of Rupert Brooke and W.H. Daviesorganisers became more circumspect. For It's an atrocity on a short time London was the poetry capital vast scale but made up of tens of the world, and the book opens with the opening in January 1913 thousands of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readersindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Blackburn1786893452|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain VillageThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for many yearsHere in the West, but they had drifted apart. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned we see news reports about immigrants on a cottage he had discovered in Liguria and which he was renovatingregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. Some time later there was another postcard and an invitation to visit. Over time the cottage would become her home and Herman her husband. 'Thin Paths' is the But all of those stories of the people who inhabit this harshare written by journalists – almost always western, wild landscape and of almost always, no matter how deep the way in which the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the people world and the places together situations that refugees find themselves 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=It'To live forever or die in s rare that we find out the attempt' was journeys from the essential glory in life refugees themselves – and living this is a rare opportunity to do that is at the heart of John Yossarian , in [[Catch 22 this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the daughter middle of his creatora revolution in Iran, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and vervefleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chambers and Joan Bakewell0857058320|title=Chambers Biographical DictionaryLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=It's now 'Lord Of All the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as Dead'' is a bit of a shock when I glanced at journey to uncover the bookcase author's lost ancestor's life and realised that my copy dated back to 1974 and was still in regular use death. Cercas is searching for a quick guide as to who might have been who. Itthe meaning behind his great uncle's advertised as death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas'the greatuncle, is the good, figure who looms large over the not-so-great and the downright wicked' and itbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's difficult to better that summaryforces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from ''Who's Who'' with The question at the centre of this book is whether it's thirty thousand entries in that covers the dead as well as the living and the ''interesting'' rather than those who need is possible for his great uncle to be included because they have achieved a certain positionhero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin1788037812|title=Charles DickensThe Fraternity of the Estranged: A LifeThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Having already 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 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written biographies by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of Thomas Hardy society and Jane Austenstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, among othersbut barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to say nothing the scientific understanding of a study of Dickens homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and his mistress Nelly Ternanequality, Claire Tomalin is admirably qualified to produce a major life of the author leading to mark the bicentenary milestone legalisation of his birth same-sex relationships in 1812. (Sadly, she says this will be her last large-scale book)1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jermaine JacksonBuckland_Zoo|title=You Are Not AloneThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Michael Through A Brother's EyesFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=It is inevitable that the books we have already seen about Michael Jackson As a conservationist in Victorian England before the two years since term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his sudden passing will be merely the tip of the icebergtime. Yet for those which comprise and are based on first-hand knowledge of his life and deathSurgeon, naturalist, there will surely be few if any to rival this account by his brother Jermaine veterinarian and ghostwriter Steve Dennis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Graham Holderness|title=Nine Lives of William Shakespeare|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=There is a subtle irony in the fact that the world’s best-known playwrighteccentric sums him up perfectly, and possibly the most famous author of all time, any biographer is immediately presented with a character about whom so little is known for certain. Nevertheless, as we are looking at someone who died nearly 400 years ago, the indisputable documentary evidence is bound colourful tale to be lackingtell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne IsbaWilliams_Captain|title=Dickens's WomenCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and LovesTimes|author=Ivor George Williams
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The subject In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the several women 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of the life of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to build a biography aroundSydney, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose wellAustralia: his wife and young son accompanied him. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens He was not destined to live a man who 'craved a love so unconditional that long life, dying suddenly at the yearning was unlikely age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to be satisfied raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in this world, a man in thrall difficult position: not only did she have their farm to a vision of a womanhood so idealized that it manage, but she was incompatible with everyday domesticity'also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce DuffyPeacock_mountain|title=Disaster was my GodInto The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte 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 the age of 22. He then became an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gemaldegalerieit, 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 to Louis XIV, who ascended we sell the throne when he was four years old and reigned for myriad lesser-known authors short as well over seventy two years. To put him in context his reign began before Charles So while, like most other people I was executed in Whitehallhave my favourite genres, lasted through the English Civil Warand favoured authors, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealthand while, the reigns of Charles like most other people I, James II, William III and into read the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages reviews and the early modern erafollow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>
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