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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Born in Siberia1788360702|author=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summarytitle=I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's a title that doesn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual wayCharles, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373343</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The PikeAlternative Prince: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War|author=Lucy Hughes-Hallett|rating=3.5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=Gabriele d’Annunzio was a strange and perhaps fortunately unique character, a kind of 20th century Renaissance man who almost defies posterity to pigeonhole him. At various times he was a poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, adventurer, self-styled demagogue and philanderer. Although he lost several friends during the First World War, as well as the sight of one eye when his plane was shot down, he had a passion for war, seeing bloodshed as manly and death in battle as glorious self-sacrifice. He had the dodgiest of moral compasses, and yet was hardly the Adonis he believed himself to be. One French courtesan who firmly rebuffed his physical advances later called him ‘a frightful gnome with red-rimmed eyes and no eyelashes, no hair, greenish teeth, bad breath and the manners of a mountebank’. Had he been alive today, he would have probably been an instant celebrity and media personality with a very short shelf-life. One half Jeremy Clarkson, one half Russell Brand, one might say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007213964</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second SonEdzard Ernst

|summary=For over forty years, Prince Alfred was the second son Charles has been an ardent supporter of Queen Victoria alternative medicine and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gothacomplementary therapies. At the time of his birth he was second in line to the throne after his brother''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince of Wales and was generally known within the family as Affie. In his early teens he joined the Royal Navy - at his own request - and whilst his family and status was undoubtedly no disadvantage to him, he worked hard and had a genuine talent for the navy, eventually receiving his Admiral's baton and visiting all five continents in the course of his service. He was created Duke of Edinburgh (along with various other titles) by the queen. His marriage - to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia - was not a happy unionopinions, with his wife being not well-liked in society beliefs and obsessed by her precedence. They had six children (one of whom was stillborn) but only one son - 'young Affie' who committed suicide at aims against the age of twenty four.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178155319X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink |author=Olivia Laing|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Coming from a family with an alcoholic background, Olivia Laing became fascinated by the idea of why and how some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature were written by those with a drink problemscientific evidence. The list soon became a long one – Dylan Thomas, Raymond Chandler, Jack London, Jean Rhys, to name but a There are few, instantly came to mind. In the spring instances of 2011 she crossed the Atlantic to take a trip across the USA, from New York City his beliefs being vindicated and New Orleans to Chicago and Seattle by hired car and train, in the course his relentless promotion of treatments which she took a close look at the link between creativity and alcohol which inspired have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the work reputation of six authors, namely F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. Taking her title from a character in Williams’s play ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ man who says he is taking a trip to echo spring, an euphemism for the liquor cabinet, she travels to the places which were pivotal in their often overlapping lives and work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677940</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant proud of Auschwitz|author=Thomas Harding|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This dual biography concerns, as the title makes clear, two men. One was from an inherently German, rich Jewish family – they had a powerboat so he could waterski on the lake at their country cottage – who fled the rise of the Nazis early in the 1930s, and got away moderately lightly, only losing properties and a large and successful medical career. The other was from an inherently German family, who signed up for First World War service before his age, but only really wanted refusal to be a farmer and family man, yet who ended up running probably history's worst slaughterhouse. Both had a connection and a shared destiny that was largely unknown before this book was researched, there's a chance that both of them had the blood of one man and only one man directly on their hands from WWII service, and both of them – again, as the title makes clear – are given the dignity of the familiarapply evidence-based, first name throughout this incredible book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022365</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life|author=Hermione Lee|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Penelope Fitzgerald came from an earnest and renowned academic family, the Knoxes, which included several prominent clerics; her grandfather was the Bishop of Manchester. A considerable biographer herself, she wrote a book on the Knox brothers, these included two Oxford pastors (one of whom, Ronald Knox, converted logical reasoning to Catholicism, was famous as a biblical translator and whilst chaplain at Trinity College became a mentor to the future prime minister, Harold Macmillan), a top Bletchley cryptographic analyst and Penelope's own eminent father, 'Evoe' who was editor of Punch. Fitzgerald wrote prolifically from childhood and fulfilled some of these high expectations by gaining a brilliant First at Somerville. Graduating in 1938, she was already known for her membership of the smart set, for her student journalism and a reticent, indeed peremptory manner. Women could not actually graduate at Oxford until a statute was passed in 1920. Hence she was amongst Oxford's early women graduates. Her striking appearance within the smart set earned her the nickname of the ''blonde bombshell''his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184957</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Freeman1739805100|title=How to Read Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a Novelist: Conversations with Writerstime of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=As a book reviewer there are certain people whom I hold in high regard and one of these is John Freeman. Not yet forty he has an enviable record as an editor to some of the big names in literature and it seems that every book of note for a decade and a half has been greeted by his review. Don't be misled by 'Loving the title Enemy''How to Read a Novelist'' - this isn't a guide to literary criticism, but a collection tells the quite extraordinary story of Freemanauthor Andrew March's interviews with eminent authors. There are fifty six in totalgrandparents, ranging from literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan, Gunter Grass and Kazuo Ishiguro through who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to popular crime fiction writers such as Donna Leon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472109376</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Inside The Centre: The Life of J Robert Oppenheimer|author=Ray Monk|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Thinking back Dresden to teach in the early 1960s, Bertrand Russell, days of the Nazi regime in the subject of another prize winning biography by Ray Monk, was frequently seen on black and white television declaring his concerns over Nuclear Weapons1930s. He statedFred, 'Neither a sensitive and thoughtful man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under , had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the influence of a great fear.' For nearly seventy years, mankind has wondered growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the words of Sting, time. Fred'How can I save my boy s attempts to separate individual people from Oppenheimerideology weren's deadly toy?' As concerns about nuclear proliferation in relation to Iraq, Pakistan t universally successful but he did make friendships and North Korea escalate it is salutary to return to a thorough biography of the man, known as the father of the bomb, connections that felt lasted for a deep and urgent need to be at the centre and to belong, J Robert Oppenheimerlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099433532</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan MooreWill Brooker|authortitle=Lance ParkinThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=I don't think that I ever saw Meet [[:Category:Alan MooreLisa Jewell|Alan MooreLisa Jewell]] when I lived in Northampton, and one of the most successful British authors I don't think I coincided with ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the publication thousands of ''Maxwell the Magic Cat'' in the local newspaperless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. So I missed out on This book starts with the memorable frame of someone else who is six foot twomeeting each other, as well, albeit a generation older and looking so hirsute he would seem to be afraid of scissorsshows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. But I certainly would not have been alone in not recognising him for what he is. How many Northampton housewives flicked past The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the daily panels words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''Maxwellblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' in complete ignorance (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who Alan Moore actually is? – With no idea that has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the years he spent drawing rabbit-hole that cartoon for £10 a week – later to be £12is Jewell's diverse output.50 – were just him gearing up Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to be follow her through a year in the biggest man published author's life, working to make a success of letters the latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the comic book world?result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781310777</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Alan Turing (Real Lives)Martha Leigh|authortitle=Jim EldridgeInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Children's Non-FictionBiography|summary=Alan Turing was one Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of Britainthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also Her mother is a hero of World War II, working concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley Park, cracking German naval codes used to lethal effect organising U-boat attackspracticalities of life. Turing was There is love in the man who beat the Enigma machinehouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Cher: Strong EnoughPolly Barton|authortitle=Josiah HowardFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Having looked at Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the title question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and subif the world hadn't gone into melt-titledown I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, the latter being no more than the two-word title of one of her latter-day hitsbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I assumed this was going don't know the answer to be a fairly comprehensive biography of the American singer. The sub-title, question ''Strong Enoughwhy Japan?'', taken from one She explains her feelings in respect of her latter-day hit singlesthe question in the first essay, reveals nothing. Not until I had almost finished it, a little puzzled at it not being quite what I had expected, did I finally look at the blurb which is on the back sound ''giro' '' – at which point all became clear. This was not the full story of a showbiz career which has lasted close on half a centuryshe describes as being, among other things, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account sound of her 1975 TV variety show''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654842</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empress Dowager CixiFrederic Gros|authortitle=Jung ChangA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as I confess I picked this one up from the focal point for her study library in my pre-lockdown forage of China’s tumultuous modern historyrandom stuff. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to Now I have shaped the course of history. Cixi’s biography is not only a fascinating read due to her go out an buy my own political machinations, but also because of the immense transformations copy so that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of I can turn down the period from Cixi’s entrance pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to court . Some books draw you in 1852 to her death slowly. This one had me in 1908the first two pages, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial agewherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Bertie: A Life of Edward VIISharon Blackie|authortitle=Jane RidleyIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=Several of the main facts about King Edward VII (1841-1910) are reasonably well-known. Considered oversexed by his parents, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, he was blamed by the former for breaking the latter's heart and causing his early death with the news I normally say that he (Edward) had enjoyed himself with you can tell how much a lady 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've finished reading the nightone I've borrowed. He was notoriously unfaithful I want to his charming but prematurely deaf avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and lame wife Alexandra, hated reading books and learning only time will tell about the third – but became clichés exist for a first-class unofficial ambassador to courts reason and countries abroad, and despite low expectations of others and poor health he made an excellent King for the last nine years of his lifeI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575442</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Summers0241446732|title=Not In Your LifetimeOur House is on Fire: The Assassination Scenes of JFK|rating=4.5|genre=True Crime|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy'', Anthony Summers has massively revised the text, updated it with the latest evidence a Family and it's been republished as ''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK'' which refers to the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come out. He said that it would, but added the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetime''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now dead, but the truth has not officially emerged. In fact, it's difficult to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents are due to be released a Planet in 2017, but, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf and given us this comprehensive book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldCrisis|author=Greg King Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Sue WoolmansSvante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Possibly no assassination in history can have had such momentous consequences for the history The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the world as that parenting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and his wife Sophie in Sarajevoher sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the capital of Bosnia, in June 1914family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. It was If they were to find a way to live happily again their killing which led directly solution would need to the outbreak of the First World War, just six weeks laterbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Red LoveClara Colby: The Story of an East German FamilyInternational Suffragist|author=Maxim LeoJohn Holliday|rating=54

|summary=Chances are there have been major disagreements and splits in your The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her familyemigrated to the USA. One black sheep might have supported At the wrong football team. Some time she was just three-years-old but because of you will be strictly ''Strictly''some childhood ailment, the rest ''X Factor'she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. But probably nothing compares to what went Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in the Leo household over decades in Eastern Berlinand out of school. One of our author's grandfathers, Gerhard, She was too Jewish and bourgeois to survive life the only child in Germany, fled to France, the household and came back a Communist having fought against Nazismher childhood was glorious. His counterpart Werner ended By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the war with some semblance mid-west of PTSD, the United States and more or less landed in Communist Berlin due to facts of administrationlife was hard, yet became a fully-fledged Party activist. Author's mother Anne worked as a journalist on the Communist mouthpiece newspaper, even if she managed Clara was to doubt things find out when she was forced and her grandparents eventually went to write during join the Prague Spring and morefamily. Her husband Wolf – Werner's son – in Clara would only know her mother for a similar industry few months: she was involved in sort-of Photoshopping married for propagandafifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and often sabotaged his own outputdied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. He was violent, awkwardAs the eldest girl, but very anti-establishment. And if you can't see how having a non-Communist in such heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a family in the heightened times of Cold War Berlin would be, you certainly will after reading this gripping collective biographyrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968516</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara A Perry1789017977|title=Rose KennedyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The Towards a New Life and Times of a Political Matriarchafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=ItRonnie 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 about fifty birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years since the assassination of President John F Kennedy older than Ethel and it was he (and particularly might well have shaved a few years off his death) who brought age. For a while, the Kennedy family was quite well-to -do but disaster struck in the attention of 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a new generationvery different lifestyle. An earlier generation had been split about the virtues (or otherwise) of One thing he did inherit from his father, Joe Kennedy, multi millionaire was his need to be well-turned-out and United States Ambassador to Great Britainthis would stay with him throughout his life. But behind both of these men was mother and wife, Rose Kennedy and Barbara A Perry has produced a superb biography using letters, diaries and other archived material recently made availableHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068951</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Eminent ElizabethansPatti Smith|authortitle=Piers BrendonYear of the Monkey

|summary=On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, 'Eminent Elizabethans'Anything is possible: after all, it' is in effect a descendant s the year of the author’s ''Eminent Edwardiansmonkey''. The latter, a volume of short biographies of four British iconic figures As Smith wanders the coast of the early twentieth century, was Santa Cruz in turn inspired by Lytton Strachey’s barbed 'Eminent Victorians'solitude, published she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in 1918her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, a debunking of four Victorian heroes whom as it the iconoclast Strachey wished to demonstrate had feet of clayshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532638</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Sisters of the East End1912242052|author=Helen Batten|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summarytitle=Katie Crisp had never intended to become a nun. Raised by non-religious parents, her family frowned upon organised religion and when Katie started secretly going to church, they strongly disapproved. When Katie ran to the aid of a stroke victim, she had a vision that changed her life. She saw herself dressed as a nun with a large silver cross hanging from her neck. She decided to follow her calling and join the community of St John the Divine, a group of Anglican nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery. She thus shed her old identity and became known as Sister Catherine Mary.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091951771</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewO Joy for me!|author=Jerry Oppenheimer|title=Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson DynastyKeir Davidson

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Back in 1885 three brothers were inspired by a speech by Joseph Lister, ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the pioneer of antiseptic surgerymountains alone, not because he had to create for work, as a range of surgical dressings miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack- such things were previously unheard of - and this was the beginning of Johnson & Johnsonhorse driver, providers of Band-Aids but because he wanted to for pleasure and baby powderadventure. It also brought phenomenal wealth to the founders His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and a variety of trusts continued this down the years. The first president its literary consequences, changed our view of the company was Robert Wood Johnson. NFL fans will be aware of his great grandson, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as world'Woody'), owner of the New York Jets. In between the two - and afterwards - there are a string of tragedies and scandals which put you in mind of the Kennedy dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312662114</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=America's Mistress: The Life and Times of Eartha Kitt|author=John L Williams|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Two quotes on the back of the dust jacket testify to the power and public perception of Eartha Kitt during her lifetime. Orson Welles once called her ‘the most exciting woman in the world’, while to the CIA she was ‘a sadistic nymphomaniac’.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857385755</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGraff_Find|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's InfernoFind Another Place|author=Michael HaagBen Graff|rating=43.5|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=Here be spoilers. Not so much in my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster. ItWhen Ben Graff's not so much grandfather Martin handed him a page-by-page guideplastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, but certainly serves as an educational and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book he didn't take much notice of 2013.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household|author=Kate Hubbard|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies old and new of Queen Victoria, her husband and her children are plentiful enoughit. The vast majority of them are based to some extent on At the diaries, memoirs and biographies of some age of the most important figures who served her24, and Kate Hubbard has put these as well as supplementary archive papers to good use in presenting a thoroughly engrossing account of Graff didn't realise the royal household throughout the Queen’s lengthy reign. I might almost say ‘lively’, though that could be an exaggeration. The court gravity of Victoria may have been homely after a fashion, but for the most part it pages he was hardly livelyholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532239</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Sellers1789016304|title=What Fresh Lunacy is This?War and Love: The Authorised Biography A family's testament of Oliver Reedanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=For rather more Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of his career than he, his Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family 's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and closest friends might have liked, seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the name Oliver Reed was a byword for boozewar years, brawls but only five thousand survived and all types of laddish behaviourMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. As Sellers’ very full and remarkably objective biography revealsMost people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it was a funny yet sad life all at oncedid, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. For although he repeatedly played It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up to the image of the lovable rogue which he had created, underneath the bad boy tens of thousands of popular legend he was at heart a professional actor who could always deliver a first-rate performance on the film set when requiredindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147210112X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Thompson1786893452|title=A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not' Ripley Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5

|summary=Robert LeRoy Ripley was indeed Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a curious manregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. He throve on curiosityBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, his own and that of everyone else. By exploiting and never underestimating almost always, no matter how deep the public demand for triviainvestigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the world and by being the situations that refugees find themselves in . It's rare that we find out the right place at journeys from the right time just as the news refugees themselves – and broadcasting media were beginning this is a rare opportunity to develop do that, in America into the unassailable forces they were this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the end middle of the centurya revolution in Iran, he became one of the most successful men of the agefleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947204</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hermione Lee0857058320|title=Edith WhartonLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=A prolific ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author, Edith Wharton's published output included over twenty novels, one a Pulitzer Prize winner, and 85 short stories, as well as poetry lost ancestor's life and books on interior design and traveldeath. Born Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the United States in 1862Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, she travelled extensively throughout EuropeCercas' great uncle, and settled permanently in France where she is the figure who looms large over the book. He died in 1937relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952014</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Simmons1788037812|title=I'm Your ManThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Life of Leonard CohenFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=If you or I wanted to write a story about an imaginary figure who began as a novelist and poetOriginally passed in 1885, then became acclaimed as a singer-songwriter in the swinging sixties, law that had made and lost homosexual relations a fortune, became a monkcrime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and returned to a musical career at an age when most mortals are well into retirement1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and found himself not only more popular than ever but also playing to the largest audiences in his entire lifeJohn Addington Symonds, it would be dismissed as total fantasywell as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Nobody could make it up – Exploring the margins of society and nobody needs tostudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, because but barely talked about in a nutshell that is the life (UK, so far) the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of Leonard Cohenhomosexuality, and beginning the subject of this biography struggle for recognition and surely one equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of the music business’s most unique figuressame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549328</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J C KannemeyerBuckland_Zoo|title=J.M. CoetzeeThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: A life in writingFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee is described as probably As a conservationist in Victorian England before the most celebrated and decorated writer throughout the English-speaking worldterm existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. The author of sixteen published novelsSurgeon, he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Booker Prize twice. At the same time he has guarded his privacy jealouslynaturalist, tending to decline interviews veterinarian and requests to discuss his workeccentric sums him up perfectly, and refusing any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to collect prestigious awards in person. On one occasion he explained his absence by saying that he could not imagine 'anything better calculated to reduce me to misery'. One acquaintance claims to have attended several dinner parties at which the author was a fellow guest and did not utter a single wordtell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922070084</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vladimir AlexandrovWilliams_Captain|title=The Black RussianCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=54

|summary=Until I read this book I had never come across In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the story 17th Regiment of Foot. He was in command of Frederick Bruce Thomasthe troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, 'dying suddenly at the Black Russian'age of 34 at Bangalore, beforeleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. It is Edwards' death left his widow in a remarkable tale of rags difficult position: not only did she have their farm to richesmanage, tragedy, success against but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the odds and subsequent failureland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855196</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy MoorePeacock_mountain|title=NijinskyInto The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=The name Nijinsky Mostly we choose what books to read because there is synonymous with dance from so little time and so many books… I can understand the last days of imperial Russiaapproach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I must confess to knowing little about him until have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read this, the first biography of him for nearly forty yearsreviews and follow up on what appeals, and for me it was I also have a surprise third-string to learn that his career was so tragically briefmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686180</amazonuk>