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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=GraceCharles, The Alternative Prince: Her Lives - Her Loves: The startling royal exposéAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Robert LaceyEdzard Ernst

|summary=Twenty-five For over forty years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out to be anything but, one Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Atlantic Prince's opinions, beliefs and married into aims against the principality background of Monacothe scientific evidence. The ceremony in 1956 was hailed as the wedding There are few instances of the year, but like the later his beliefs being vindicated and similar event, it was not his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the happiest reputation of unionsa man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191016738X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1739805100|title=One RiverLoving the Enemy: Explorations and Discoveries Building bridges in the Amazon Rainforesta time of war|author=Wade DavisAndrew March

|genre=TravelBiography|summary=As someone who has always enjoyed learning about ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the Amazonquite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, and with plans who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to travel Dresden to South America next year, this book practically screamed at me to be reviewedteach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. AndFred, although a little tough going sensitive and long-winded in partsthoughtful man, I'm glad I had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the opportunity to get lost growing hostilities between nations unfolding in DavisEurope at the time. Fred' incredible work of non-fiction. Difficult s attempts to describe in terms of genre, this book combines history, politics, science, botany and culture. It is delivered through a biographical account of Davisseparate individual people from ideology weren' own travels t universally successful but he did make friendships and as connections that lasted for a memoir to Richard Evans Schultes, an ethnobotanist well known for his work and travels in the Amazon and Wade Davis' highly regarded mentorlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592967</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her WorldWill Brooker|authortitle=Stefan KorneliusThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=You have to admire Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the ladymost successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, this rather awkward and shy daughter one of the thousands of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholicless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. His daughter studied This book starts with such intelligence the two meeting each other, as well, and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian shows how 2021 drew the two closer and finally in Quantum Chemistrycloser together. At The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the age words of 26her latest book she was reciting, she obtained and her doctorate and being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get- in passingup never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, it rather seems - her first husbanda professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the physicist Ulrike Merkelrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Her rise Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to power was rapid and took place follow her through the period a year in which the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with published author's life, working to make a wry and dry sense success of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment of latest title, and struggling with the characteristic known next in German as ''fleissig'' - hardworkingline. Jewell, sedulousdue diligence appropriately done, diligent and assiduousagrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Blazing Star: The Life and Times of John Wilmot, Earl of RochesterMartha Leigh|authortitle=Alexander LarmanInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=John Wilmot Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, 2nd Earl of Rochesterimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, was forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the ultimate 'live fast, die young' icon complete correspondence of the Stuart agephilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the seventeenth-century embodiment of 'Hope I die before I get oldhis life's work. Restoration dandy, satirist and pornographic poet, he died Her mother is a lingering death at the age of 33, racked by venereal disease and alcoholismconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. If he Neither parent is remembered at all these days, except by those familiar with hugely interested in the history or literature practicalities of the age, it life. There is as love in the James Dean or the Keith Moon of his day, house but also darker undercurrents that a hellraiser whose poetry was heavily suppressed for many years by the censors. In fact much of his verse was child does not published under his name until long after his death, and as most of it was only circulated in manuscript form during his lifetime and a good deal destroyed by his mother after his death, it fully understand but knows is uncertain how much does still survivethere.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781851093</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in FrancePolly Barton|authortitle=Stephen ClarkeFifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Although he was AngloWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-German down I would have visited by birthnow. I may get there later this year, so Stephen Clarke suggestsbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, King Edward VII was very much a Parisian by nature. As we would expect from I don't know the answer to the author question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of several lighthearted books on our Gallic neighbours, including ‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’question in the first essay, this which is not on the most weighty or solemn biography of the King you will ever findsound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, but it is certainly an entertainingamong other things, racy gallop through the life sound of its subject''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780890346</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Josephine: Desire, Ambition, NapoleonFrederic Gros|authortitle=Kate WilliamsA Philosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Until reading I confess I picked this biography, it had never really occurred to me just how shadowy a figure the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of up from the bestlibrary in my pre-known European rulers lockdown forage of the age, really wasrandom stuff. It may be common knowledge Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that her name was Josephine, but few of us perhaps really know anything of I can turn down the woman behind pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the namefirst two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009955142X</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a NationSharon Blackie|authortitle=Roy HattersleyIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=According I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to the back me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of this book, ‘the story of the Devonshires impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the story of Britain’one I've borrowed. That’s an extravagant claim, but it contains more than a germ of truth. Certainly one would be hard-pushed I want to find an aristocratic, nonavoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-royal British family who has more consistently been central to our history since medieval times, as this detailed chronicle demonstrates. From the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over in part by Sir William Cavendish, father of changing' – although it is definitely the first Earl, to two and only time will tell about the big business that their ancestral home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has now become, the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires have often been, or helped to, contribute to, part of the fabric of Britain’s past third – but clichés exist for a reason and presentI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554399</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=The Life Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Rebecca Jonesa Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Angharad PriceMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=A newly-married couple make their way home from the chapel, riding The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on a horse-drawn cart as it winds its way round familiar country lanes towards the beautiful valley most of Maesglasau. The horse pauses atop a hill and the valley spreads out before them: 'the vessel parenting of their marriage'two daughters. The centuries Then eleven-year-old stone farmhouse in the crook of the mountain is Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to be their homestead; seek a sturdysolution close to home, silent witness but eventually, it became clear to the tragedy and joy family that is an intrinsic part of the fabric of family lifethey were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085738712X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Wilkie CollinsClara Colby: A Life of SensationThe International Suffragist|author=Andrew LycettJohn Holliday

|summary=Wilkie Collins has come down The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to us as the chief exponent of the Victorian ‘sensation novel’USA. This At the time she was the genre just three-years-old but because of story written specifically some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to expose deep-rooted domestic or family secretssail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, uncovering illegitimacyshe remained with her grandparents, bigamy or other irregular activities by supposedly respectable citizens leading outwardly normalwho doted on her and saw that she received a good education, uneventful livesboth in and out of school. There were mysteries, deceptions, betrayals, evil characters She was the only child in the household and good innocent onesher childhood was glorious. Measured by these standardsBy contrast, he led a ‘sensational’ her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life himselfwas hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. When not writing novels, short stories, plays or articles Clara would only know her mother for journals in order to earn a livingfew months: she was married for fifteen years, this apparently fine upstanding bachelor maintained two households, two mistresseshad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and children at died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the same time – eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and managed to keep them Wisconsin was a secret from the public who would doubtless have been scandalized to know the truthrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557347</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=Four SistersRonnie and Hilda's Romance:The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand DuchessesTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Helen RappaportWendy Williams|rating=54|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=A few years ago, Helen Rappaport wrote Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and published [[EkaterinburgEthel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: The Last Days of the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport|Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs]]he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a painstaking, chilling account of the final days and death of the last Tsar of Russia and few years off his familyage. To For a certain extent this biography is a prequel to that volumewhile, an account of the short lives of OTMA, as they referred family was quite well-to themselves – -do but disaster struck in the Tsar’s daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and Anastasiathis would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230768172</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord HalifaxPatti Smith|authortitle=Andrew RobertsYear of the Monkey|rating=4.5

|summary=Of all On the British nearly-Prime Ministers Edward Woodcoast of Santa Cruz, 1st Earl Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Halifax, must be unique. He was the monkey - one who came closest to assuming the mantle only to find the job denied himpacked with mischief, sorrow, and had he done sounexpected moments. In a stranger's words, on him Britain’s destiny would have depended''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey''. For he was As Smith wanders the man whom several confidently expectedcoast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and many wantedageing are faced head-on, to take over after the resignation of Neville Chamberlain during as it the dark days of May 1940shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781856974</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=The Boys In The Boat: An Epic Journey to the Heart of Hitler's BerlinO Joy for me!|author=Daniel James BrownKeir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=You see''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, Jesse Owens had it easy – all not because he had to do was run fast. Alrightfor work, he did have to face unknown hardshipas a miner, heinous prejudice at home and abroadquarryman, and make sure he was fast enough to outdo the rest of his compatriots then the world's best to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympicsshepherd or pack-horse driver, but others who wished because he wanted to do the same had to do morefor pleasure and adventure. People such as those rowers in the coxed eights squad – people such as young Joe Rantz. He certainly had to face hardship, the prejudice borne by those in the moneyed east coast yacht clubs against an upstart from the NW USA, and when he got to compete he had to use so many more musclesHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and operate at varying tempiits literary consequences, with the temperament changed our view of the weather and water against him, all in perfect synchronicity with seven other beefcakes. Despite rowing being the second greatest ticket at those Games, Joeworld''s story is a lot less well known, and probably a lot more entertaining.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447210980</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A CaroGraff_Find|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of AscentFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5

|summary=ItWhen Ben Graff's only grandfather Martin handed him a matter plastic folder of days since I finished listening to [[The Years handwritten notes from his journal, he didn't take much notice of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert A Caro|The Years it. At the age of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power]]24, Graff didn't realise the first part gravity of Robert A Caro's definitive work on the President and despite having just spent over forty hours on the book I wanted to learn more. I pages he was torn though - the second book in a series is not often as good as the first and it struck me that these might not be the most exciting years in Johnson's life. Was this book going to be the link which took us on to the more exciting times? Not a bit of itholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00GSHD0U6</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A Caro1789016304|title=The Years War and Love: A family's testament of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Poweranguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Lyndon Baines Johnson 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 Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the 36th President of city during the United Stateswar years, preceded by John F Kennedy but only five thousand survived and succeeded by Richard Nixon, Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with both being remembered most for the way they left officeliberal values who were resistant to German occupation. His five-year term in office was overshadowed at Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the start by city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Kennedy assassination and increasingly blighted by Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the debacle which was Vietnamway that it did, but there was something about Johnson which always intrigued me: how does a poor boy from Texas hill country without an exceptional (or even 'good') education become president of initial protests melted away as the United States? organisers became more circumspect. It'The Years s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power' tells you all that you need to knowindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00GSHTJZQ</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=Born in SiberiaThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie SlaterDina Nayeri

|summary=Gabriele d’Annunzio was Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a strange and perhaps fortunately unique characterregular basis – some media welcoming them, a kind some scaremongering about them. But all of 20th century Renaissance man who those stories are written by journalists – almost defies posterity to pigeonhole him. At various times he was a poetalways western, novelistand almost always, dramatist, journalist, adventurer, self-styled demagogue and philanderer. Although he lost several friends during no matter how deep the First World Warinvestigative journalism they carry out, as well as outsiders to the sight of one eye when his plane was shot down, he had a passion for war, seeing bloodshed as manly world and death the situations that refugees find themselves in battle as glorious self-sacrifice. He had It's rare that we find out the journeys from the dodgiest of moral compasses, refugees themselves – and yet was hardly the Adonis he believed himself this is a rare opportunity to be. One French courtesan who firmly rebuffed his physical advances later called him ‘a frightful gnome with red-rimmed eyes and no eyelashesdo that, no hairin this intelligent, greenish teeth, bad breath powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the manners middle of a mountebank’. Had he been alive todayrevolution in Iran, he would have probably been an instant celebrity and media personality with fleeing to America as a very short shelften-life. One half Jeremy Clarkson, one half Russell Brand, one might sayyear-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007213964</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste0857058320|title=Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second SonLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Prince Alfred was ''Lord Of All the second son of Queen Victoria Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gothadeath. At Cercas is searching for the time of meaning behind his birth he was second great uncle's death in line to the throne after his brotherSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the Prince of Wales and was generally known within figure who looms large over the family as Affiebook. In his early teens he joined the Royal Navy - at his own request - and He died relatively young whilst his family and status was undoubtedly no disadvantage to him, he worked hard and had a genuine talent fighting for the navy, eventually receiving his AdmiralFrancisco Franco's baton and visiting all five continents in forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the course centre of this book is whether it is possible for his service. He was created Duke of Edinburgh (along with various other titles) by the queen. His marriage - great uncle to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia - was not be a happy union, with his wife being not well-liked in society and obsessed by her precedence. They had six children (one of whom was stillborn) but only one son - 'young Affie' who committed suicide at hero whilst having fought for the age of twenty fourwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178155319X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink 1788037812|author=Olivia Laing|ratingtitle=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 problem. The list soon became a long one – Dylan Thomas, Raymond Chandler, Jack London, Jean Rhys, to name but a few, instantly came to mind. In the spring of 2011 she crossed the Atlantic to take a trip across the USA, from New York City and New Orleans to Chicago and Seattle by hired car and train, in the course Fraternity of which she took a close look at the link between creativity and alcohol which inspired the work 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’ 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 RudolfEstranged: The German Jew and the Hunt Fight for the Kommandant of AuschwitzHomosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Thomas HardingBrian Anderson

|summary=This dual biography concernsOriginally passed in 1885, as the title makes clearlaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, two menrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. One was from an inherently GermanBetween 1891 and 1908, rich Jewish family – they had a powerboat so he could waterski three books on the lake at their country cottage – who fled the rise nature of the Nazis early in the 1930s, and got away moderately lightly, only losing properties and a large and successful medical careerhomosexuality appeared. The other was from an inherently German family, who signed up for First World War service before his age, but only really wanted to be a farmer They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and family manJohn Addington Symonds, yet who ended up running probably history's worst slaughterhouseas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. 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 Exploring the blood margins of one man society and only one man directly studying homosexuality was common on their hands from WWII servicethe European Continent, and both of them – againbut barely talked about in the UK, as so the title makes clear publications of these men were hugely significant – are given contributing to the dignity scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the familiarstruggle for recognition and equality, first name throughout this incredible bookleading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022365</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Penelope Fitzgerald: A LifeBuckland_Zoo|author=Hermione Lee|rating=5|genre=Biography|summarytitle=Penelope Fitzgerald came from an earnest and renowned academic family, The Man Who Ate 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 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 fatherZoo: Frank Buckland, 'Evoe' who was editor forgotten hero 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''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184957</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=John Freeman|title=How to Read a Novelist: Conversations with WritersRichard Girling

|summary=As a book reviewer there are certain people whom I hold conservationist 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 Victorian England before the title ''How to Read a Novelist'' - this isn't a guide to literary criticismterm existed, but Frank Buckland was very much a collection man ahead of Freeman's interviews with eminent authorshis time. There are fifty six in totalSurgeon, ranging from literary giants such as Toni Morrisonnaturalist, Ian McEwanveterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, Gunter Grass and Kazuo Ishiguro through any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to popular crime fiction writers such as Donna Leontell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472109376</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Inside The Centre: The Life of J Robert OppenheimerWilliams_Captain|author=Ray Monk|rating=5|genre=Biography|summarytitle=Thinking back to the early 1960s, Bertrand Russell, the subject of another prize winning biography by Ray Monk, was frequently seen on black and white television declaring his concerns over Nuclear Weapons. He stated, 'Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.' For nearly seventy years, mankind has wondered in the words of Sting, 'How can I save my boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?' As concerns about nuclear proliferation in relation to Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea escalate it is salutary to return to a thorough biography of the man, known as the father Captain Ronald Campbell of the bomb, that felt a deep and urgent need to be at the centre and to belongBombala Station, J Robert Oppenheimer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099433532</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Magic WordsCambalong: The Extraordinary His Military Life of Alan Mooreand Times|author=Lance ParkinIvor George Williams|rating=54

|summary=I don't think that I ever saw [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]] when I lived in Northampton, and I don't think I coincided with the publication In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of ''Maxwell the Magic Cat'' in the local newspaper. So I missed out on the memorable frame 17th Regiment of someone else who is six foot two, albeit a generation older and looking so hirsute he would seem to be afraid of scissorsFoot. But I certainly would not have been alone in not recognising him for what he is. How many Northampton housewives flicked past the daily panels of ''Maxwell'' He was in complete ignorance command of who Alan Moore actually is? – With no idea that the years he spent drawing that cartoon for £10 troops and convicts on board a week – later ship sailing from Plymouth to be £12.50 – were just Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him gearing up to be the biggest man of letters in the comic book world?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781310777</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Alan Turing (Real Lives)|author=Jim Eldridge|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Alan Turing was one of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also not destined to live a hero of World War IIlong life, working in dying suddenly at the famous code-breaking community age of 34 at Bletchley ParkBangalore, cracking German naval codes used leaving his widow to lethal effect organising U-boat attacksraise their two young sons. Turing Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the man convicts who beat worked the Enigma machineland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Cher: Strong EnoughInto The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Josiah HowardCharlotte Peacock

|summary=Having looked at Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the title approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and sub-title, the latter being no more than we sell the twomyriad lesser-word title of one of her latter-day hitsknown authors short as well. So while, like most other people I assumed this was going to be a fairly comprehensive biography of the American singer. The sub-titlehave my favourite genres, ''Strong Enough''and favoured authors, taken from one of her latter-day hit singlesand while, reveals nothing. Not until like most other people I had almost finished it, a little puzzled at it not being quite read the reviews and follow up on what I had expectedappeals, did I finally look at the blurb on the back – at which point all became clear. This was not the full story of also have a showbiz career which has lasted close on half a century, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account of her 1975 TV variety showthird-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654842</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Empress Dowager Cixi|author=Jung Chang|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=It’s easy Move on to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as the focal point for her study of China’s tumultuous modern history. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to have shaped the course of history. Cixi’s biography is not only a fascinating read due to her own political machinations, but also because of the immense transformations that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 to her death in 1908, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial age.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Business and Finance Reviews]]