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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der Kiste1788360702|title=Charles, The Prussian PrincessesAlternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Sisters Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of Kaiser Wilhelm IIthe scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739805100|title=Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=Kaiser Wilhelm II is well known and not for ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the best quite extraordinary story of reasons and he's certainly over-shadowed his six younger siblings. John Van der Kisteauthor Andrew March's grandparents, who first biography was met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of his fatherthe Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, Kaiser Friedrich III a sensitive and he has also written about Emperor Wilhelm II so he is well placed to write about thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the three youngest children Kaiser Friedrich and Victoria, Princess Royaltime. Originally he intended Fred's attempts to write about Friedrichseparate individual people from ideology weren's second daughter, t universally successful but it quickly became obvious he did make friendships and connections that the most satisfying biography - lasted for reader and author - would be a biography of Victoria, Sophie and Margaret, their mother's ''kleebatt'' or trio, as they were knownlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00QKROC9W</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah ChurchwellWill Brooker|title=Careless People Murder Mayhem and the Invention of the Great GatsbyThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=In this accomplished literary biography Professor Churchwell expertly weaves together three guest lists- Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the Fitzgeralds and literary cast most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of New York, the sensationalist tragic murder victims and suspects thousands of New Brunswickless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, New Jersey and shows how 2021 drew the careless characters of Ftwo closer and closer together. Scott's novel using the Fitzgeralds' archives The meeting was some unspecified combination, newspaper clippingsit seems, literary scrapbooksof her anecdote about cup cakes,diary entries and anecdotes to link the stories words of her latest book she was reciting, and chronicle her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the heedless hedonism author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the 1920s. It rabbit-hole that is not only a meticulously researched tribute tracing the genesis of FJewell's diverse output. Scott Fitzgerald’s plot skeleton, which Brooker decides he roughly sketched in pencil 'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the back published author's life, working to make a success of a bookthe latest title, entitled Man’s Hope, but it also sparkles with sophisticated vocabulary fizzing and struggling with the effervescence of a glass of champagne providing new treats for next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the reader with each inviting chapterresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844087689</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BatchelorMartha Leigh|title=TennysonInvisible Ink: To striveA Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= 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, to seekforever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to findhis life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Most readersWhere 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 they were asked the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to name the ultimate poet question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the Victorian agequestion in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, would almost surely choose Alfredamong other things, Lord Tennyson. He was Poet Laureate for over forty years the sound of Queen Victoria’s reign, and inevitably her favourite versifier''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845950763</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreview Frontpage|author=Zareer Masani Frederic Gros|title=Macaulay: Britain's Liberal Imperialist A Philosophy of Walking|rating=4.5 |genre=Biography Politics and Society|summary=If Thomas Babington Macaulay is remembered at all today, it is probably for I confess I picked this one up from the historical writings library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to which he devoted himself during go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the last few years of his lifepages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. Yet earlier This one had me in his careerthe first two pages, he was also wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a Member of Parliament, a government minister, and served for some years in India, playing a major reforming role as a member of the governor-general’s councilsport''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587025</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John CampbellSharon Blackie|title=Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded LifeIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=It must be rare indeed I normally say that you can tell how much a British political figure who never became Prime Minister 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 subject of or deserves a biography comprising 750 pages of textone I've borrowed. However, as John Campbell demonstrates in this volume, I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is difficult to do justice to definitely the first two and only time will tell about the life, times third – but clichés exist for a reason and career of Roy Jenkins in much less than thatI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087509</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Walter Dean Myers0241446732|title=An African PrincessOur House is on Fire: From African Orphan to Queen Victoria’s FavouriteScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=3.5|genre=Historical FictionPolitics and Society|summary=This elegant edition of An African Princess tells The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the life of Sarah Bonetta who is suddenly swept from the threat of a savage execution in 1848 only to face a brave new world under the patronage parenting of the imperious Queen Victoriatheir two daughters. Meticulously researched by the twice elected US National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Walter Dean MyersBeata, it is a creatively imaginative accountthen nine years old, struggled with an historical backbone of genuine diary entrieswhat was happening. In such circumstances, lettersit's natural to seek a solution close to home, autobiographical workbut eventually, contemporary newspapers, social and anthropological studies and period photographsit became clear to the family that they 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>1406354449</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nigel Jones0648684806|title=Rupert BrookeClara Colby: Life, Death and MythThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=Rupert Chawner Brooke’s reputation as one The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the greatest or at least bestUSA. At the time she was just three-remembered war poets rests largely years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on his sonnet ''The Soldier''her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. Perhaps it She was English literature’s abiding loss that his output the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was so slenderhard, as his career 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 cut short so suddenlymarried for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. Had he lived longer he As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would surely have developed into fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a notable writerrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857164</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amber Hunt and David Batcher1789017977|title=The Kennedy Wives: Triumph Ronnie and Tragedy in AmericaHilda's Most Public FamilyRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=The Kennedy dynasty is mainly Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known for the men who have come as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to political prominencewhether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: Jack Kennedyhe claimed to have been born in 1863, the president who but he was assassinated in November 1963, already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his brotherage. For a while, Bobby, Jack's Attorney General who would be assassinated the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in June 1968 the 1929 Depression and Senator Edward Kennedy the youngest of the nine children five-year- the only one of the brothers who would, as they say, live old Ronnie had to adjust to comb grey haira very different lifestyle. Not quite so much is known about the women who were brave enough One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to marry into the family and Amber Hunt and David Batcher have set be well-turned-out to give us some background on five of these women: Rose Kennedy the matriarch of the family and wife of Joe Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of Jack, Ethel, wife of Bobby and Joan and Vicki, this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the first and second wives of Teddy Kennedyarmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762796340</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious DaughterFrontpage|author=Lucinda HawksleyPatti Smith|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summarytitle=As a previous biographer once called her, Princess Louise was Queen Victoria’s unconventional daughter. Always popular with the public for her comparatively easygoing manner (though, being royal, she was not averse to pulling rank), her forward-looking views on social issues, notably education and votes for women, and her artistic interests, she was certainly one Year of the most interesting of her family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951549</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Frood|author=Jem RobertsMonkey

|summary=They say that you should never meet your heroes. After reading 'The Authorised and Very Official History On the coast of Douglas Adams and Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the Hitchhiker's Guide to lunar year of the Galaxy' a.kmonkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments.In a. stranger's words, 'the Frood'Anything is possible: after all, it' I understand why. I never heard s the original radio series and I have quite deliberately shied away from year of the Americanised film version (even if it does sell itself well by having Stephen Fry as monkey''. As Smith wanders the voice coast of the book' - I mean, reallySanta Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in this day her life - loss and ageageing are faced head-on, who else?!)as it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809437X</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Thompson1912242052|title=A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord LucanO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=True CrimeArt|summary=It's difficult to believe that it's forty years since Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett and first person to walk the subsequent disappearance of Lord Lucanmountains alone, not least because there have been numerous theories about what happened on November the 7th 1974 he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack- horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and what became of Lucanadventure. It might also be thought that - short of the Earl turning up His rapturous encounters with an explanation - there's not a great deal ''new'' which can be added to the pile their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of published material on the subject, so I began reading world''A Different Class of Murder'' with the thought that there would be no great surprises.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855366</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Effie Gray|author=Suzanne Fagence Cooper|rating=4.5Frontpage|genreisbn=Biography|summary=Effie Gray was born in Perth in 1828, and knew art critic John Ruskin from an early age. When he finally decided to ask her to be his wife, she called off an engagement and happily accepted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715648578</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGraff_Find|title=Victoria: A LifeFind Another Place|author=A N WilsonBen Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Every few years, it seems, we are presented with another generously-sized biography of Queen Victoria. How many times can another author follow Elizabeth Longford, Stanley Weintraub, or Christopher Hibbert to name but three, produce 500 pages or more and still say something new about her? Can the blurb’s claim that this shows us the sovereign ‘as she’s never been seen before’ really be justified? Fortunately it can, for even more than a century after her death, there is still new material from previously unseen sources to add to what we already know about her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879563</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous: Everything You Need To Know About Everyone Who Mattered|author=The Week|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=To describe a book as unputdownable is a pretty bold claim to make. Jeremy OWhen Ben Graff'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week does just that in the foreword to The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous, s grandfather Martin handed him a collection plastic folder of obituaries handwritten notes from the weekly magazine. Thankfully, his bold judgement is largely spot on. For those unfamiliarjournal, he didn''The Week'' collates the best offerings from print media outlets around the world, condenses them into smaller chunks, adds a little t take much notice of its own commentary and creates a highly concise and entertaining look at it. At the news.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958660</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Golden Parasol|author=Wendy Law-Yone|rating=5|genre=History|summary=If you look her up Wendy Law-Yone is described as a Burmese-born American author. That ''Burmese-born American'' might be an accurate description age of her current citizenship24, but it barely hints at Graff didn't realise the ethnic mix gravity of her heritage, nor of her personal closeness (through her father) to her original homeland's struggle for freedom and democracythe pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555999</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=The Art of Neil Gaiman1789016304|authortitle=Hayley Campbell|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=An early [[War and Love:Category:Neil Gaiman|Neil Gaiman]] book was all about Douglas Adams, and came out at the time he had a success with a book of his own regarding definitions of concepts that had previously not had a specific word attached. Gaiman himself is one of those concepts. I know what a polyglot is, and a polymath – but there should be a word for someone like Gaiman, who can write anything and everything he seems to want – a whimsical A family-friendly picture book, a behemoth 's testament of modern fantasy, an all-ages horror storyanguish, something with a soupcon of sci-fi or with a factor of the fable. He can cross genres – endurance and to some extent just leave them behind as unnecessary, as well as cross format – he was mastering the lengthy, literary graphic novel just as 'real' books were festering devotion in his creativity, and songs and poems were just appearing here and there. So he is pretty much who you think of as regards someone who can turn his hands to anything he wishes. He is a poly-something, then, or just omni-something else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781571392</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Brian Thompson|title=A Corner of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations)Melanie Martin

|summary=In the early seventies Brian Thompson met Elizabeth NorthMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, both particularly in ''The Diary of them part of failing marriages which would have died without any intervention on their partsAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. They became friendsA hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, they fell in love but they never felt the need to marry only five thousand survived and would Martin could not understand how this could be together until Liz's death allowed to happen in 2010 at the age of seventy eighta country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Both are authors - Thompson Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would maintain soon be pushed back, that North was the better writer - and North Amsterdammers would perhaps have said never allow what happened to escalate in the way that ''she'' should have made that clearit did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It''A Corner of Paradise'' tells the story - not s an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of the homes they lived in - but tens of the joy thousands of their relationshipindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581868</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Grace: Her Lives - Her Loves: The startling royal exposé1786893452|author=Robert Lacey|rating=4|genre=Biography|summarytitle=Twenty-five years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out to be anything but, one of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed the Atlantic and married into the principality of Monaco. The ceremony in 1956 was hailed as the wedding of the year, but like the later and similar event, it was not the happiest of unions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191016738X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon RainforestUngrateful Refugee|author=Wade DavisDina Nayeri

|summary=You have to admire Here in the ladyWest, this rather awkward and shy daughter of we see news reports about immigrants on a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholic. His daughter studied with such intelligence and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistryregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. At the age But all of 26those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, she obtained her doctorate and - in passingalmost always, it rather seems - her first husbandno matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the physicist Ulrike Merkel. Her rise to power was rapid world and took place through the period situations that refugees find themselves in which . It's rare that we find out the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a wry rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and dry sense of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the embodiment middle of the characteristic known a revolution in German Iran, fleeing to America as ''fleissig'' a ten-year- hardworking, sedulous, diligent and assiduousold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Blazing Star: The Life and Times of John Wilmot, Earl of RochesterLord Of All the Dead|author=Alexander LarmanJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was ''Lord Of All the ultimate Dead'live fast, die young' icon of the Stuart age, is a journey to uncover the seventeenth-century embodiment of author'Hope I die before I get olds lost ancestor'. Restoration dandy, satirist s life and pornographic poet, he died a lingering death at the age of 33, racked by venereal disease and alcoholism. If he Cercas is remembered at all these days, except by those familiar with searching for the history or literature of meaning behind his great uncle's death in the ageSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, it is as the James Dean or figure who looms large over the Keith Moon of book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his day, a hellraiser whose poetry was heavily suppressed uncle fought for many years by this dictator. The question at the censors. In fact much of his verse was not published under his name until long after his death, and as most centre of this book is whether it was only circulated in manuscript form during is possible for his lifetime and great uncle to be a good deal destroyed by his mother after his death, it is uncertain how much does still survivehero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851093</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=Dirty BertieThe Fraternity of the Estranged: An English King Made The Fight for Homosexual Rights in FranceEngland, 1891-1908|author=Stephen ClarkeBrian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=Although he was AngloOriginally 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-German sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by birthtwo homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, so Stephen Clarke suggests, King Edward VII was very much a Parisian by natureas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. As we would expect from Exploring the author margins of several lighthearted books society and studying homosexuality was common on our Gallic neighboursthe European Continent, including ‘1000 Years of Annoying but barely talked about in the French’UK, this is not so the most weighty or solemn biography publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the King you will ever findscientific understanding of homosexuality, but it is certainly an entertainingand beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, racy gallop through leading to the life milestone legalisation of its subjectsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890346</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Buckland_Zoo|title=JosephineThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Desire, AmbitionFrank Buckland, Napoleonforgotten hero of natural history|author=Kate WilliamsRichard Girling|rating=4.5

|summary=Until reading this biographyAs a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, it had never really occurred to me just how shadowy Frank Buckland was very much a figure the first wife man ahead of Napoleon Bonapartehis time. Surgeon, one of the best-known European rulers of the agenaturalist, really was. It may be common knowledge that her name was Josephineveterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, but few of us perhaps really know anything of the woman behind the nameand any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955142X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Williams_Captain|title=The DevonshiresCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: The Story of a Family His Military Life and a NationTimes|author=Roy HattersleyIvor George Williams

|summary=According to In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the back 17th Regiment of this book, ‘the story Foot. He was in command of the Devonshires is the story of Britain’. That’s an extravagant claim, but it contains more than troops and convicts on board a germ of truth. Certainly one would be hard-pushed ship sailing from Plymouth to find an aristocraticSydney, non-royal British family who has more consistently been central Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to our history since medieval timeslive a long life, as this detailed chronicle demonstrates. From dying suddenly at the dissolution age of the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over in part by Sir William Cavendish, father of the first Earl34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to the big business that raise their ancestral home Chatsworth House two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in Derbyshire has now become, the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires a difficult position: not only did she have often been, or helped their farm tomanage, contribute to, part of but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the fabric of Britain’s past and presentland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554399</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Into The Mountain, A Life of Rebecca JonesNan Shepherd|author=Angharad PriceCharlotte Peacock|rating=4.5

|summary=A newly-married couple make their way home from Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the chapelapproach, riding on a horsebut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the myriad lesser-drawn cart known authors short as it winds its way round familiar country lanes towards the beautiful valley of Maesglasauwell. The horse pauses atop a hill So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the valley spreads out before them: 'the vessel of their marriage'. The centuriesreviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-old stone farmhouse in the crook of the mountain is string to be their homestead; a sturdy, silent witness to the tragedy and joy that is an intrinsic part of the fabric of family lifemy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085738712X</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation|author=Andrew Lycett|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Wilkie Collins has come down Move on to us as the chief exponent of the Victorian ‘sensation novel’. This was the genre of story written specifically to expose deep-rooted domestic or family secrets, uncovering illegitimacy, bigamy or other irregular activities by supposedly respectable citizens leading outwardly normal, uneventful lives. There were mysteries, deceptions, betrayals, evil characters and good innocent ones. Measured by these standards, he led a ‘sensational’ life himself. When not writing novels, short stories, plays or articles for journals in order to earn a living, this apparently fine upstanding bachelor maintained two households, two mistresses, and children at the same time – [[Newest Business and managed to keep them a secret from the public who would doubtless have been scandalized to know the truth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557347</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]