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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony Benn Claire Dederer|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=3|genre=Politics and Ruth Winstone (editor)Society|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice.|isbn=1399715070}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Charles, The Benn DiariesAlternative 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 Definitive CollectionAlternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the 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|rating=4.5

|summary=Tony Benn must be one ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the most famous diarists early days of the modern ageNazi regime in the 1930s. He kept Fred, a diary from his schooldays sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the nineteen forties until he made his last entry in 2009, five years before his deathtime. Benn was also a particularly charismatic politician: since my teens IFred've found myself listening s attempts to him believing that I disagreed with what he was saying and then realising that perhaps we separate individual people from ideology weren't so far apart after all. Whatever universally successful but he spoke about always gave food for thought. Of course the ideal way to enjoy the diaries would be to read the individual volumes, beginning with {{amazonurl|isbn=0099497719|title=Years Of Hope: Diaries,Letters did make friendships and Papers 1940-1962}}, but connections that's lasted for a lengthy undertaking and ''The Benn Diaries: The Definitive Collection'' edited by Ruth Winstone gives you the opportunity to sample the best of the diaries in a mere seven hundred or so pages. Be warned though: there has been a previous {{amazonurl|isbn=0099634112|title=composite volume}}, also called ''The Benn Diaries'' and published in 1996. The current volume goes to 2009lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786330768</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy LewisWill Brooker|title=David AstorThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=45

|summary=The name Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I'David Astor' is familiar to a lot ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of people: some will remember him as being the middle child thousands of Nancy and Waldorf Astorless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. Others will know of his family homeThis book starts with the two meeting each other, Clivedenas well, either from its influence in and shows how 2021 drew the second world war or its notoriety during the Profumo affair in the sixtiestwo closer and closer together. I remember him best for his work as The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the editor words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''The Observerblack lace mini-dress with gold brocade''(certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but despite being pulled Brooker, a quietly understated man many will remember professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the causes rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he espoused'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, not all working to make a success of whichthe latest title, such as his support for and struggling with the release of moors murderer Myra Hindleynext in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, brought him admirationagrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552124</amazonuk>1529136024

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Keiron PimMartha Leigh|title= Jumpin' Jack FlashInvisible Ink: David Litvinoff and the Rock'n'Roll UnderworldA Family Memoir|rating=3.5

|summary= Each decade throws up its misfits Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, mavericks and anti-heroesimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, its icons forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of what might be loosely termed social estrangement and disillusion. In the 1950s it was James Deanphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the 1970s it was Sid Viciouspracticalities of life. In between them, although admittedly There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a good few years older, was one David Litvinoffchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584441</amazonuk>1800460384

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tony FletcherPolly Barton|title= In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson PickettFifty Sounds|rating= 4.5|genre= EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary= Tamla Motown groups Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and singers apart, in if the midworld hadn't gone into melt-sixties down I would have visited by now. I may get there were three major names in the soul music field who mattered above alllater this year, but I am not hopeful. James Brown was something of a cult name who rarely bothered about or troubled And like Barton, I don't know the singles charts, and Otis Redding was on answer to the verge question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of shooting into the stratosphere when he died question in an aeroplane crash. The other was the man from Alabamafirst essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the wicked Pickettsound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0190252944</amazonuk>1913097501

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Juliet NicolsonFrederic Gros|title= A House Full Philosophy of DaughtersWalking|rating= 4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary= With grandparents who were distinguished writers and a father who coI confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-founded a major publishing house, it was inevitable lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that Juliet Nicolson would follow I can turn down the 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 family’s literary tradition. Already known for first two works of social historypages, here she tells her family story through seven generationswherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099598035</amazonuk>1781688370

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip Valentine CoatesSharon Blackie|title= Sarah Valentine, No Great Expectations Part 1If Women Rose Rooted|rating=45

|summary= Sarah was the first of several children born in dire poverty I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to Jim and Sarah Valentine, and these me by how many pages tell her story from birth in December 1819 to her eighteenth birthdayhave corners turned down. Everything Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is vividly conveyed, from setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the poorlyone I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-clothed barefoot children in crowded living quarters in changing' – although it is definitely the Whitechapel Road area, without a lock on first two and only time will tell about the door and with no possessions worth stealing except third – but clichés exist for the occasional shilling, to the noisy public houses with their fist-fights and the dirty, evil-smelling streets with sewage overflowing down the alleys a reason and where epidemics spread all too rapidlyI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524665428</amazonuk>1912836017

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Cumming0241446732|title= The Vanishing Man - In Search Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Velazqueza Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=ArtPolitics and Society|summary=Pitching up at The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an auction opera singer and picking up a lost masterpiece for a pittance is Svante Thunberg took on most of the dream for most art loversparenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. That seemingly happy circumstance happened In such circumstances, it's natural to bookseller John Snare at seek a sale in 1845 and is solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the centrepiece to Laura Cummingfamily that they were 's excellent ''The Vanishing Man – In Pursuit of Velazquezburned-out people on a burned-out planet''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587041</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=G A Jones0648684806|title=Clara Colby: The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|genre=TravelBiography|summary=ThereThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's brave, and there is bravelife was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. I may well have been born in a coastal county At the time she was just three-years-old but certainly would baulk at the idea because of setting out some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sea sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with four colleagues her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in a 37'-long boatand out of school. Boats to me are like planes – She was the bigger only child in the better, household and the safer I feel as a resulther childhood was glorious. But luckily for By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the purpose mid-west of this bookthe United States and life was hard, George Jones as Clara was born with a much different pair of sea-legs to mine, find out when she and took her grandparents eventually went to join the waters of the English Channelfamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, the North Sea seven surviving children and beyond died in ''Naromis'' with briochildbirth not long after Clara arrived. But – and this is where As the further definition of bravery comes in – he did it in August 1939eldest girl, knowing full well that he a heavy burden would be sailing full tilt into the teeth of warfall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262334</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Julian Palacios1789017977|title= Syd Barrett & Pink FloydRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Dark GlobeTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating= 4|genre= EntertainmentHistory|summary= There were few sadder casualties Ronnie Williams was the son of the sixties music scene than Syd Thomas Henry Williams (real name Rogerknown as Harry) Barrettand Ethel Wall. The original songwriting genius There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and front man of Pink Floyd, he burnt out all too soonmight well have shaved a few years off his age. A few months For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the spotlight were followed all too soon by 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a pathetic postscript of a stuttering solo career, very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and over three decades as a largely housebound reclusethis would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859655482</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keggie CarewPatti Smith|title=Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted TerritoryYear of the Monkey|rating=54

|summary=Keggie Carew is On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the second child lunar year of a most unorthodox father. On the monkey - one hand he's a left-handed stutterer packed with little to recommend him other than that he was a law unto himself and a complete maverick. But - born in 1919mischief, the second world war found him being tested for SOEsorrow, Churchill's secret army, who were tasked with conducting espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and later in South East Asiaunexpected moments. Within In a matter of months he would be parachuted into occupied France with the aim of supporting resistance groups ahead of the allied invasion of occupied France and carrying the rank of major - at the age of just 24. Laterstranger's words, in South East Asia he would be known as 'Lawrence of Burma' and worked with Aung SanAnything is possible: after all, it's the head year of the Burma Defence Army (and father of Aung San Suu Kyi)and was at one stage monkey''plucked off . As Smith wanders the Irrawaddy by coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a flying boatyear that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, like James Bond''as it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178470315X</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donald Naismith1912242052|title=A Bradford ApprenticeshipO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=43|genre=Politics and SocietyArt|summary=with all schools removed from their control and established ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as freestanding and self-governing academies. In effect this would (and possibly will) mean that what was once a national serviceminer, locally administered will become a local servicequarryman, nationally administered. Donald Naismith is perhaps best known as the former Chief Education Officer of Richmond-uponshepherd or pack-Thameshorse driver, Croydon and then Wandsworth but his education and formative working years took place in his adopted home city of Bradford. In ''A Bradford Apprenticeship'' because he gives us an affectionate tribute wanted to the city which made him what he is for pleasure and his thoughts on the education systemadventure. Bradford was once one His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the countryworld''s leading education authorities and he values the opportunities it gave him to fine tune his thinking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524636118</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Ashdown-HillGraff_Find|title= The Private Life of Edward IVFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating= 43.5|genre= BiographyAutobiography|summary= Edward IV is currently When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a popular subject for biographers. All credit is therefore due to Dr Ashdown-Hillplastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, one he didn't take much notice of it. At the foremost age of current Yorkist-era historians24, for looking at Graff didn't realise the King from a fresh angle – that gravity of his romantic involvementsthe pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445652455</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=1789016304|title=Anja Reich-Osang War and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and Imogen Taylor (translator)devotion in occupied Amsterdam|titleauthor=The Scholl CaseMelanie Martin

|summary=I think IMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in 'd like Ludwigsfelde. I wouldn't have liked it when it was an industrial village, with one or two huge mechanical plants and nothing else to its name. But now, even with the constant hum The Diary of the autobahn (one of HitlerAnn Frank'' but then realised that her own family's) keeping it company, it must have an appealstories were equally fascinating. It has been rebuilt, refashioned A hundred and remodelled since seven thousand Jews were deported from the end of East Germanycity during the war years, under the most prosperous but only five thousand survived and forward-looking mayor Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in the state, if not the a countrywith liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. He it was Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who put 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 a mostly-nude swimming spa. It has dispensers for doggy poo bagsthe way that it did, so there's nothing but initial protests melted away as uncouth as taking your own. The mayor, bless him, even expanded the motorway to three lanes in each directionorganisers became more circumspect. It is within touch 's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of Berlin, and in tune with so many business wants, yet is surrounded by woodlandindividual tragedies. Woodland where, between Christmas and New Year a few years back, the mayor's own wife and dog were found, both having been strangled…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925240932</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S D Tucker1786893452|title=Great British EccentricsThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary= Some very strange people have stalked our green and pleasant land. In his introductionHere in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, Tucker asks us whysome scaremongering about them. Is it our status as an island people which has made so many of our countrymen turn in on ourselves? Has our long libertarian tradition But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the idea of individual freedominvestigative journalism they carry out, as long as outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do nobody else any harmthat, in this intelligent, permitted weirdness powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to flourish among us?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445660326</amazonuk>America as a ten-year-old.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Karen Jennings0857058320|title= Travels With My FatherLord Of All the Dead|ratingauthor= 4|genre= General Fiction |summary= Despite the coda, this does not feel like ''an autobiographical novel''. I am not sure why Jennings felt the need to couch it in those terms unless there is much in the structure that is fiction. I'm hoping there isn't. I am hoping that the fiction is purely that conceit that this pretends to be a novel. If that was necessary to get it published, then I'll applaud the subterfuge, because this is writing that needs to be read. It is – if as true as I want it to be – a delicate reminiscence: a daughter's ''in memoriam'' to a father she loved, worshipped, idealised, cared-for, lived with, Javier Cercas and yes Anne McLean (in true daughterly fashiontranslator) at times, hated. A father who was, therefore, a good dad. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907320695</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Pop Pickers and Music Vendors: David Jacobs, Alan Freeman, John Peel, Tommy Vance and Roger Scott|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=You know those questions you get in celebrity interviews - 'which extinct being would you most like to see brought back to life?' Well, I'd like to see Jimmy Savile brought back, so that he could get his comeuppance. It's not just the damage he did to children and young people, dreadful as that was - it's the shadow he cast over the entertainment industry. We know that he wasn't alone in what he did, but somehow there's a whole era of entertainment which has been tarred by the same brush. John Van der Kiste has turned the spotlight away from Savile and on to five of the great DJs of the music industry.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781555443</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=Tales of Loving and Leaving|author=Gaby Weiner|rating=4.5

|summary=In ''Tales of Loving Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and Leavingdeath. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas'great uncle, author Gaby Weiner tells is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the story centre of three of her family members: her grandmother, Amalia Moszkowicz Dinger; her mother, Steffi Dinger; and her father, Uszer Frochtthis book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524635081</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Lewis1788037812|title=Henry IIIThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Son of Magna Carta|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary= For a monarch whose reign over Fight for Homosexual Rights in England of fifty-six years was unequalled until the nineteenth century, Henry III remains curiously little1891-known. Nobody could claim that he was a particularly outstanding or successful ruler, but the fact that he held his throne for so long in an unstable age was no mean achievement in itself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445653575</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1908|author=Amy Licence|title=Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True WifeBrian Anderson

|summary= Catherine Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of Aragonhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the first margins of Henry VIII's six wives society and Queensstudying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, was arguably so the most unhappy figure during publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the Tudor era who did not meet her end on scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the scaffold or at struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the stake. The cliché 'tragic love story' must be a fitting one milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in her case1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445656701</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven BurgauerBuckland_Zoo|title=The Road To War: Duty & Drill, Courage & Capture|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=After World War II Bill Frodsham led an everyday life, raising a family in an ordinary US suburb. He, his wife and children became friends with the Burgauer family, little Steven Burgauer knowing him as Mr F. Time rolls on and little Steven grows up, and then eventually retires from the American financial sector to write science fiction and lecture from time to time. He's therefore surprised when, out of the blue, Mr F's daughter tracks him down and presents him with a pile of handwritten notes asking Steven to make them into a book. These are Mr F's self-authored memoirs, stretching from his youth onwards and showing that this seemingly good, kind but unremarkable man was anything but unremarkable. During the war Mr F trained for the impossible and then lived it as he led men across Omaha Beach on D Day. He was then captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in inhumane conditions. Steven accepted the request and ''The Road to War'' is the result: the life and war of Captain William C Frodsham Jr.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450218806</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sofka Zinovieff|title= The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Faringdon House in Oxfordshire was the home of Lord Berners; composer, writer, painter, friend of Stravinsky and Gertrude Stein, and a man renowned for both his eccentricity and his homosexuality. Turning Faringdon into an aesthete's paradise, exquisite food was served to many of the great minds and beauties of the day. Since the early 1930's, his companion there was Robert Heber-Percy, twenty-eight years his junior, wildly physical and unscholarly, a hothead who rode naked through the grounds and was known to all as the Mad Boy. If those two sounded an odd couple, especially at a time when homosexuality was illegal, the addition of Jennifer Fry to the household in 1942, a pregnant high society girl who became Robert's wife, was really rather astounding. After the child was born, the marriage soon foundered. Berners died in 1950, and Robert was left in charge of Faringdon, ably assisted by a ferocious Austrian housekeeper. This mad world was the one first encountered by author Sofka Zinovieff, Robert's granddaughter. A typical child of the sixties, it was much to her astonishment that Robert decided to leave Man Who Ate the house to her. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>009957196X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive|title=Penguin BloomZoo: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a Family|rating=5|genre=Biography |summary=Cameron and his wife, Sam, had been leading a very active, adventurous life. Even after the birth of their three sons they wanted to continue their adventures, so they decided to travel to Thailand for a family holiday. They were having a brilliant time until, suddenly, Sam was involved in a dreadful, almost fatalFrank Buckland, accident. The accident left her paralysed and, because forgotten hero of the sudden and extremely severe impact on her life she slid quickly into a very deep and dark depression. Cameron feared for his family's future, and his wife's life, until one day a small abandoned magpie chick came along, and managed to change everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119795</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewnatural history|author= Simon Callow|title=Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man BandRichard Girling

|summary= Orson Welles, As a conservationist in Victorian England before the noted actor, director and producerterm existed, Frank Buckland was one of those larger than life characters whose impact on the world very much a man ahead of stage and screen during his lifetime was inestimabletime. Simon Callow has found the task of condensing his story into a single volume is impossibleSurgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and this any biographer is the third of three solid instalmentsimmediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099502836</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graeme ThomsonWilliams_Captain|title= Captain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Harrison: Behind the Locked DoorWilliams|rating=54

|summary= George Harrison was In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the youngest 17th Regiment of the four wartime-born youngsters who came together to form The BeatlesFoot. He was also in command of the only one who came troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from a relatively stable family backgroundPlymouth to Sydney, Australia: his early years wife and young son accompanied him. He was not scarred by the loss of one parent through divorce or early bereavement. With two elder brothers and destined to live a sisterlong life, he was dying suddenly at the baby age of the Harrison clan34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. A poor scholar but a promising trainee electrician in his teens, a musical ear and the advent of rock'nEdwards'roll soon led him along an alternative career path. This is a finely balanced warts-and-all portrait of the man, death left his life, character, songwriting and other interests, an often baffling figure, widow in a strange mix of good and bad. Thomson has dug deeply and spoken difficult position: not only did she have their farm to several people manage, but she was also responsible for the convicts who knew him well and worked with him, and as a life of the 'Dark Horse', I doubt it could be betteredland. Scrupulously researched, it is easily the most comprehensive Harrison life I have come across, and the most objectiveTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468310658</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander LarmanPeacock_mountain|title= Byron's WomenInto The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary= George Gordon, who became the 6th Lord Byron at the age of ten in 1798 on the death of his grandfather, Mostly we choose what books to read because there is remembered not only as one of so little time and so many books… I can understand the great poets of the Romantic eraapproach, but I also as somebody whose severe lack of moral compass was guaranteed to attract scandal wherever he laid his hat. This new book, as the title suggeststhink we sell ourselves short by it, is not a biography of him, rather an account of his life and those of nine of we sell the women who were unfortunate enough to become involved with him. They include his mother, his abused wife, his halfmyriad lesser-sister with whom he slept known authors short as well. So while, plus lovers and mistresses and his two daughters. Larman admits that there could like most other people I have been several more – actressesmy favourite genres, servant women, in fact almost anyone. For Byronic, maybe we should read 'insatiable'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784082023</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Susan Higginbotham|title= Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary= The fate of Margaret Pole, who as the cover says has a good claim to the title of 'the last Plantagenet', was a sorry one. As a close relation of the Yorkists and the Tudors at a time of upheavalfavoured authors, her life was overshadowed by the executions of several of her family – and ultimately leading to her ownwhile, largely it seems, for like most other people I read the 'crime' of being who she was.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445635941</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Barbara Fox|title= When the War is Over|rating= 4|genre= Biography|summary=Gwenda reviews and Douglas Brady were a brother and sister from Newcastle who were evacuated to the Lake District during the Second World War. ''When the War is Over'' tells Gwenda's story of evacuee life in the idyllic village of Bamptonfollow up on what appeals, where they spent several years living with I also have a kindly schoolmaster and his wife. As they settled into village life, Gwenda and Douglas found it harder and harder third-string to come to terms with the idea that they would have to return home to their parents at some pointmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751561398</amazonuk>