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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Kidder1788360702|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsCharles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=4.5

|summary=Dr Paul Farmer For over forty years, Prince Charles has dedicated his life to helping the poorest been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than himcomplementary therapies. ''Dedicated his life'' and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful peopleCharles, but when reading The Alternative Prince''Mountains Beyond Mountains'', you'll realise therecritically assesses the Prince's not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them, and worked for themopinions, beliefs and worked with them. In an area where treating aims against the disease is just one part background of the problem, where poverty is rife, he scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference done considerable damage to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with reputation of a man who is proud of his colleaguesrefusal to apply evidence-based, takes this work worldwidelogical reasoning to his ambitions. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Molly Carr1739805100|title=In Search of Dr Watson - A Sherlockian Investigation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The old saying that behind every great man there is a great woman has one major exception - Sherlock Holmes. Behind him is Loving the figure of Dr John Watson, his biographer, the man who shares his Baker St lodgings, and the man eternally flummoxed by his deductions. This biography successfully shows how the superior Holmes walked over Watson in investigative skills, and also how Conan Doyle needed Watson, if only to help us admire Holmes more by making him less insufferably smug.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685766</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lindsay Reade|title=Mr Manchester and the Factory GirlEnemy: The Story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Mr Manchester, as Tony Wilson came to be known, could have been the next John Humphrys. Instead he ended up becoming the next Malcolm McLaren – or, perhaps, a far less successful version of Richard Branson. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree Building bridges in English he became a trainee news reporter for ITN, and for much time of his life he worked as an anchorman for regional evening news programmes. Yet he is less remembered for this than for his championship of alternative music and punk rock, founding of Factory Records and involvement with the Hacienda Club. Although he loved the Beatles and folk music in general, he disliked much of the contemporary music scene until he saw the Sex Pistols live in the summer of 1976.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654567</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Bevis Hillier|title=The Wit and Wisdom of G K ChestertonAndrew March

|summary=G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, best known as who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the creator early days of the clerical detective Father BrownNazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, seems to have slipped a little among 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 general reading publictime. Fred's estimation these days. This is surely unmerited, for attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he was just as versatile as did make friendships and hardly less quotable than the Victorian enfant terribleconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441179585</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosamund BartlettWill Brooker|title=Tolstoy: A Russian LifeThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Count Lev Tolstoy came from a privileged familyMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. He was born on 28 August 1828; unfailingly superstitious for Now meet Will Brooker, one of the rest thousands of his daysless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, he therefore adopted 28 as his lucky number. Like most young men from a similar backgroundwell, he joined and shows how 2021 drew the Russian armytwo closer and closer together. The Crimean war proved to be the making meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of him in that it developed his social conscienceher anecdote about cup cakes, opened his eyes to the conditions endured by those born to a less lofty position in the social order than himselfwords of her latest book she was reciting, and impressed on him the fervent belief that everybody her being in Russia ought to have the chance to learn to read and write. As a result he became ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a bornget-again repentant nobleman in up never commonly worn at the light of having seen how the other half (or more than halfauthor events I get to attend) lived, he took a long hard look at the world around himbut pulled Brooker, turning into a rebel against organized religion and the authority professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the state in the processrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. All this was exacerbated by his travels throughout Europe shortly afterwards, in which Brooker decides he was impressed with the comparative freedom he saw 'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in other countries and then found the return published author's life, working to his homeland thoroughly depressing in the few years before the emancipation make a success of the serfs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681383</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|latest title=Nicolas Sarkozy , and Carla Bruni: The True Story|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=In November 2007 struggling with the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonelynext in line. He accepted an invitation to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artistJewell, due diligence appropriately done, Carla Bruniagrees. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by And this is the attentions of a beautiful, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were marriedresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland HuntfordMartha Leigh|title=Race for the South PoleInvisible Ink: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and AmundsenA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out for the Antarctic. 'Terra Nova' was carrying British explorers under the leadership of Captain Robert ScottMartha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, while 'Fram' sailed with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The basic facts can be briefly summarizedimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned home to Her father is a hero's welcomeCambridge don, while Scott reached forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the same destination 35 days laterphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, only to perish with his men on life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the return journeypracticalities of life. Their bodies were found by There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a search party some eight months after they had diedchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreview|author=Charles Margerison|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The cover of this book tells the reader that these short ''bioviews'' or biographies can be read in 10 mins or so. This is one of a series within ''The Amazing People Club'' courtesy of the ''Amazing People Team''. There is a rather fulsome ''Author's Note'' followed by a one-page introduction. I was immediately struck by the fact that, given the various feats of these women, I was anxious to read about them - and not about Dr Margerison. Less is more. He goes on to say (by now I'm getting a bit tired of the smiling Margerison) that 'The stories are inspirational and can help you achieve your ambitions in your own journey through life.' All of this and especially that last sentence sits rather uneasily with me, I'm afraid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921629940</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina HastingsPolly Barton|title=The Secret Lives of Somerset MaughamFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=These days, W. Somerset Maugham seems to be something of an anachronism. In his heydayWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for much of a career which lasted from the end of the Victorian era to the 1950s, he was one of the most successful and widely read of all British writers, with his novels, short stories while and plays spawning more film adaptations than any other author. Yet over the last thirty years or so he seems to have slipped from favour, as if his preoccupation with the Edwardian England in which he grew up and his endworld hadn't gone into melt-of-empire settings are deeply embedded in an age we down I would rather forgethave visited by now. Moreover, as I may get there later this very comprehensive biography demonstratesyear, he was but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the most pleasant question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of individuals. The unhappy childthe question in the first essay, orphaned by which is on the time he was tensound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, afflicted with a lifelong stammer and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affectionamong other things, grew up the sound of ''every party where you have to lead a long and unhappy lifeintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew McConnell StottFrederic Gros|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story A Philosophy of Britain's Greatest ComedianWalking|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This book has won several prestigious awards, I confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so my expectations were raised before that I'd even opened can turn down the bookpages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. And of all the plaudits given on This one had me in the back coverfirst two pages, my favourite was Simon Callowswherein Gros explains why ' '(A) great big Christmas pudding of walking is not a book ...sport' Stott has researched his subject thoroughly. First up, there's a Grimaldi family tree, a Prologue, an Introduction and all this before you get to the story proper, so to speak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin DavidsonSharon Blackie|title=The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My SS Grandfather's Secret Past and How Hitler Seduced a GenerationIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=Meet Martin DavidsonI normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Now, when Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I start my reviews like that, normally it means he's ve finished reading the main character, but heone I's not hereve borrowed. HeI want to avoid clichés like 's big in powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the world of BBC History documentaries, first two and grew up in the UK, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of his older relatives lived through the Second World War. Foremost among them was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, who would have been of fighting age - in his 30s - during the Third Reich. Nothing much was ever said only time will tell about Bruno's own history during the war, except third – but clichés exist for many inflammatory, rising comments by Bruno himself. It took the old man to die for the truth to be admitted by Martina reason and I's mother - their forefather was in the SSm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sjeng Scheijen0241446732|title=DiaghilevOur House is on Fire: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Sergey Diaghilev was one of the towering figures in the artistic world of Russia, and indeed Europe, at the start of the 20th century. Born in 1872 the ambitious son Scenes of a bankrupt vodka producer from Perm, Family and a mother who died a few days later probably from puerperal fever, by his early twenties he was on close terms with such names as Tolstoy, Zola, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. He worked his way into the ranks of the cultural cognoscenti at St Petersburg and launched the itinerant troupe which would become the Ballets Russes, playing to packed houses as far west as Britain and the United States.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681642</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPlanet in Crisis|author=David Howarth|title=We Die AloneMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Consider taking a five day sail in a small fishing boat The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the height parenting of the North Sea from Shetland, to try their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and establishher sister, train and supply some potentially vital anti-German resistance in the farBeata, far north of occupied Norwaythen nine years old, your homelandstruggled with what was happening. Imagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended to landIn such circumstances, as galling proof that your intel is ages out of date. Ponder too the fact that you get reported it's natural to the Nazis due seek a solution close to the most ridiculous slight of fortune. All your colleagues are dead or capturedhome, but eventually, your equipment blown up with your trawler it became clear to keep it safe from Jerry hands, half your big toe has been shot off, and youthe family that they were ''re forced to go burned-out people on the run in one of Europea burned-out planet''s last, and coldest, wildernesses. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario is going If they were to getfind a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janet Soskice0648684806|title=Sisters of SinaiClara Colby: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden GospelsThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=Sisters The path of Sinai tells Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the story time she was just three-years-old but because of two extraordinarysome childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, Victorian women who unearthed an important early copy doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the Gospels from a remote monastery only child in Egyptthe household and her childhood was glorious. It hardly seems possible that they organised By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and executed such remarkable feats of unaccompanied travel during an age in which women's freedom life was hidebound by their status hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the inferior sexfamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. Janet Soskice is well-placed as As the eldest girl, a feminist philosopher heavy burden would fall on Clara and theologian to explore their livesWisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954654X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasha McElhone1789017977|title=After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband Ronnie and Father|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=What would you do if, without warning, your brilliant, loving, superman partner died from a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age of 43, leaving you with two young boys and a third on the way? Most of us would probably reach for the Valium and book a very long course of counseling. But Natascha McElhone couldnHilda't because she was already stretched, juggling s Romance: Towards a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young family. Coping as a single parent left no spare time for self-indulgence; within months she had a new baby as well. So she found her own way, grabbing instead at odd moments to write in her well-established diary. These short entries … e-mails, almost … to her dead husband form the basis of 'After You'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Peter Firstbrook|title=The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African FamilyWendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=The book jacket states that this is 'Ronnie Williams was the untold story son of an African family' Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and with a presidential photograph of Barack Obama, the book is certainly eye-catchingEthel Wall. Along with, IThere'm sure, millions of others, Is some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' and was charmed and blown away s birthdate: he claimed to have been born in almost equal measure1863, so I but he was keen to get started on this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stefan Klein|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=This excellent combination of science history already many years older than Ethel and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientifiche might well have shaved a few years off his age. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is For a little unfair – can she cope with being analysedwhile, and the neuroscience we now know used family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best1929 Depression and five-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worseyear-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci One thing he did know inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowablearmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Valerie GrovePatti Smith|title=So Much To Tell|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be the envy Year of many a young bookworm. From 1961 to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, the children’s division of Penguin. I still have some paperbacks from that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on the first page inside the front cover.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt MacAllester|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenMonkey

|summary=Matt MacAllester is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalistOn the coast of Santa Cruz, used to covering Patti Smith enters the horrors lunar year of warthe monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into the life and death of his mother Anneunexpected moments. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by grief. This might not sound unusualstranger's words, but his mother had been largely absent from him for about a quarter of a century''Anything is possible: after all, trapped in her own private world it's the year of madnessthe monkey''. His earliest memories were As Smith wanders the coast of an idyllic childhoodSanta Cruz in solitude, where wonderful food was always at the centre of family she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and with the help of Elizabeth Davidageing are faced head-on, his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought to find his mother through as it the food she cookedshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Welch and Lucian Randall1912242052|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Redheads, they say, feel more pain than the rest of us. They may even have a layer of skin too few. However literally true this might be, it certainly seems to be the case O Joy for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says in this excellent book, 'There's nothing between him and all the sensations the world has to give us'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewme!|author=Donald Spoto|title=High Society: Grace Kelly and HollywoodKeir Davidson

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=In his defence''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitle. It underlines that this does not in any way shape because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or form claim pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monacofor pleasure and adventure. It is an analysis of her film career: a consideration His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the "Hollywood years"world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MaloneyGraff_Find|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=I was When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a bit plastic folder of a patriothandwritten notes from his journal, even when it wasnhe didn't as fashionable as take much notice of it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting At the chance to personally slay the dragon in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag age of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist24, itGraff didn's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Dayt realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rogers1789016304|title=The Last ResortWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayMelanie 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 country many city during the war years ago, but has never been able only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn and Roz – happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to follow him out oftheir homeland, despite German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,Germans might reach the hyper-inflationcity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, and that the corruption Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the country. Insteadway that it did, but initial protests melted away as thepair just wanted to stay organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodgea vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Kidder1786893452|title=Strength in What RemainsThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5

|summary='Strength Here in What Remains' is the inspirational account West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of Deogratiasthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, a man who has fled from outsiders to the genocide world and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator situations that refugees find themselves in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to New Yorkdo that, out of fear in this intelligent, powerful and want moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promisedrevolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catrine Clay0857058320|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary='You have 'Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbinguncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Such did Hitler say at Cercas is searching for the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies meaning behind his great uncle's death in the 1930sSpanish Civil War. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with a broken neckManuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, such is the lifetime of difference between figure who looms large over the two referencesbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. But that lifetime, as packed and varied as it was, is in The question at the pages centre of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured bookis whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela Thirlwell1788037812|title=Into The FrameFraternity of the Estranged: The Four Loves of Ford Madox Brown Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=Ford Madox BrownOriginally passed in 1885, born the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in 1821 in Calais of a Scottish familyplace for 82 years. But during this time, raised in France restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and Belgium before settling in England1908, was one three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the foremost Victorian artistsheterosexual Havelock Ellis. Throughout his career he Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was closely associated with common on the Pre-RaphaelitesEuropean Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, and shared many so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of their same idealshomosexuality, style and subject matterbeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, though he never officially became a member leading to the milestone legalisation of the groupsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris SkidmoreBuckland_Zoo|title=Death and The Man Who Ate the VirginZoo: ElizabethFrank Buckland, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate forgotten hero of Amy Robsart natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended As a conservationist in Victorian England before the throne in November 1558term existed, everyone's dominant concern Frank Buckland was the matter very much a man ahead of her taking an appropriate husband his time. Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudleyeccentric sums him up perfectly, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted any biographer is immediately presented with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married a colourful tale to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancertell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jad AdamsWilliams_Captain|title=GandhiCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: Naked AmbitionHis Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (or Mahatma for short) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar with the picture In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim to an assassin's bullet shortly after Indian independence, but knew little more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Shephard|title=The Surprising Life 17th Regiment of Constance Spry|rating=4Foot.5|genre=Biography|summary=The very mention He was in command of the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging troops and books of recipes convicts on board a ship sailing from a bygone eraPlymouth to Sydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. Perhaps it He was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made not destined to live a celebrity of herlong life, as it did of dying suddenly at the likes age of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to name but raise their twoyoung sons. Even so, she enjoyed Edwards' death left his widow in a remarkably successful career, and the woman behind the public face was no ordinary career woman, but quite an unconventional personality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230741819</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rob Chapman|title=Syd Barrettdifficult position: A Very Irregular Head |rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born in Cambridge in 1946. The fourth of five children, he was the not only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Stonor Saunders|title=The Woman Who Shot Mussolini|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Most British titled families of the 19th and 20th centuries did she have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close farm to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibsonmanage, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during but she was also responsible for the 1870s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Josephine Wilkinson|title=The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn|rating=3.5|genre=History|summary=Before her marriage to King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn had already been courted by three suitors, any of whom might have become her husband - and possibly saved her from her eventual end on convicts who worked the scaffoldland. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, Two years later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to would marry in order to settle a family dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. After their marriage negotiations came to an end in the face of legal obstacles, she became betrothed to Henry Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland. With a little help from the scheming Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke, who had little time for his son, insisted that any idea of marriage between them should be dismissed forthwith. Soon after this the poet Thomas Wyatt became enamoured of her, but by this time there was fierce competition from his sovereign, and her destiny was sealedCaptain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michele MonroPeacock_mountain|title=Matt Monro: Into The Singer's SingerMountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=In terms of British chart statistics Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against so many books… I can understand the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinckapproach, he fell some way but I also think we sell ourselves short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuit, and overseasby it, particularly in Latin America and we sell the Philippinesmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's like most successful exports everother people I have my favourite genres, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatrafavoured authors, to whom he was often comparedand while, often said that Matt was like most other people I read the only British singer he ever really listened reviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string tomy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Caroline Moorehead |title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A.Roger Ekirch |title=Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped|rating=4|genre=History|summary=They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it is not unusual for novels to be based partly on fact. So it was in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson's ''Kidnapped'', Sir Walter Scott's ''Guy Mannering'', and at least three others, all of which can point to the saga of James Annesley for inspiration.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066150</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=William and Mary: Heroes of the Glorious Revolution|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=At school I remember spending a lot of time Move on the Tudors and the early Stuarts – obviously great favourites of the history teacher and then galloping unceremoniously through the intervening years until we reached another ''meaningful'' period – the Victorian era. The importance of William and Mary was completely overlooked in favour of a quick mention of the fact that William wasn't in direct line of succession to the throne [[Newest Business and Mary had never wanted to marry him in the first place. Their successor, Queen Anne I remember simply as 'tables'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075094577X</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]