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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire1788360702|title=Across Many MountainsCharles, The Alternative Prince: Three Daughters of TibetAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are sixFor over forty years, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and stuffed with haycomplementary therapies. ''Charles, and your route is over the worldThe Alternative Prince''s highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging. This was critically assesses the journey that Yangzom BrauenPrince's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after opinions, beliefs and aims against the Chinese invasion background of 1959the scientific evidence. They were leaving behind all that they knew There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and travelling his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' reputation of a man who is their storyproud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Ashdown-Hill1739805100|title=The Last Days Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of Richard IIIwar|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryBiography|summary=The controversy surrounding King Richard III has meant that there have been far more biographies about him than on any other pre-Tudor monarch''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, some extremely partisan who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in exonerating him the early days of the crimes laid at his doorNazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, some (a minoritysensitive and thoughtful man, it seems) more than keen to endorse had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the Shakespearean portrait of a fiend growing hostilities between nations unfolding in human shape, Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and others steering connections that lasted for a middle courselifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454048</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edmund de WaalWill Brooker|title=The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden InheritanceTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I'The Hare with Amber Eyes' vibrates with that rush ve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of desire to uncover family history that often follows the death thousands of someone you loveless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. It is also a meticulously researched This book of wide ranging scopestarts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. When I first picked it upThe meeting was some unspecified combination, it looked worryingly eruditeseems, and I had visions of becoming lost in a sea her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of namesher latest book she was reciting, places and ideas. So her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I was amazed get to find myself reading it in one sittingattend), completely absorbedbut pulled Brooker, and losing a whole day in professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the processrabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Edmund De Waal had me hooked from the bottom of page one when Brooker decides he admits 'd like nothing more than to kicking follow her through a year in the gate of the Japanese language school he was attending in frustration at his lack of fluency. He then thinks sheepishly: published author'what it was s life, working to be twenty-eight and kicking make a school gate.' This funny, disarming comment put me on his side from success of the off.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539551</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Spicer|latest title=The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice, Countess de Janze|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Happy Valley in Kenya was an idyllic setting. The high altitude made for a benign climate and struggling with the farms were owned by colonial settlers who became the 'White Mischief' set of the nineteen fortiesnext in line. They farmed their estatesJewell, due diligence appropriately done, partied the night away and extra-marital affairs were the normagrees. Author Paul Spicer's mother was loosely involved with the set and he uses And this is the connection to good effect to tell the story of the life of Alice, Countess de Janzé – a beguiling and volatile woman who always thought more of her animals than of her childrenresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847399142</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonny SteinbergMartha Leigh|title=Little LiberiaInvisible Ink: An African Odyssey in New York CityA Family Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books and after reading the praise from various sources (New York Times, J M Coetzee) I came to the conclusion that I was Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in for a serious and thought-provoking readslightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. The preface tells us that Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the two Liberian men philosopher Jean- Rufus and the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for different reasonshours every day. But as they meet up years later and thousands Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of miles away from their homeland, their ''Little Liberia'' life. There is love in New York City has the house but also darker undercurrents that a tall order: to contain and accommodate their big personalities and to a certain extent, their big egoschild does not fully understand but knows is there. Can it cope?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreview|author=Edward Pearce|title=Pitt the Elder: Man of War|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768, has come down to us through the ages as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of the great men of the British Empire in its earlier days, and the man who led England triumphantly through the Seven Years War of 1756-63. During the 'year of victories' in 1759, Quebec was captured, the combined English and Prussian forces defeated the French at Minden, and the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations of historians – much of the credit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderPolly Barton|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. question ''Dedicated his lifeWhy Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn''works tirelessly'' t gone into melt- phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful peopledown I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but when reading I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question 'Mountains Beyond Mountains'why Japan?', you'll realise there's not a shred She explains her feelings in respect of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients the question in Haitithe first essay, and then worked with themwhich is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, and worked for themamong other things, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating the disease is just one part sound of the problem, ''every party where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference you have to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwideintroduce yourself''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Molly CarrFrederic Gros|title=In Search A Philosophy of Dr Watson - A Sherlockian InvestigationWalking|rating=3.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The old saying that behind every great man there is a great woman has I confess I picked this one major exception up from the library in my pre- Sherlock Holmeslockdown forage of random stuff. Behind him is Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the figure of Dr John Watson, his biographer, the man who shares his Baker St lodgings, pages I have marked and the man eternally flummoxed by his deductionsreturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This biography successfully shows how one had me in the superior Holmes walked over Watson in investigative skillsfirst two pages, and also how Conan Doyle needed Watson, if only to help us admire Holmes more by making him less insufferably smugwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907685766</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lindsay ReadeSharon Blackie|title=Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: The Story of Tony and Lindsay WilsonIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=EntertainmentBiography|summary=Mr Manchester, as Tony Wilson came I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to be known, could me by how many pages have been the next John Humphryscorners turned down. Instead he ended up becoming Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the next Malcolm McLaren – or, perhaps, a far less successful version of Richard Bransonone I've borrowed. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English he became a trainee news reporter for ITN, and for much of his I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life he worked as an anchorman for regional evening news programmes. Yet he -changing' – although it is less remembered for this than for his championship of alternative music and punk rock, founding of Factory Records definitely the first two and involvement with only time will tell about the Hacienda Club. Although he loved the Beatles third – but clichés exist for a reason and folk music in general, he disliked much of the contemporary music scene until he saw the Sex Pistols live in the summer of 1976I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654567</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bevis Hillier0241446732|title=The Wit Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and Wisdom of G K Chestertona Planet in Crisis|ratingauthor=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), best known as the creator of the clerical detective Father BrownMalena Ernman, seems to have slipped a little among the general reading public's estimation these days. This is surely unmeritedGreta Thunberg, for he was just as versatile as Beata Thunberg and hardly less quotable than the Victorian enfant terrible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441179585</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rosamund Bartlett|title=Tolstoy: A Russian LifeSvante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Count Lev Tolstoy came from a privileged The Ernman / Thunberg familyseemed perfectly normal. He Malena Ernman was born an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on 28 August 1828; unfailingly superstitious for most of the rest parenting of his days, he therefore adopted 28 as his lucky numbertheir two daughters. Like most young men from a similar background, he joined the Russian army. The Crimean war proved to be the making of him in that it developed his social conscience, opened his eyes to the conditions endured by those born to a less lofty position in the social order than himself, Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and impressed on him the fervent belief that everybody in Russia ought to have the chance to learn to read talking and write. As a result he became a born-again repentant nobleman in the light of having seen how the other half (or more than half) livedher sister, he took a long hard look at the world around himBeata, turning into a rebel against organized religion and the authority of the state in the process. All this was exacerbated by his travels throughout Europe shortly afterwards, in which he was impressed with the comparative freedom he saw in other countries and then found the return to his homeland thoroughly depressing in the few nine years before the emancipation of the serfs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681383</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=In November 2007 the French Presidentold, Nicolas Sarkozy struggled with what was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonelyhappening. He accepted an invitation In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artistsolution close to home, but eventually, Carla Bruni. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said it became clear to the family that she wanted they were ''burned-out people on a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by the attentions of a beautiful, famous and intelligent womanburned-out planet''. Within months If they were marriedto find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roland Huntford0648684806|title=Race for the South PoleClara Colby: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and AmundsenInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=In 1910 two European ships set out for The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the AntarcticUSA. 'Terra Nova' At the time she was carrying British explorers under the leadership just three-years-old but because of Captain Robert Scottsome childhood ailment, while she wasn'Fram' sailed t allowed to sail with a rival Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsenher parents and three brothers. The basic facts can be briefly summarized. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on 14 December 1911 her and returned home to saw that she received a hero's welcomegood education, while Scott reached both in and out of school. She was the same destination 35 days later, only to perish with his men on child in the return journeyhousehold and her childhood was glorious. Their bodies were found by a search party some eight months after they By contrast, her family had died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441169822</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Margerison|title=Amazing Women: Inspirational Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The cover of this book tells become pioneer farmers in 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 mid-west of the ''Amazing People Team''. There is a rather fulsome ''Author's Note'' followed by a one-page introduction. I United States and life was immediately struck by the fact thathard, given the various feats of these women, I as Clara was anxious to read about them - find out when she and not about Dr Margerison. Less is more. He goes on her grandparents eventually went to say (by now I'm getting a bit tired of join the smiling Margerison) that 'The stories are inspirational and can help you achieve your ambitions in your own journey through lifefamily.' All of this and especially that last sentence sits rather uneasily with me, I'm afraid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921629940</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Selina Hastings|title=The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=These days, W. Somerset Maugham seems to be something of an anachronism. In his heyday, Clara would only know her mother for much of a career which lasted from the end of the Victorian era to the 1950s, he few months: she was one of the most successful and widely read of all British writersmarried for fifteen years, with his novelshad ten pregnancies, short stories seven surviving children 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 end-of-empire settings are deeply embedded died in an age we would rather forget. Moreover, as this very comprehensive biography demonstrates, he was childbirth not the most pleasant of individualslong after Clara arrived. The unhappy child, orphaned by As the time he was teneldest girl, afflicted with a lifelong stammer heavy burden would fall on Clara and brought up by an aunt and uncle who showed him no affection, grew up to lead Wisconsin was a long and unhappy liferude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719565553</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew McConnell Stott1789017977|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness Ronnie and the Story of BritainHilda's Greatest ComedianRomance: Towards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|summary=Meet Martin DavidsonRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. Now, when I start my reviews like that, normally it means he's the main character, but heThere's some doubt as to whether or not here. Hethey were ever married or even Harry's big birthdate: he claimed to have been born in the world of BBC History documentaries1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and grew up in the UK, half Scottish and half German, knowing that many of he might well have shaved a few years off his older relatives lived through the Second World Warage. Foremost among them For a while, the family was his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, who would have been of fighting age quite well-to- do but disaster struck in his 30s the 1929 Depression and five-year- during the Third Reichold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. Nothing much One thing he did inherit from his father was ever said about Bruno's own history during the war, except for many inflammatory, rising comments by Bruno himselfhis need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. It took the old man to die for He joined the truth to be admitted by Martin's mother - their forefather was army at eighteen in the SS1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916161</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjeng ScheijenPatti Smith|title=Diaghilev: A LifeYear of the Monkey|rating=4.5

|summary=Sergey Diaghilev was one On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the towering figures in lunar year of the artistic world of Russiamonkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and indeed Europeunexpected moments. In a stranger's words, at ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the start year of the 20th centurymonkey''. Born in 1872 As Smith wanders the ambitious son coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a bankrupt vodka producer from Perm, year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and a mother who died a few days later probably from puerperal fever, by his early twenties he was ageing are faced head-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 it the United Statesshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681642</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Howarth1912242052|title=We Die AloneO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Consider taking a five day sail in a small fishing boat ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the height of first person to walk the North Sea from Shetlandmountains alone, not because he had to try and establishfor work, train and supply some potentially vital anti-German resistance in the faras a miner, far north of occupied Norwayquarryman, your homeland. Imagine the sight of heavy naval parades where you intended to landshepherd or pack-horse driver, as galling proof that your intel is ages out of date. Ponder too the fact that you get reported but because he wanted to the Nazis due to the most ridiculous slight of fortunefor pleasure and adventure. All your colleagues are dead or captured, your equipment blown up His rapturous encounters with your trawler to keep it safe from Jerry handstheir natural beauty, half your big toe has been shot offand its literary consequences, and youchanged our view of the world're forced to go on the run in one of Europe's last, and coldest, wildernesses. And you have no idea whatsoever quite how bad this scenario is going to get.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678459</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janet SoskiceGraff_Find|title=Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Sisters of Sinai tells the story of two extraordinary, Victorian women who unearthed an important early copy of the Gospels from a remote monastery in Egypt. It hardly seems possible that they organised and executed such remarkable feats of unaccompanied travel during an age in which women's freedom was hidebound by their status as the inferior sex. Janet Soskice is well-placed as a feminist philosopher and theologian to explore their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954654X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFind Another Place|author=Natasha McElhone|title=After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband and FatherBen Graff

|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=What would you do if, without warning, your brilliant, loving, superman partner died from When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a catastrophic heart event at the untimely age plastic folder of 43handwritten notes from his journal, 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 couldnhe didn't because she was already stretched, juggling a busy transatlantic career as an actress as well as caring for her sparky young familytake much notice of it. 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 At the basis age of 24, Graff didn'After You'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919098</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Firstbrook|title=The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The book jacket states that this is 't realise the untold story gravity of an African family' and with a presidential photograph of Barack Obama, the book is certainly eye-catching. Along with, I'm sure, millions of others, I've read 'The Audacity Of Hope' and pages he was charmed and blown away in almost equal measure, so I was keen to get started on this bookholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092725</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Klein1789016304|title=LeonardoWar and Love: A family's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the Worldtestament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=This excellent combination Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of science history Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and biography starts with seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the most populist war years, but only five thousand survived and some of the most awkwardly scientificMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Basically it throws modern-day science at Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Mona Lisa, which you Germans might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysedreach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, and that the neuroscience we now know used Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece of Italian artway that it did, and she’s survived much worsebut initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked It's an atrocity on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of La Gioconda are still unknowableindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Grove1786893452|title=So Much To TellThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Kaye Webb’s career would be Here in the envy of many West, we see news reports about immigrants on a young bookwormregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. From 1961 But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to 1978 she ran Puffin Books, the children’s division of Penguinworld and the situations that refugees find themselves in. I still have some paperbacks It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that time with “Kaye Webb – Editor” on , in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the first page inside the front covermiddle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142008</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt MacAllester0857058320|title=Bittersweet: Lessons from my Mother's KitchenLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Matt MacAllester ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, used journey to covering the horrors of war, but nothing prepared him for his investigation into uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death of . Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his mother Annegreat uncle's death in the Spanish Civil War. In May 2005 Ann MacAllester Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died suddenly of a heart attack and her son was overwhelmed by griefrelatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. This might not sound unusual, but Cercas ruminates on why his mother had been largely absent from him uncle fought for about a quarter of a century, trapped in her own private world of madnessthis dictator. His earliest memories were of an idyllic childhood, where wonderful food was always The question at the centre of family life and with the help of Elizabeth David, this book is whether it is possible for his mother’s favourite cookery writer he sought great uncle to find his mother through be a hero whilst having fought for the food she cookedwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800942</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Welch and Lucian Randall1788037812|title=Ginger GeezerThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Life of Vivian StanshallFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=RedheadsOriginally passed in 1885, they say, feel more pain than the rest of us. They may even have law that had made homosexual relations a layer of skin too fewcrime remained in place for 82 years. However literally true But during this might betime, it certainly seems to be the case for Vivian Stanshallrestrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. As his second wife says in this excellent bookBetween 1891 and 1908, 'There's nothing between him and all three books on the sensations the world has to give us'nature of homosexuality appeared.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Donald Spoto|title=High SocietyThey were written by two homosexual men: Grace Kelly Edward Carpenter and Hollywood|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=In his defenceJohn Addington Symonds, we must acknowledge Spoto's subtitleas well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. It underlines that this does not Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in any way shape or form claim to be a biography of the American actress who become Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. It is an analysis of her film career: a consideration UK, so the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the "Hollywood years".|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515377</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alison Maloney|title=St George: Let's Hear it for England!|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I was a bit scientific understanding of a patriothomosexuality, even when it wasn't as fashionable as it is now becoming. Perhaps this is due to my once having played St. George in a Cub Scout celebration and getting beginning the chance struggle for recognition and equality, leading to personally slay the dragon milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in knitted chain mail with a plastic sword. In a world where being English has become synonymous with football violence and the flag of St. George is being used by a political party condemned as racist, it's perhaps unsurprising that more people celebrate St. Patrick's Day than St. George's Day1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092628</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas RogersBuckland_Zoo|title=The Last Resort|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom Man Who Ate the country many years ago, but has never been able to persuadehis parents – two white farmersZoo: Frank Buckland, Lyn and Roz – to follow him out forgotten hero oftheir homeland, despite the resettlement policies of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflation, and the corruption in the country. Instead, thepair just wanted to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewnatural history|author=Tracy Kidder|title=Strength in What Remains|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary='Strength in What Remains' is the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promised.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197857X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Catrine Clay|title=Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup LegendRichard Girling

|summary='You have to learn to be hard men, to accept sacrifice without ever succumbing'. Such did Hitler say at the Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies As a conservationist in Victorian England before the 1930s. He probably did not have in mind playing in goal at a FA Cup final with term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a broken neck, such is the lifetime man ahead of difference between the two referenceshis time. But that lifetimeSurgeon, as packed naturalist, veterinarian and varied as it waseccentric sums him up perfectly, and any biographer is in the pages of this ever-interesting and swiftly-devoured bookimmediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082884</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela ThirlwellWilliams_Captain|title=Into The Frame: The Four Loves Captain Ronald Campbell of Ford Madox Brown |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Ford Madox BrownBombala Station, born in 1821 in Calais of a Scottish family, raised in France and Belgium before settling in England, was one of the foremost Victorian artists. Throughout his career he was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, and shared many of their same ideals, style and subject matter, though he never officially became a member of the group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701179023</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Skidmore|title=Death and the VirginCambalong: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=When Elizabeth I ascended the throne in November 1558, everyone's dominant concern was the matter of her taking an appropriate husband His Military Life and securing the succession. The man most likely to become her husband was Robert Dudley, whom she made her Master of the Horse and entrusted with considerable responsibility for her coronation festivities. The fact that he was already married to Amy Robsart did little to quell the speculation, especially since she was believed to be dying of breast cancer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297846507</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Jad Adams|title=Gandhi: Naked AmbitionIvor 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 circuitby it, and overseas, 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 compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened to.|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 agowhile, with like most other people I read the fall of the monarchy reviews and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first handfollow up on what appeals, but few left I also have a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Luciethird-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pinstring to my reading bow: randomness.|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]]