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[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlotte Frost1788360702|title=Sir William KnightonCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Strange Career of a Regency PhysicianAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst|rating=34
|genre=Biography
|summary=Sir William Knighton came from humble beginnings: in later life the memories For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of his mother selling butter alternative medicine and eggs from a market stall would frequently be brought up and it was never to illustrate just how well he'd donecomplementary therapies. ''Charles, The fact that he became a physician would normally be quite an achievementAlternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, but his baronetcy beliefs and fame didn't come from his work as a physician but from his less well-publicised work for George IVaims against the background of the scientific evidence. Although There are few instances of his work at court would span just over a decade it was far from beliefs being what he wanted vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to do – and for the most part it would not bring him reputation of a great deal of happiness. At the end man who is proud of his career as a physician he simply wanted refusal to retire apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his cottage in the country - but found himself unable to desert a king who had become dependent on himambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755213017</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodney Bolt1739805100|title=As Good as God, as Clever as Loving the DevilEnemy: The Impossible Life Building bridges in a time of Mary Bensonwar|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Since I hadn't previously heard 'Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of Archbishop Bensonauthor Andrew March's grandparents, let alone his wife, I must commend who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the title1930s. Fred, cover a sensitive and advertising of this book. All thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the above provided an accurate and irresistible glimpse of growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the biography within, and I wasntime. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't one whit disappointed in my choiceuniversally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548615</amazonuk>
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|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=PeopleMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I's preconceptions about Malcolm X are vastve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This is no surprise given his dramatic lifebook starts with the two meeting each other, untimely deathas well, and subsequent increased fame through shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the likes words of {{amazonurl|title=Spike Leeher latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade''s 1992 film|isbn=B00005A7TO}}. {{amazonurl|title=His autobiography|isbn=0141185430}} is (certainly a mustget-read for anyone interested in his life, or up never commonly worn at the tumultuous race struggle in the US in the 1960sauthor events I get to attend), but it must be viewed in context. It was completed after Malcolm X's deathpulled Brooker, by co-author Alex Haleya professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and many aspects were highlighted or played down, to suit Malcolm Xthe rabbit-hole that is Jewell's endsdiverse output. Manning Marable Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's biographylife, years in working to make a success of the makinglatest title, looks at his life and struggling with a new perspectivethe next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0713998954</amazonuk>1529136024
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Duncan HamiltonMartha Leigh|title=The Unreliable Life of Harry the ValetInvisible Ink: The Great Victorian Jewel ThiefA Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The story of Harry the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readers Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, but forever clacking away on his typewriter as he was something of a celebrity in edits the Victorian age. He achieved notoriety by stealing thousands complete correspondence of pounds worth of jewels from the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland philosopher Jean- much to Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the delight practicalities of many people who disliked life. There is love in the lady, which appears to have been pretty much everyone who ever met her. Having pulled off this audacious theft, Harry seemed to be invincible - house but he was brought down by his love for also darker undercurrents that a Gaiety Girl, and ended up facing a trial which the papers fell over themselves to report onchild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>1800460384
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Fetish RoomPolly Barton|authortitle=Redmond O'Hanlon and Rudi RotthierFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=An ongoing debate in our family Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has centred been on my radar for a while and if the value of biographiesworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, particularly of writersbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, Idon've always loved t know the answer to the touchstone question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the places people lived and wrote, question in the banality of their livesfirst essay, which is on the detailsound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, the insightamong other things, and the fact that it can tell you everything or nothing at all about the work. My Dad held that the work was what mattered; the rest is just social history. He said that almost disparagingly, which is odd, because if sound of ''every party where you presented it as social history rather than biography, hehave to introduce yourself'd lap it up. I guess I just don't make the distinction. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684145</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=House of Exile: War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los AngelesFrederic Gros|authortitle=Evelyn JuersA Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kröger-Mann were in a constant state of hazardous exile after I confess I picked this one up from the rise of fascism library in Germany in 1933. He became like Zola, his favourite author, a socially committed novelist and political activist and fierce critic my pre-lockdown forage of militarismrandom stuff. He was convivial, having a wide circle of friends Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that contained many creative artists, playwrights, socialists. He seemed drawn to I can turn down the bohemians pages I have marked and the demi-mondereturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This elegant and sometimes formal gentleman came from one had me in the Hanseatic town of Lubeck where his father belonged to a renowned grain merchant family. These might be described as the haute-bourgeoisie. There was an unusual degree of sibling rivalry between him and his less robust brotherfirst two pages, the famous author of wherein Gros explains why ''The Magic Mountainwalking is not a sport'', Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed a sensual nature and fell passionately and easily in love with a number of women. Of these his relationship with Nelly, a fascinating woman, a seamstress and nightclub hostess, as full of contradictions as himself, was the most successful and long lasting. She followed him on the long painful journey into exile at first in Nice and later to the United States.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>1781688370
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon StephensonSharon Blackie|title=Let Not The Waves of the SeaIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=The I normally say that you can tell how much a book opens after the catastrophic event and the narrator/author Simon is in the local area of Phi Phimeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. He describes it in glowing terms (which may sound a little strange) as he aims, on a rather arduous climb, Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to be rewarded with a stunning viewbuy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. And immediately Iwant to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'm struck with Stephensoninspiring's lilting style of writing. For example, ' ... an elderly lady carrying bags of rice over each shoulder as if they were no more than foam guesthouse pillows.life-changing' How lovely – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and evocative is that, I'm thinking to myselfnot sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848545584</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Norman0241446732|title=John LennonOur House is on Fire: The LifeScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg
|rating=5
|genre=EntertainmentPolitics and Society|summary=For part of my formative years, John Lennon The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was one an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the four most famous people in the worldparenting of their two daughters. All that we have learnt about him in the thirty Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years or so since his death has kept his name firmly in the public eyeold, if not always for the best of reasonsstruggled with what was happening. At over 800 pagesIn such circumstances, this is one of it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the lengthiest biographies written about the extraordinary life and times of the former Beatlefamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. It's also surely one of the most impartialIf they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>000719742X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Spurling0648684806|title=Burying the BonesClara Colby: Pearl Buck in ChinaThe International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Peal Buck, The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the 5th time she was just three-years-old but because of 7 childrensome childhood ailment, was born in 1892 she wasn't allowed to American missionary sail with her parents working in Chinaand three brothers. Instead, where she was then brought up. She learned Chinese before she learned Englishremained with her grandparents, who doted on her and only realised saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was considered a foreigner when anti foreigner riots known to as the Boxer Rebellion only child in 1900 forced the family out of household and her childhood homewas glorious. Later she became famous for By contrast, her novels and short stories set family had become pioneer farmers in China, especially The Good Earth. She won America's most famous literary prize, the Pulitzer, in 1932mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938family. Yet Clara would only know her work is mostly forgotten in the US and Europemother 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. As the country she lovedeldest girl, her books were banned by Mao's regime after they came to power in 1949a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978529</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Lewis1789017977|title=Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Graham Greene's father actually had six children, and his brother six of his own. (Well, there were nine in their generation for a start...) The surprising Ronnie and joyous thing about this book is that it can show that Graham GreeneHilda's remarkable life is by no means the only standout in that whole generation of family history. It can continuously throw up surprises - we know Hugh Greene was high up in the BBC, but it wasn't him who helped found Canadian public service broadcasting. We are familiar with Graham himself traipsing around the world, reporting back in fact and fiction from unusual circumstances and exotic climes with dubious systems of government, but it wasn't he who was noted for being an ardently public supporter of pro-Communist China.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551888</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Benjamin Mandelkern|title=Escape from the NazisRomance: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga of Two Young Jews on the Run in Towards a New Life after World War II Poland|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Do we all have it in us? Would you as a Pole in 1940s Poland, who like as not had been 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be said, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Lucas|title=Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi GermanyWendy Williams
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack Ronnie Williams was the son of success at home Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. 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 the USA1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and conspire to land her living in Germany as WW2 breaks outhe might well have shaved a few years off his age. What chance her becoming an AmericanFor a while, female Lord Hawthe family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-Haw, being paid by Germany old Ronnie had to adjust to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? a very different lifestyle. Anybody could guess it One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would take innumerable factors, circumstances and events, and they're all here stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in this entertaining, eye-opening and educational biography1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935149431</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony JamesPatti Smith|title=The Happy Passion: A Personal View Year of Jacob Bronowskithe Monkey|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Jacob Bronowski was a scientific administrator, poet, philosopher, dramatist, radio and TV personality, best remembered for the series 'The Ascent of Man'. This short book, about 90 pages long, is partly biographical sketch, partly – in fact largely – an overview of his major published works, occupying about two-thirds of the book. In the author's words, it is intended as a personal view of Bronowski as a philosopher.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402200</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Lienhardt, Olivier Philipponnat and Euan Cameron|title=The Life of Irene Nemirovsky|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Irene Nemirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 to a wealthy Jewish family. Even as a child she was used to travel and regularly spent time in On the South coast of FranceSanta Cruz, but Patti Smith enters the family was forced to flee Russia when they were threatened by lunar year of the revolutionmonkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. They lived for In a time in Finland and Stockholmstranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, eventually settling in France. Nemirovskyit's father was something the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a rough diamond and year that brings huge shifts in her mother selfish life - loss and unfaithfulageing are faced head-on, vain and difficult – her mother, particularly would form as it the basis for several characters shifting political waters in Nemirovsky's booksAmerica.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099523981</amazonuk>1526614758
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles Milton1912242052|title=Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To WarO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Giles Milton's daughter was set the task of designing an heraldic shield which represented the most important elements of her family's history. Aware that one of her grandparents is German she included the only German symbol which she knew: a Swastika. It was this incident, which was an awkward mixture of funny and disquieting which brought about Oh Joy for me!''Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To Wargives Coleridge credit for being '. It's the story of Giles' father-in-lawfirst person to walk the mountains alone, Wolfram Aïchelenot because he had to for work, who was nine years old when Hitler came to power and who found himself caught up in as a situation which was none of his making and didn't accord with his own beliefs. He was a man who wanted to be a sculptor miner, quarryman, shepherd or to paintpack-horse driver, but because he was forced wanted to become a soldier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dudley Green|title=Patrick Bronte: Father of Genius|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=There have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë for pleasure and her siblings, but very little about their fatheradventure. It is tempting to speculate whether he would be quite so deserving of one if he had not been the father of such a famous family. Yet Dudley Green, a retired Classics teacherHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, has demonstrated here that he did lead an interesting life himself. Born in rural Ireland in 1777, he spent his early years there before arriving in England in 1802 and settled in Yorkshire seven years laterits literary consequences, where he remained changed our view of the rest of his daysworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Donald SpotoGraff_Find|title=Possessed: The Life of Joan CrawfordFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff
|rating=3.5
|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=Thanks to the memoir When Ben Graff'Mommie Dearests grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn' by her adopted daughter Christina, the enduring image of movie star Joan Crawford is one t take much notice of an alcoholic, sadistic monsterit. Spoto clearly believes that this portrait is a gross exaggeration, and is at pains to rectify At the balance. Having previously written biographies age of Alfred Hitchcock and Marilyn Monroe among others24, he clearly knows Graff didn't realise the subject gravity of cinema inside out, and has written a very thorough chronicle of Crawford's career. The impression the reader is left with, however, is that in looking at her family life and art pages he has perhaps striven too far to present her as a person more sinned against than sinning, a legendary talent, beauty and above all a grossly maligned adoptive motherwas holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091931274</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Anderton1789016304|title=Christopher Lloyd: His Life at Great Dixter|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=When I first had a garden I did what I always do with a new project: I turned to books to see what help I could find. There were any number which told me how to do the basics and what I needed to know to make the right decisions. It was rather like cooking only with a few more uncertainties thrown in. Then there were the books which didn't really bother about the basics but provided limitless inspiration. At the head of these writers, if not way out in front, was Christopher Lloyd who gardened throughout his life at Great Dixter, producing colour combinations which stunned and probably one of the greatest gardens of the twentieth century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950968</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yangzom Brauen War and Katy Darbyshire|title=Across Many MountainsLove: Three Daughters of Tibet|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging. This was the journey that Yangzom BrauenA family's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion testament of 1959. They were leaving behind all that they knew anguish, endurance and travelling to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' is their story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Ashdown-Hill|title=The Last Days of Richard III|rating=4|genre=History|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, some extremely partisan devotion in exonerating him of the crimes laid at his door, some (a minority, it seems) more than keen to endorse the Shakespearean portrait of a fiend in human shape, and others steering a middle course.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454048</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewoccupied Amsterdam|author=Edmund de Waal|title=The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden InheritanceMelanie Martin
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=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 Hare with Amber EyesDiary of Ann Frank'' vibrates with but then realised that rush of desire to uncover her own family history that often follows the death of someone you love. It is also a meticulously researched book of wide ranging scope's stories were equally fascinating. When I first picked it up, it looked worryingly erudite, A hundred and I had visions of becoming lost in a sea of namesseven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, places but only five thousand survived and ideas. So I was amazed Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to find myself reading it happen in one sitting, completely absorbed, and losing a whole day in the processcountry with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Edmund De Waal had me hooked from Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the bottom of page one when he admits Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to kicking escalate in the gate of way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the Japanese language school he was attending in frustration at his lack of fluencyorganisers became more circumspect. He then thinks sheepishly: It'what it was to be twenty-eight and kicking s an atrocity on a school gate.' This funny, disarming comment put me on his side from the offvast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539551</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Spicer1786893452|title=The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice, Countess de JanzeUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Happy Valley Here in Kenya was an idyllic settingthe West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. The high altitude made for a benign climate But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the farms were owned by colonial settlers who became the 'White Mischief' set of the nineteen forties. They farmed their estatesinvestigative journalism they carry out, partied outsiders to the night away world and extra-marital affairs were the normsituations that refugees find themselves in. Author Paul SpicerIt's mother was loosely involved with rare that we find out the journeys from the set refugees themselves – and he uses the connection this is a rare opportunity to good effect to tell do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the story middle of the life of Alicea revolution in Iran, Countess de Janzé – fleeing to America as a beguiling and volatile woman who always thought more of her animals than of her childrenten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847399142</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonny Steinberg0857058320|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York CityLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books and after reading ''Lord Of All the praise from various sources (New York Times, J M Coetzee) I came Dead'' is a journey to uncover the conclusion that I was in for a serious author's lost ancestor's life and thought-provoking readdeath. The preface tells us that Cercas is searching for the two Liberian men - Rufus and meaning behind his great uncle's death in the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and for different reasonsSpanish Civil War. But as they meet up years later and thousands of miles away from their homelandManuel Mena, their Cercas'great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco'Little Liberia'' in New York City has a tall order: to contain and accommodate their big personalities and s forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a certain extent, their big egoshero whilst having fought for the wrong side. Can it cope?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward Pearce1788037812|title=Pitt The Fraternity of the ElderEstranged: Man of WarThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=William Pitt Originally passed in 1885, the Elderlaw 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, 1st Earl three books on the nature of Chatham, homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768John Addington Symonds, has come down to us through the ages as well as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the great men margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the British Empire European Continent, but barely talked about in its earlier daysthe UK, and the man who led England triumphantly through so the Seven Years War publications of 1756-63. During these men were hugely significant – contributing to the 'year scientific understanding of victories' in 1759, Quebec was capturedhomosexuality, and beginning the combined English struggle for recognition and Prussian forces defeated the French at Mindenequality, and leading to the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations milestone legalisation of historians – much of the creditsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy KidderBuckland_Zoo|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping As a conservationist in Victorian England before the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. ''Dedicated his life'' and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful people, but when reading ''Mountains Beyond Mountains''term existed, you'll realise there's not Frank Buckland was very much a shred man ahead of hyperbole about these claimshis time. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in HaitiSurgeon, and then worked with themnaturalist, veterinarian and worked for themeccentric sums him up perfectly, and worked any biographer is immediately presented with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating the disease is just one part of the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference a colourful tale to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwidetell. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Molly CarrWilliams_Captain|title=In Search Captain Ronald Campbell of Dr Watson - A Sherlockian InvestigationBombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams|rating=3.54
|genre=Biography
|summary=The old saying that behind every great man there is a great woman has one major exception - Sherlock HolmesIn March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. Behind him is He was in command of the figure of Dr John Watsontroops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his biographerwife and young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the man who shares his Baker St lodgingsage of 34 at Bangalore, and the man eternally flummoxed by leaving his deductionswidow to raise their two young sons. This biography successfully shows how the superior Holmes walked over Watson Edwards' death left his widow in investigative skillsa difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, and but she was also how Conan Doyle needed Watson, if only to help us admire Holmes more by making him less insufferably smugresponsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685766</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsay ReadePeacock_mountain|title=Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: Into The Story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Mr ManchesterMountain, 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 A Life of Richard Branson. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English he became a trainee news reporter for ITN, and for much 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>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Bevis Hillier|title=The Wit and Wisdom of G K ChestertonCharlotte Peacock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), best known as the creator of the clerical detective Father Brown, seems Mostly we choose what books to have slipped a read because there is so little among time and so many books… I can understand the general reading public's estimation these days. This is surely unmeritedapproach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, for he was just as versatile as and hardly less quotable than we sell the Victorian enfant terriblemyriad lesser-known authors short as well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441179585</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rosamund Bartlett|title=Tolstoy: A Russian Life|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Count Lev Tolstoy came from a privileged family. He was born on 28 August 1828; unfailingly superstitious for the rest of his daysSo while, he therefore adopted 28 as his lucky number. Like like most young men from a similar backgroundother people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, he joined the Russian army. The Crimean war proved to be the making of him in that it developed his social conscienceand while, opened his eyes to like most other people I read the conditions endured by those born to a less lofty position in the social order than himself, reviews and impressed follow up on him the fervent belief that everybody in Russia ought to what appeals, I also have the chance to learn to read and write. As a result he became a bornthird-again repentant nobleman in the light of having seen how the other half (or more than half) lived, he took a long hard look at the world around him, 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 string to his homeland thoroughly depressing in the few years before the emancipation of the serfsmy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681383</amazonuk>
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