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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=David Savage|title=Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft|rating=5|genre=Crafts|summary=David Savage is a master furniture maker and one of the artists featured in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who to include in the book. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty and – often – originality. It's the text that makes the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one woman's work, but to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the bad. It is, if you like, ten in<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D R Thorpe1788360702|title=SupermacCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Life of Harold Macmillan|rating=5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Ross|title=Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy LegendEdzard Ernst

|summary=Some For over forty years ago, I was given a Penguin edition Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Wildealternative medicine and complementary therapies. 's 'Charles, The Picture of Dorian GrayAlternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face on beliefs and aims against the background of the front coverscientific evidence. A year or two later, I saw a photograph There are few instances of Marty Feldman his beliefs being vindicated and was convinced he must his relentless promotion of treatments which have inspired it if not actually been no scientific support has done considerable damage to the modelreputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bettany Hughes1739805100|title=The Hemlock CupLoving the Enemy: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good LifeBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his death, his life is something 'Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of a mystery. He didnauthor Andrew March't like s grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something teach in the early days of a 'Socrates-sized hole' the Nazi regime in itthe 1930s. What we do see is the city of AthensFred, a sensitive and the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracythoughtful man, the seedlings of had some of the vague ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and "building bridges" which may guard against the right to a fair trial. This was an important time growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the development of modern values, and Socrates was an important mantime. He was not only a brilliant thinker, Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he was also did make friendships and connections that lasted for a man that didn't quite fit, infuriating to converse with, yet fascinating to be aroundlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Stacy Schiff|title=Cleopatra: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Stacey Schiff's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into his rooms in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductress, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tina BrownWill Brooker|title=The Diana ChroniclesTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' was first published in 2007Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], ten years after Dianaone of the most successful British authors I's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already knowve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, but prior to reading this book, I was one of the small group thousands of people in this country happily oblivious to less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the Princess Diana industry)two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book has been re-released in shocking pinkshe was reciting, white and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold liverybrocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, as a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell'commemorative editions diverse output. Brooker decides he' d like nothing more than to coincide with The Royal Wedding. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Dianafollow her through a year in the published author's life and reaction , working to Will make a success of the latest title, and Kate's marriagestruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, had she survivedagrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances WilsonMartha Leigh|title=How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of J. Bruce IsmayInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=As I read 'How to Survive the Titanic' I was conscious that we're only 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 matter of months Cambridge don, forever clacking away from on his typewriter as he edits the centenary complete correspondence of the sinking – and a slew of media to mark the occasion. Given that the subject has been mined extensively over the years it will be interesting to see whether therephilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's anything new to be said about the tragedywork. It's Her mother is a subject which has always fascinated me – and it was with a sense concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of anticipation life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that I opened the booka child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreview|author=Andrew Crowther|title=Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan: His Life and Character|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Gilbert and Sullivan were the Rice and Lloyd Webber of the late Victorian era. Some might regard their work as slightly dated these days, especially the satirical lyrics which were so much a product of their time, but their appeal has never really faded and it surely never will.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=D J TaylorPolly Barton|title=ThackerayFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=TodayWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered almost exclusively as the writer of 'Vanity Fair', considered as among with the greatest novels of its time. Yet he was a prolific writer, also responsible for question 'Pendennis' and Why Japan?'The Newcomes', as well as several sketches, essays and much poetry. However most of his work is largely forgotten today, while as a person he remains little known, and he Japan has been somewhat overshadowed by his better-known contemporary, old friend on my radar for a while and rival Charles Dickens, born one year later. This biography does an excellent job in rescuing him from such semi-obscurity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563258</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lindsey Fraser|title=J K Rowling: if the Mystery of Fiction|rating=4|genre=Childrenworld hadn's Nont gone into melt-Fiction|summary=Easily one of the most renowned authors of the 21st centurydown I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, Jbut I am not hopeful.K. RowlingAnd like Barton, I don's incredibly successful Harry Potter series shook the core of the literary world. It provoked a reaction, the likes of which have never been seen before, and likely never will. A unique set of factors combined in order for t know the Harry Potter books answer to reach the level of success they enjoyed, and these factors are explored question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in this biography respect of Rowling. It is difficult not to be fascinated by the person who is responsible for question in the phenomenon that is Harry Potterfirst essay, and although writing which is a profession that doesnon the sound ''giro' ''t have a typical path by – which it can be reachedshe describes as being, among other things, Rowlingthe sound of 's story is anything but orthodox, and her personal 'rags every party where you have to richesintroduce yourself'' story only enhances the Harry Potter legacy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906134693</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreview|author=Charlotte Frost|title=Sir William Knighton: The Strange Career of a Regency Physician|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=Sir William Knighton came from humble beginnings: in later life the memories of his mother selling butter and eggs from a market stall would frequently be brought up and it was never to illustrate just how well he'd done. The fact that he became a physician would normally be quite an achievement, but his baronetcy and fame didn't come from his work as a physician but from his less well-publicised work for George IV. Although his work at court would span just over a decade it was far from being what he wanted to do – and for the most part it would not bring him a great deal of happiness. At the end of his career as a physician he simply wanted to retire to his cottage in the country - but found himself unable to desert a king who had become dependent on him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755213017</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rodney BoltFrederic Gros|title=As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life A Philosophy of Mary BensonWalking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Since I hadn't previously heard of Archbishop Benson, let alone his wife, confess I must commend picked this one up from the title, cover and advertising library in my pre-lockdown forage of this bookrandom stuff. All of the above provided Now I have to go out an accurate and irresistible glimpse of buy my own copy so that I can turn down the biography within, pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I wasn't need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one whit disappointed had me in my choicethe first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843548615</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreview|author=Barbara Sinatra|title=Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank Sinatra|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Barbara Blakeley, born in 1926, was married firstly to Robert Oliver, an executive, with whom she had a son, and secondly to Zeppo Marx. But it was the already thrice-married and thrice-divorced Francis Albert Sinatra, whom she had idolized as a singer for a long time, with whom she would make her most enduring marriage, and vice versa. They tied the knot in 1976, and stayed together until his death in 1998.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937248</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manning MarableSharon Blackie|title=Malcolm X: A Life of ReinventionIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=People's preconceptions about Malcolm X are vastI normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. This Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is no surprise given his dramatic life, untimely death, and subsequent increased fame through setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the likes of {{amazonurl|title=Spike Leeone I's 1992 film|isbn=B00005A7TO}}ve borrowed. {{amazonurl|title=His autobiography|isbn=0141185430}} is a must-read for anyone interested in his life, or the tumultuous race struggle in the US in the 1960s, but it must be viewed in context. It was completed after Malcolm X I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 's death, by co-author Alex Haley, and many aspects were highlighted or played down, to suit Malcolm Xinspiring's ends. Manning Marable's biography, years in the making, looks at his life with a new perspective.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0713998954</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Duncan Hamilton|title=The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel Thief|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The story of Harry the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readers, but he was something of a celebrity in the Victorian age. He achieved notoriety by stealing thousands of pounds worth of jewels from the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland - much to changing' – although it is definitely the delight of many people who disliked first two and only time will tell about 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 - third – but he was brought down by his love clichés exist for a Gaiety Girl, reason and ended up facing a trial which the papers fell over themselves to report on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Fetish Room|author=Redmond OI'Hanlon and Rudi Rotthier|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=An ongoing debate in our family has centred on the value of biographies, particularly of writers. m not sure I've always loved the touchstone of the places people lived and wrote, the banality of their lives, the detail, the insight, 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 you presented it as social history rather than biography, he'd lap succinctly put it up. I guess I just don't make the distinctionany better. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684145</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Exile: War, Love a Family and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angelesa Planet in Crisis|author=Evelyn JuersMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Heinrich Mann The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Nelly Kröger-Mann were in a constant state Svante Thunberg took on most of hazardous exile after the rise parenting of fascism in Germany in 1933their two daughters. He became like Zola Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, his favourite authorthen nine years old, a socially committed novelist and political activist and fierce critic of militarismstruggled with what was happening. He was convivial In such circumstances, having it's natural to seek a wide circle of friends that contained many creative artistssolution close to home, playwrightsbut eventually, socialists. He seemed drawn it became clear to the bohemians and the demifamily that they were ''burned-monde. This elegant and sometimes formal gentleman came from the Hanseatic town of Lubeck where his father belonged to out people on a renowned grain merchant family. These might be described as the hauteburned-bourgeoisie. There was an unusual degree of sibling rivalry between him and his less robust brother, the famous author of ''The Magic Mountainout planet'', Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed If they were to find 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 way to live happily again their solution would need to the United Statesbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Stephenson0648684806|title=Let Not Clara Colby: The Waves of the SeaInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=The book opens after the catastrophic event and the narrator/author Simon is in the local area path of Phi Phi. He describes it in glowing terms (which may sound a little strange) as he aims, on a rather arduous climb, to be rewarded with a stunning view. And immediately I'm struck with StephensonClara Dorothy Bewick'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.' How lovely and evocative is that, I'm thinking life was probably determined when her family emigrated to myself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848545584</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Norman|title=John Lennon: The Life|rating=5|genre=Entertainment|summary=For part of my formative years, John Lennon was one of the four most famous people in the worldUSA. All that we have learnt about him in At the thirty time she was just three-years or so since his death has kept his name firmly in the public eye, if not always for the best -old but because of reasons. At over 800 pagessome childhood ailment, this is one of the lengthiest biographies written about the extraordinary life she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and times of the former Beatlethree brothers. It's also surely one of the most impartial. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>000719742X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hilary Spurling|title=Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Peal BuckInstead, the 5th of 7 children, was born in 1892 to American missionary parents working in China, 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 was considered received a foreigner when anti foreigner riots known to as the Boxer Rebellion good education, both in 1900 forced the family and out of her childhood home. Later she became famous for her novels and short stories set in China, especially The Good Earthschool. She won America's most famous literary prize, was the Pulitzer, only child in 1932, the household and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938her childhood was glorious. Yet By contrast, her work is mostly forgotten family had become pioneer farmers in the US mid-west of the United States and Europelife was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and in the country she loved, her books were banned by Mao's regime after they came grandparents eventually went to power in 1949.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978529</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy Lewis|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 and joyous thing about this book is that it can show that Graham Greene's remarkable life is by no means join the only standout in that whole generation of family history. It can continuously throw up surprises - we Clara would only know Hugh Greene her mother for a few months: she was high up in the BBCmarried for fifteen years, but it wasn't him who helped found Canadian public service broadcasting. We are familiar with Graham himself traipsing around the worldhad ten pregnancies, reporting back in fact and fiction from unusual circumstances seven surviving children 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 Nazis: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga of Two Young Jews on the Run died in World War II Poland|rating=3childbirth not long after Clara arrived.5|genre=Biography|summary=Do we all have it in us? Would you as As the eldest girl, a Pole in 1940s Poland, who like as not had been 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - heavy burden would you ignore Nazi death threats fall on Clara and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be said, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help Wisconsin was a Jewish life survive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1550280554</amazonuk>rude awakening.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Lucas1789017977|title=Axis SallyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The American Voice of Nazi GermanyTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|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>

 {{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

|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

 {{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 soldierfor pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340837888</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dudley GreenGraff_Find|title=Patrick Bronte: Father of Genius|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=There have been many biographies about Charlotte Brontë and her siblings, but very little about their father. 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 teacher, 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 later, where he remained the rest of his days.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454455</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFind Another Place|author=Donald Spoto|title=Possessed: The Life of Joan CrawfordBen Graff

|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>

{{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

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Spicer1786893452|title=The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice, Countess de JanzeUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5

|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>

 {{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)

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy KidderBuckland_Zoo|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|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>

 {{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

|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>

 {{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

|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>

{{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 President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonely. He accepted an invitation Move on to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Bruni. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by the attentions of a beautiful, famous [[Newest Business and intelligent woman. Within months they were married.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]