[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Julia Blackburn
|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupour, sometimes for years at a time and he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to be done on the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lauren Elkin
|summary= With grandparents who were distinguished writers and a father who co-founded a major publishing house, it was inevitable that Juliet Nicolson would follow in the family’s literary tradition. Already known for two works of social history, here she tells her family story through seven generations.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099598035</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Philip Valentine Coates
|title= Sarah Valentine, No Great Expectations Part 1
|rating=4
|genre= Biography
|summary= Sarah was the first of several children born in dire poverty to Jim and Sarah Valentine, and these pages tell her story from birth in December 1819 to her eighteenth birthday. Everything is vividly conveyed, from the poorly-clothed barefoot children in crowded living quarters in the Whitechapel Road area, without a lock on the door and with no possessions worth stealing except for the occasional shilling, to the noisy public houses with their fist-fights and the dirty, evil-smelling streets with sewage overflowing down the alleys and where epidemics spread all too rapidly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524665428</amazonuk>
}}