[[Category:Biography|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author= Richard Girling
|summary= Edward II has come down to us as one of the worst English kings of all. With a reign filled by reliance on male favourites, constant threats of civil wars, endless quarrels with his barons, unsuccessful military campaigns (including what was perhaps the worst English military defeat ever to take place on British soil), abdication and – so we are led to believe – a brutal death in captivity - the balance sheet is a pretty poor one. But is it the full story?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666723</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adrian Mourby
|title=Rooms of One's Own: 50 Places That Made Literary History
|rating=4.5
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=The debate is never-ending about how much of the author's life we can find in their pages, and what bearing every circumstance of their lot had on their output. Things perhaps are heightened when they do a Hemingway or a Greene and travel the world, but so often they have had a cause to stay in one place and write. Does that creative spirit survive in the walls and air of the room they worked in, and do those four walls, or the view, feature in the books? And does any of this really matter in admiring the great works of literature? Well, this volume itself kind of relies on that as being the case, but either way it's a real pleasure.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785781855</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Adam Federman
|title= Fasting and Feasting - The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray
|rating= 4
|genre= Biography
|summary= For more than thirty years, Patience Gray--author of the celebrated cookbook Honey from a Weed--lived in a remote area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her neighbours in this economically impoverished region. She was fond of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international visitors to her door. This simple and isolated life she chose for herself may help explain her relative obscurity when compared to the other great food writers of her time: M. F. K. Fisher, Elizabeth David, and Julia Child. So it is not surprising that when Gray died in 2005, the BBC described her as an ''almost forgotten culinary star.'' Yet her influence, particularly among chefs and other food writers, has had a lasting and profound effect on the way we view and celebrate good food and regional cuisines. Gray's prescience was unrivalled: She wrote about what today we would call the Slow Food movement--from foraging to eating locally--long before it became part of the cultural mainstream.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1603587527</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Gill Blanchard
|title= Lawson Lies Still in the Thames: The Extraordinary Life of Vice-Admiral Sir John Lawson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Twice within three centuries, England was convulsed by internal armed struggle. During the Lancastrian-Yorkist hostilities, several powerful figures changed sides at least once. Two hundred years later, when the roundheads and cavaliers were at odds, it was not uncommon for some of their protagonists to do likewise. This book tells the life of one of the major Stuart era changelings, one who as the author says played a pivotal role in the death throes of the republican cause for which he fought hard over seventeen years.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445661233</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Janet Todd
|title= Aphra Behn: A Secret Life
|rating= 4
|genre= Biography
|summary= In view of her unique status, Aphra Behn seems to have been largely forgotten – if ever really acknowledged at all – by history. The preface states it loud and clear; she was the first Englishwoman to earn her living solely by writing, as the most prolific dramatist of her time as well as an innovative writer of fiction, poetry and translator of science and French romance. It seems remarkable that the daughter of a barber and a wet-nurse should have achieved such status.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909572063</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Marian Veevers
|title=Jane and Dorothy: A True Tale of Sense and Sensibility
|rating= 4
|genre= Biography
|summary= The idea of a dual biography of two contemporaries who never met throughout their lives is an intriguing one. However, there were several unifying factors, which makes it seem logical enough. Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth were both renowned writers though one was much more famous than the other, and both were born just four years apart, in the 1770s.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910985775</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Richard Askwith
|title= Today We Die a Little: Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero
|rating= 4
|genre= Sport
|summary= As a runner myself, I often look for sources of inspiration. Training is rewarding, but every so often a day comes along when I question whether it is all worth it or not. Zatopek proves that is, indeed, all worth it. He put copious amounts of effort into his training, and the number of races he won over his career as a professional athlete clearly shows the results of it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224100351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jill Armitage
|title= Arbella Stuart: The Uncrowned Queen
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Biography
|summary= Lady Arbella Stuart, cousin to both Elizabeth I of England and James VI of Scotland, was one of the unfortunate figures of English history who might have been Queen – and who, like the even more tragic Lady Jane Grey, might have paid the ultimate price. This is a sad but engrossing story of one whose only crime was to have royal blood coursing through her veins.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445650193</amazonuk>
}}
