==Biography==
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{{newreview
|author=Donald Spoto
|title=Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford
|rating=3.5
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Thanks to the memoir 'Mommie Dearest' by her adopted daughter Christina, the enduring image of movie star Joan Crawford is one of an alcoholic, sadistic monster. Spoto clearly believes that this portrait is a gross exaggeration, and is at pains to rectify the balance. Having previously written biographies of Alfred Hitchcock and Marilyn Monroe among others, he clearly knows the subject 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 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 mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091931274</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stephen Anderton
|summary=Ford Madox Brown, 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 Virgin: 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 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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jad Adams
|title=Gandhi: Naked Ambition
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|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 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 of Constance Spry
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=The very mention of the name Constance Spry conjures up thoughts of flower arranging and books of recipes from a bygone era. Perhaps it was her misfortune that she died just before television could have made a celebrity of her, as it did of the likes of Fanny Cradock and Nigella Lawson, to name but two. Even so, she enjoyed 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 Barrett: 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 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 have produced their fair share of rebels. Yet few came as close to changing the course of European history as the Honourable Violet Gibson, one of eight children of Baron Ashbourne, a Protestant Anglo-Irish peer and MP in Disraeli's government during 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 the scaffold. The first was her Irish cousin James Butler, later Earl of Ormond, whom she was at one time intended to 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 sealed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848684304</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michele Monro
|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra, 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 ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.
|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 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 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>
}}
