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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Souhami1788360702|title=Charles, The Trials of Radclyffe HallAlternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=It is a coincidence that the year 1928 saw the first appearance For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of two English novels which were denounced alternative medicine and initially suppressed on the grounds of obscenity and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – Dcomplementary therapies.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe HallCharles, The Alternative Prince's 'The Well of Loneliness'. Lawrencecritically assesses the Prince's many novelsopinions, stories beliefs and poems aims against the background of the scientific evidence. There are widely read today, but Hall few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and her works are hardly remembered except by a minority. Diana Souhami his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done her considerable damage to the reputation of a service in this generous yet deeply probing life man who is proud of a literary trailblazerhis refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Souhami1739805100|title=Greta and CecilLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March|rating=4.5

|summary=The ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden and Nazi regime in the noted British photographer is a curious one1930s. Neither ever marriedFred, both were androgynous a sensitive and bisexual, plucked their eyebrowsthoughtful man, and had numerous short-term relationshipssome vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant Fred's attempts to pick up a pen even to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding separate individual people from 1925 if ideology weren't universally successful but he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, did make friendships and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help it. It is significant connections that the one picture of them together in the book, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like lasted for a handbaglifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SouhamiWill Brooker|title=Natalie and RomaineThe Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=35

|summary=The main focus Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book is starts with the relationship between Natalie Barney and Romaine Brookstwo meeting each other, two very as well-off American lesbians who first met in Paris when , and shows how 2021 drew the former was 39 two closer and the latter 41closer together. It The meeting was the beginning some unspecified combination, it seems, of an often mercurial partnership which lasted for fifty years. Howeverher anecdote about cup cakes, despite the author’s insistencewords of her latest book she was reciting, it is less and her being in a double biography than ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a survey of get-up never commonly worn at the Sapphic society life which centred on Paris for much of this period. Barneyauthor events I get to attend), a poetbut pulled Brooker, was a flamboyant character professor of cultural studies who used to say has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell'living was the first of all the artss diverse output. Brooker decides he' and often vowed d like nothing more than to make follow her through a year in the published author'my s life itself into a poem'. Brooks, working to make a painter whose self-portrait adorns success of the front coverlatest title, was and struggling with the product of a difficult childhoodnext in line. Jewell, abused by her mother who far preferred her mentally unbalanced brotherdue diligence appropriately done, often proclaimed sadly that 'my dead mother stands between me and life'agrees. An aloof soul, she made a brief marriage with And this is the homosexual John Ellingham Brooks but left him within a yearresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780878826</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas WrightMartha Leigh|title=CirculationInvisible Ink: William HarveyA Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= 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, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's Revolutionary Ideawork. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Gros|title=A Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary='Circulation' by Thomas Wright is a biography of English physician William Harvey’s life, and I confess I picked this one up from the story library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the 'birth of a theory'pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. It takes This one had me in the reader through time beforefirst two pages, during and after the creation and completion of wherein Gros explains why ''De Motu Cordis'walking is not a sport', in which Harvey famously outlines the most comprehensive antecedent of the mechanism of blood circulation as we know it today. The combination of the writer's aptitude for storytelling and the intriguing life of the individual about whom he writes makes for a fascinating read, allowing one to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life and works, mixed with briefer essays on subject matters ranging from the history of vivisection to the philosophical underpinnings of Harvey’s work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552698</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon MorrisonSharon Blackie|title=The Love and Wars of Lina ProkofievIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This I normally say that you can tell how much a book is a biography of and based largely on the letters of Lina Prokofievmeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid in 1897, she spent most Perhaps an even greater measure of her childhood in New York. After making her stage debut as a soprano in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ under the name of Lina Llubera, she met impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the Soviet composer and pianist Serge Prokofiev, best remembered for the children’s musical fable ‘Peter and the Wolf’one I've borrowed. They married in 1924 and for I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first thirteen years of their marriage they lived in Paris, where two sons, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were born to them. Soon after moving to Moscow in 1936 their marriage fell apart. In 1941 he left her only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a writer, Mira Mendelson, 24 years his junior, whom he married six years laterreason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846557313</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev0241446732|title=GiantsOur House is on Fire: The Dwarfs Scenes of Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput Troupea Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=The title of this book does of course carry a sense of irony, although we never quite know exactly how muchErnman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. When a man of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania in the 1860s nobody Malena Ernman was to know what would happen to his lineage – there was no clue then that he would father ten children, an opera singer and seven Svante Thunberg took on most of them would inherit his genetic dwarfism. But history has pieced together all that followed, including the careers those children had as a performance troupe, belting out showtunes to parenting of their own accompaniment, and acting in their own tragitwo daughters. Then eleven-year-comic skits. And then having the limelight stolen from them by the Nazis, old Greta stopped eating and a transportation to Auschwitz. And then being surprisingly saved, talking and given what passed as a cushty lifeher sister, fed and togetherBeata, but tortured at the hands of the camp doctorthen nine years old, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues on struggled with what singled out his Aryan racewas happening. In such circumstances, it's genetic destiny. I say the amount of irony is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – natural to seek a solution close to home, but heeventually, it became clear to the doctor, would have known. As one of the more ominous sentences youfamily that they were ''ll read all year has it – burned-out people on a burned-out planet'Mengele had plans for them'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd0648684806|title=Wilkie CollinsClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books over The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the last few time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, he has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as wellshe wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. This life Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the Victorian novelist is one only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the latterUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the latest in his series of 'Brief Lives'family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, which have also included Chaucerhad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the painter Turner eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]]Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Raymond1789017977|title=3-Minute JRR TolkienRonnie and Hilda's Romance: A Visual Biography of The Towards a New Life after World's Most Revered Fantasy WriterWar II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base Ronnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Tolkien books have gets transported into another medium, the manically interested fans have two reactions – to initially scoff at how nothing could compare with the original, Harry) and then Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to try and buy everything worthwhile with whether or not they were ever married or even a tenuous link Harry's birthdate: he claimed to the object of their affectionshave been born in 1863, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwarybut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind usFor a while, and the sixfamily was quite well-film, three-month long Bluto-Ray box set is on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts of course have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold but disaster struck in the originals, 1929 Depression and so low can the quality of the spinfive-year-offs be, there are some who will never be satisfiedold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to find be well-turned-out more, and those this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R Tolkien]]eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John FisherPatti Smith|title=Tommy Cooper 'Jus' Like That!': A Life in Jokes and PicturesYear of the Monkey

|summary=I grew up watching Tommy CooperOn the coast of Santa Cruz, and watching my dad do impressions Patti Smith enters the lunar year of Tommy Cooper. I thought he was hilarious (the real Tommy!) monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and loved his expressions as he repeatedly tried and failed to do magic tricks! This book unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is rather unusual as although possible: after all, it is a biography of sorts, giving information about Tommy's life and his history in the world year of entertainment, it isnthe monkey''t text heavy. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and so mostly Tommy's story is told through photographs and picturesageing are faced head-on, as it the shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809311X</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Unwin (editor)1912242052|title=Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The TimesO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=I think I was not ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the only first person who at first glance found to walk the title mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and sub-title slightly misleadingadventure. For me it conjured up visions of those who came across on the ‘Windrush’ in 1948 and the life they led on settling in Britain – His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, andits literary consequences, perhaps, the lives changed our view of the more famous (assuming there were some) in obituary formworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441159177</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Artemis CooperGraff_Find|title=Patrick Leigh Fermor: An AdventureFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=The sub-title When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of this biography is highly appropriatehandwritten notes from his journal, for he didn't take much notice of it. At the ninety-six years age of Patrick Leigh Fermor were packed with adventure. Born in 191524, Graff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was something of a maverick at school, intellectually gifted but perpetually naughty, and his punishments for various refractions included suspensions and even expulsionsholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719554497</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Selina Guinness1789016304|title=The Crocodile by the DoorWar and Love: The Story A family's testament of a Houseanguish, a Farm endurance and a Familydevotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as a child Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and in 2002 was entranced by what she and her husband-to-bediscovered, Colin Graham, moved back to the house when particularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her elderly uncle Charles became frailown family's stories were equally fascinating. The surname might lead you to suspect that there A hundred and seven thousand Jews were brewery millions in deported from the city during the background war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this wasn't the case. The couple were young academics and doing what needed to could be done at Tibradden would need allowed to be done happen in addition a country with liberal values who were resistant to full-time jobsGerman occupation. The house was on Most people believed that the outskirts of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were a property developer or occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the last defence against Germans might reach the encroaching city if you were not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Ricketts|title=Strange Meetings: The Lives of convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the Poets of the Great War|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The majority of recent books on the War Poets tend Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to focus on their lives during and immediately after escalate in the conflict. This enterprising accountway that it did, borrowing its name from but initial protests melted away as the poem by Wilfred Owen, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or organisers became morecircumspect. It begins with the first meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke at one of Eddie Marsh’s breakfasts in July 1914. Marsh was 's an atrocity on a tireless supporter of modern painters and after that promising new writers, particularly poets. The journey, or rather account vast scale but made up of meetings, takes us to the western front and back to England, culminating in a reunion tens of two thousands of the longest-lived, Sassoon and David Jones, in 1964individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951808</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Callow1786893452|title=Charles Laughton: A Difficult ActorThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Once Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a towering presence on stage and screenregular basis – some media welcoming them, the star some scaremongering about them. But all of fifty films and forty playsthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these days. As an actor of a younger generation and keen admirer of his workalmost always, Callow is well placed to bring him back to no matter how deep the fore. He notes in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped investigative journalism they carry out of public consciousness, outsiders to the world and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of forty|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581957</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Sugden|title=Nelson: A Dream of Glory|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=I will admit situations that I didn't know what I was letting myself refugees find themselves in for when I saw . It'Nelson: A Dream of Glory' sitting on s rare that we find out the Bookbag shelf, but I had just come back journeys from Portsmouth the refugees themselves – and this is a wander around on the Victoryrare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, so it powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was a bit hard to resist. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951913</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kate Chisholm|title=Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson born in the Company of Women|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=What's your mental image middle of a Great Writer? Most people would probably say the same thing: someone sitting revolution in splendid isolation, probably in a garret, writing Great Words and hating them. The idea of Great Writers having friends, or even a familyIran, is a bizarre one. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But there's another issue at play. We're simply not used fleeing to imagining them in context, just one small part of America as a large and busy world. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite the fact that one of the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers to essentially confine themselves to the person and their literary outputten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951867</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances A Gerard0857058320|title=Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron of Goethe Lord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and SchillerAnne McLean (translator)

|summary=Anna Amalia of Brunswick, ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the eighteenth centurySpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these daysthe figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. Nevertheless it was mainly through her patronage that The question at the court centre of Weimar became one of the most artistically renowned of the time, this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a reputation it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from hero whilst having fought for the age of Bismarck and beyondwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781550166</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Fort1788037812|title=NancyThe Fraternity of the Estranged: The Story of Lady AstorFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=NancyOriginally passed in 1885, Lady Astorthe law 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, three books on the first woman to take her seat nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as an elected Member the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of Parliament at Westminstersociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, is one but barely talked about in the UK, so the publications of those characters about whom it is surely impossible for anyone these men were hugely significant – contributing to write a dull biography. A determined character who inspired admirationthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, respect and exasperation in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with herbeginning the struggle for recognition and equality, she is well served by this latest leading to the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in a long line of titles devoted to her1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409016X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia JonesBuckland_Zoo|title=Fifty Years In The Fiction FactoryMan Who Ate the Zoo: The Working Life Of Herbert AllinghamFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Herbert Allingham As a conservationist in Victorian England before the term existed, Frank Buckland was one of the most prolific authors very much a man ahead of his time. Between 1886 Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and his death in 1936 he was any biographer is immediately presented with a busy writer of melodramatic serial stories in the mass-market halfpenny papers which flourished at the turn of the century. Yet nothing he wrote was ever published in book form with his name colourful tale to it, and the magazine proprietors made fortunes while their authors were the unsung heroes of the tradetell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262075</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter DoggettWilliams_Captain|title=The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie And The 1970s|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=With hindsight, it’s difficult to argue with the oft-expressed opinion that David Bowie was the single most important rock musician Captain Ronald Campbell of the 1970s. Having been a perpetual ‘one to watch’ from around 1966 onwards but with only one hit during that decade, ‘Space Oddity’, from 1972 onwards he went through several remarkable self-reinventions in musical style, with an uncanny knack of being able to pre-empt the next big trend. In examining his whole career but focusing largely on his work throughout that particular decade, Peter Doggett looks specifically at every song he recorded, including cover versions. There are also boxed-out features on each albumBombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and articles on related topics such as ‘The Art of Minimalism’ and ‘The Heart of Plastic Soul’. He concludes that by 1979 the man’s extraordinary creativity was more or less spent and his subsequent output, successful though it may have been, was in effect treading water up to his ‘elegant, unannounced retirement’ in 2007.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548879</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Victoria Glendinning|title=Raffles And the Golden OpportunityIvor George Williams

|summary=Although Raffles has gone down in history as In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the founder 17th Regiment of Singapore his roots were far from grandFoot. He had no advantages apart was in command of the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, Australia: his own drive wife and determination and his professional young son accompanied him. He was not destined to live a long life began with a lowly clerkship with the East india Company, then as large and ungainly as many a government. When he went abroad on behalf of dying suddenly at the Company he quickly learned the merits age of doing something and asking permission afterwards34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a difficult position: not least because of the time taken only did she have their farm to contact London and then receive a reply. Even if all went well this could take manage, but she was also responsible for the best part of a year - by which time convicts who worked the original question could well be academicland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686032</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Christopher Simon Sykes|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975|rating=5|genre=Art|summary=As one of the major names of British twentieth century art, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure. Published to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is the first volume of a biography which tells his story up to 1975.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lois BannerPeacock_mountain|title=Marilyn: Into The Passion and the Paradox|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=With the possible exception of Princess DianaMountain, Marilyn Monroe is probably the most written-about deceased woman in twentieth-century history. The thirty-six years of her life and the manner of her death will no doubt continue to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have since her sudden passing. After a decade of research Lois Banner, a Professor of History and Gender Studies at university in California, has added another weighty tome to the relevant shelves. As a self-styled pioneer of second-wave feminism and the new women’s history, she has some interesting insights to offer into her subject’s life as a gender role model.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408814102</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Penny Junor|title=Prince William: Born to be King: An Intimate Portrait|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Prince William is one of the few people who genuinely needs no introduction. He's been in the public eye since his birth and the interest is certain to increase rather than diminish as time goes by. On the other hand he ''is'' only thirty. Is there really going to be enough to warrant a book and will it be anything more than an attempt to cash in on his marriage in 2011 and the current interest in all things royal engendered by the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? You can see that I was something of a reluctant reader - my sympathies are republican rather than royalist and in addition Penny Junor is known to be a supporter of Prince Charles in what can be described as the War A Life of the Waleses. Was this ''really'' going to be a book which I would enjoy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444720392</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Shirley Harrison|title=Sylvia Pankhurst: The Rebellious Suffragette|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=To some extent, the history of the suffragettes was also the history of the Pankhurst family. Sylvia, born in 1882, was the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst, and one of three sisters. The family had always been heavily politicised, Richard being a founder member of the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took a sudden turn for the worse in 1898, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad on business and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having to nurse him, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With his passing the family were left strangely detached from each other. His widow became heavily involved in public work and political agitation, an increasingly remote mother from the young children who needed her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Borman|title=Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, first Queen of England|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Writing the biography of any woman who lived as long ago as the eleventh century, even someone as illustrious as a Queen, is a pretty thankless task. There will always be huge gaps in the knowledge available. For example we do not know when Matilda was born, and likewise we do not have a precise date for her marriage, although we do know when she died. No lifelike images of her are known, though evidence suggests that she was quite short of stature. In a male-dominated society, there are approximate records of when her sons were born, but not her daughters. Even more confusingly perhaps, many of the stories passed down to us throughout history are quite probably false. It is hardly surprising that this appears to be the first full-length life of her yet to appear in English.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549131</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Fantastic Mr Dahl|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Reading this book is rather like curling up in a deep, squishy armchair with a cup of cocoa and some squashed-fly biscuits while a favourite uncle chats to you about books. He tells you interesting things about Roald Dahl's life, and then he discusses how those events may have affected his writing, secure in the knowledge that you already know and love the stories. Just as important, he pauses in his chat from time to time to ask your opinion — and it's clear he's really interested in your answer. Do you prefer the original version of ''James and the Giant Peach'', or the one which was eventually published? Can you imagine how funny it would be to see your grandfather looking in through your bedroom window, like the BFG?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141322136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leo McKinstry|title=Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest Cricketer|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Back in the early 1920s, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the world. Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert K Massie|title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a WomanCharlotte Peacock

|summary=Already known for major biographies of Nicholas Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and Alexandraso many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and of Peter we sell the Greatmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, Massie has now written an equally full and absorbing life of while, like most other people I read the late eighteenthreviews and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third-century reigning Empressstring to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0679456724</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tim Ewart|title=The Treasures of Queen Elizabeth|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Tim Ewart is Royal Correspondent for ITV News, which must be one of the perfect starting points for writing a biography of the Queen as she celebrates her diamond jubilee. She's only the second British monarch Move on to achieve this landmark - the other being Queen Victoria. After sixty years on the throne - and eighty six in public life - there's not much which isn't known about the Queen [[Newest Business and few pictures which haven't previously seen the light of day, but Ewart's book is marked out by the inclusion of memorabilia which will have a freshness for many readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780970064</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]