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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Magic WordsCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Extraordinary Life of Alan MooreAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Lance ParkinEdzard Ernst|rating=54

|summary=I don't think that I ever saw [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]] when I lived in NorthamptonFor over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and I doncomplementary therapies. ''t think I coincided with the publication of Charles, The Alternative Prince''Maxwell critically assesses the Magic CatPrince'' in s opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the local newspaperscientific evidence. So I missed out on the memorable frame There are few instances of someone else who is six foot two, albeit a generation older his beliefs being vindicated and looking so hirsute he would seem to be afraid his relentless promotion of scissors. But I certainly would not treatments which have been alone in not recognising him for what he is. How many Northampton housewives flicked past the daily panels of ''Maxwell'' in complete ignorance of who Alan Moore actually is? – With no idea that the years he spent drawing that cartoon for £10 a week – later to be £12.50 – were just him gearing up scientific support has done considerable damage to be the biggest man reputation of letters in the comic book world?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781310777</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Alan Turing (Real Lives)|author=Jim Eldridge|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Alan Turing was one of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also a hero man who is proud of World War II, working in the famous codehis refusal to apply evidence-breaking community at Bletchley Parkbased, cracking German naval codes used logical reasoning to lethal effect organising U-boat attacks. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machinehis ambitions. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1739805100|title=CherLoving the Enemy: Strong EnoughBuilding bridges in a time of war|author=Josiah HowardAndrew March

|summary=Having looked at ''Loving the title and sub-title, Enemy'' tells the latter being no more than the two-word title quite extraordinary story of one of her latter-day hitsauthor Andrew March's grandparents, I assumed this was going who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to be a fairly comprehensive biography Dresden to teach in the early days of the American singerNazi regime in the 1930s. The sub-titleFred, ''Strong Enough''a sensitive and thoughtful man, taken from one had some vague ideas of her latter-day hit singles, reveals nothing. Not until I had almost finished it, a little puzzled at it not being quite what I had expected, did I finally look "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the blurb on the back – at which point all became cleartime. This was not the full story of a showbiz career which has Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted close on half for a century, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account of her 1975 TV variety showlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0859654842</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empress Dowager CixiWill Brooker|authortitle=Jung ChangThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the focal point for her study of China’s tumultuous modern historymost successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman Now meet Will Brooker, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have shaped read. This book starts with the course two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of history. Cixi’s biography is not only her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a fascinating read due get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to her own political machinationsattend), but also because pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the immense transformations rabbit-hole that occurred in China during her lifetimeis Jewell's diverse output. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of the period from Cixi’s entrance to court in 1852 Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her death through a year in 1908the published author's life, during which time working to make a success of the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to latest title, and struggling with the advent of next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the industrial ageresult.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Martha Leigh|title=BertieInvisible Ink: A Life of Edward VII|author=Jane RidleyFamily Memoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Several of the main facts Martha Leigh begins her book talking about King Edward VII (1841-1910) are reasonably well-knowna childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Considered oversexed by Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his parents, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, typewriter as he was blamed by edits the former for breaking complete correspondence of the latterphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's heart and causing his early death with the news that he (Edward) had enjoyed himself with a lady of the nightwork. He was notoriously unfaithful to his charming but prematurely deaf and lame wife Alexandra, hated reading books and learning but became Her mother is a first-class unofficial ambassador to courts and countries abroad, and despite low expectations of others and poor health he made an excellent King concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the last nine years practicalities of his life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575442</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony SummersPolly Barton|title=Not In Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFKFifty Sounds

|genre=True CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Originally published as Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''The Kennedy ConspiracyWhy Japan?'', Anthony Summers Japan has massively revised been on my radar for a while and if the textworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, updated it with but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the latest evidence and itquestion ''s been republished as why Japan?''Not She explains her feelings in Your Lifetime: The Assassination respect of JFK'' which refers to the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if question in the truth about what happened would come out. He said that it wouldfirst essay, but added which is on the rider that sound ''it might not be in your lifetimegiro' ''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now dead– which she describes as being, but the truth has not officially emerged. In factamong other things, it's difficult to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light sound of day. Further documents are due ''every party where you have to be released in 2017, but, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf and given us this comprehensive bookintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldFrederic Gros|authortitle=Greg King and Sue WoolmansA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Possibly no assassination I confess I picked this one up from the library in history 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 pages I have had such momentous consequences for the history of the world as that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria marked and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in June 1914slowly. It was their killing which led directly to the outbreak of This one had me in the First World Warfirst two pages, just six weeks laterwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Red Love: The Story of an East German FamilySharon Blackie|authortitle=Maxim LeoIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=Chances are there I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have been major disagreements and splits in your familycorners turned down. One black sheep might have supported Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the wrong football teamone I've borrowed. Some of you will be strictly I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful'Strictly'inspiring', the rest ''X Factor''. But probably nothing compares to what went on in the Leo household over decades in Eastern Berlin. One of our author's grandfathers, Gerhard, was too Jewish and bourgeois to survive life in Germany, fled to France, and came back a Communist having fought against Nazism. His counterpart Werner ended the war with some semblance of PTSD, and more or less landed in Communist Berlin due to facts of administration, yet became a fully-fledged Party activist. Authorchanging's mother Anne worked as a journalist on – although it is definitely the Communist mouthpiece newspaper, even if she managed to doubt things she was forced to write during first two and only time will tell about the Prague Spring and more. Her husband Wolf third – Werner's son – in but clichés exist for a similar industry was involved in sort-of Photoshopping for propaganda, reason and often sabotaged his own output. He was violent, awkward, but very anti-establishment. And if you I'm not sure I can't see how having a non-Communist in such a family in the heightened times of Cold War Berlin would be, you certainly will after reading this gripping collective biographysuccinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908968516</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara A Perry0241446732|title=Rose KennedyOur House is on Fire: The Life Scenes of a Family and Times of a Political MatriarchPlanet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It's about fifty years since the assassination of President John F Kennedy and it The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was he (an opera singer and particularly his death) who brought Svante Thunberg took on most of the Kennedy family to the attention parenting of a new generationtheir two daughters. An earlier generation had been split about the virtues (or otherwise) of his fatherThen eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, Joe Kennedythen nine years old, multi millionaire and United States Ambassador to Great Britainstruggled with what was happening. But behind both of these men was mother and wifeIn such circumstances, Rose Kennedy and Barbara A Perry has produced it's natural to seek a superb biography using letterssolution close to home, diaries and other archived material recently made availablebut eventually, it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068951</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Eminent ElizabethansClara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=Piers BrendonJohn Holliday

|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn'Eminent Elizabethans'' is t allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in effect a descendant and out of school. She was the author’s ''Eminent Edwardians''only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. The latterBy contrast, a volume of short biographies of four British iconic figures her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the early twentieth centuryUnited States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was in turn inspired by Lytton Strachey’s barbed 'Eminent Victorians'married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, published seven surviving children and died in 1918childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a debunking of four Victorian heroes whom the iconoclast Strachey wished to demonstrate had feet of clayheavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532638</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Sisters of the East End|author=Helen Batten|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Katie Crisp had never intended to become a nun. Raised by non-religious parents, her family frowned upon organised religion and when Katie started secretly going to church, they strongly disapproved. When Katie ran to the aid of a stroke victim, she had a vision that changed her life. She saw herself dressed as a nun with a large silver cross hanging from her neck. She decided to follow her calling and join the community of St John the Divine, a group of Anglican nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery. She thus shed her old identity and became known as Sister Catherine Mary.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091951771</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jerry Oppenheimer1789017977|title=Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal Ronnie and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=Back in 1885 three brothers were inspired by a speech by Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery, to create a range of surgical dressings - such things were previously unheard of - and this was the beginning of Johnson & Johnson, providers of Band-Aids and baby powder. It also brought phenomenal wealth to the founders and a variety of trusts continued this down the years. The first president of the company was Robert Wood Johnson. NFL fans will be aware of his great grandson, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as 'Woody'), owner of the New York Jets. In between the two - and afterwards - there are a string of tragedies and scandals which put you in mind of the Kennedy dynasty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312662114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=AmericaHilda's MistressRomance: The Towards a New Life and Times of Eartha Kittafter World War II|author=John L Wendy Williams

|genre=EntertainmentHistory|summary=Two quotes on Ronnie Williams was the back son of the dust jacket testify to the power Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and public perception of Eartha Kitt during her lifetimeEthel Wall. Orson Welles once called her ‘the most exciting woman 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 world’1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while , the family was quite well-to -do but disaster struck in the CIA she 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was ‘a sadistic nymphomaniac’his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857385755</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's InfernoPatti Smith|authortitle=Michael HaagYear of the Monkey

|summary=Biographies old and new On the coast of Queen VictoriaSanta Cruz, her husband and her children are plentiful enough. The vast majority Patti Smith enters the lunar year of them are based to some extent on the diariesmonkey - one packed with mischief, memoirs and biographies of some of the most important figures who served hersorrow, and Kate Hubbard has put these as well as supplementary archive papers to good use in presenting unexpected moments. In a thoroughly engrossing account stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the royal household throughout monkey''. As Smith wanders the Queen’s lengthy reign. I might almost say ‘lively’coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, though she reflects on a year that could be an exaggeration. The court of Victoria may have been homely after a fashionbrings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, but for as it the most part it was hardly livelyshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532239</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Sellers1912242052|title=What Fresh Lunacy is This?: The Authorised Biography of Oliver ReedO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=For rather more of his career than ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because hehad to for work, his family and closest friends might have likedas a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, the name Oliver Reed was a byword but because he wanted to for booze, brawls pleasure and all types of laddish behaviouradventure. As Sellers’ very full His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and remarkably objective biography revealsits literary consequences, it was a funny yet sad life all at once. For although he repeatedly played up to the image changed our view of the lovable rogue which he had created, underneath the bad boy of popular legend he was at heart a professional actor who could always deliver a first-rate performance on the film set when requiredworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147210112X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal ThompsonGraff_Find|title=A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not' Ripley Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Robert LeRoy Ripley was indeed When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a curious man. He throve on curiosityplastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, his own and that he didn't take much notice of everyone elseit. By exploiting and never underestimating At the public demand for triviaage of 24, and by being in Graff didn't realise the right place at the right time just as the news and broadcasting media were beginning to develop in America into the unassailable forces they were by the end gravity of the century, pages he became one of the most successful men of the agewas holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947204</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hermione Lee1789016304|title=Edith WhartonWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=A prolific authorMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, Edith Whartonparticularly in ''The Diary of Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's published output included over twenty novels, one a Pulitzer Prize winner, stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and 85 short storiesseven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, as well as poetry but only five thousand survived and books on interior design and travelMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Born 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 Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the United States in 1862way that it did, she travelled extensively throughout Europe, and settled permanently in France where she died in 1937but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952014</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Simmons1786893452|title=I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard CohenUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=If you or I wanted to write a story Here in the West, we see news reports about an imaginary figure who began as immigrants on a novelist and poetregular basis – some media welcoming them, then became acclaimed as a singer-songwriter in the swinging sixtiessome scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, made and lost a fortunealmost always, became a monkno matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, and returned outsiders to a musical career at an age when most mortals are well into retirement, the world and found himself not only more popular than ever but also playing to the largest audiences situations that refugees find themselves in his entire life, it would be dismissed as total fantasy. Nobody could make it up It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and nobody needs this is a rare opportunity todo that, because in a nutshell that is this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the life (so far) middle of Leonard Cohena revolution in Iran, the subject of this biography and surely one of the music business’s most unique figuresfleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549328</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J C Kannemeyer0857058320|title=J.M. Coetzee: A life in writingLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=J''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee Cercas is described as probably searching for the most celebrated and decorated writer throughout meaning behind his great uncle's death in the English-speaking worldSpanish Civil War. The author of sixteen published novelsManuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, he has been awarded is the Nobel Prize for Literature and figure who looms large over the Booker Prize twicebook. At the same time he has guarded his privacy jealously, tending to decline interviews and requests to discuss his work, and refusing to collect prestigious awards in personHe died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. On one occasion he explained Cercas ruminates on why his absence by saying that he could not imagine 'anything better calculated to reduce me to misery'uncle fought for this dictator. One acquaintance claims to have attended several dinner parties The question at which the author was centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be a fellow guest and did not utter a single wordhero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922070084</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vladimir Alexandrov1788037812|title=The Black RussianFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson

|summary=Until I read Originally passed in 1885, the law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this book I had never come across time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, three books on the nature of homosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the story margins of Frederick Bruce Thomassociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, 'but barely talked about in the Black Russian'UK, before. It is a remarkable tale so the publications of rags these men were hugely significant – contributing to richesthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, tragedyand beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, success against leading to the odds and subsequent failuremilestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855196</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy MooreBuckland_Zoo|title=NijinskyThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=The name Nijinsky is synonymous with dance from As a conservationist in Victorian England before the last days term existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of imperial Russiahis time. I must confess to knowing little about him until I read thisSurgeon, naturalist, the first biography of veterinarian and eccentric sums him for nearly forty yearsup perfectly, and for me it was any biographer is immediately presented with a surprise colourful tale to learn that his career was so tragically brieftell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686180</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana SouhamiWilliams_Captain|title=The Trials Captain Ronald Campbell of Radclyffe HallBombala Station, Cambalong: His Military Life and Times|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=It is a coincidence that the year 1928 saw the first appearance In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of two English novels which were denounced and initially suppressed on the grounds 17th Regiment of obscenity and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – DFoot.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness'. Lawrence's many novels, stories and poems are widely read today, but Hall and her works are hardly remembered except by a minority. Diana Souhami has done her a service He was in this generous yet deeply probing life of a literary trailblazer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diana Souhami|title=Greta and Cecil|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The story command of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden troops and the noted British photographer is convicts on board a curious one. Neither ever marriedship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, both were androgynous Australia: his wife and bisexual, plucked their eyebrows, and had numerous short-term relationshipsyoung son accompanied him. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo He was reluctant not destined to pick up live a pen even to sign her own name. He adored partieslong life, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind dying suddenly at the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures age of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed 34 at night personBangalore, preferred leaving his widow to wear unfussy men’s clothes, and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help it. It is significant 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 a handbag.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diana Souhami|title=Natalie and Romaine|rating=3|genre=Biography|summary=The main focus of the book is the relationship between Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks, raise their two very well-off American lesbians who first met in Paris when the former was 39 and the latter 41. It was the beginning of an often mercurial partnership which lasted for fifty years. However, despite the author’s insistence, it is less a double biography than a survey of the Sapphic society life which centred on Paris for much of this periodyoung sons. Barney, a poet, was a flamboyant character who used to say that Edwards'living was the first of all the arts' and often vowed to make 'my life itself into a poem'. Brooks, a painter whose self-portrait adorns the front cover, was the product of death left his widow in a difficult childhood, abused by her mother who far preferred her mentally unbalanced brother, often proclaimed sadly that 'my dead mother stands between me and life'. An aloof soul, position: not only did she made a brief marriage with the homosexual John Ellingham Brooks but left him within a year.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878826</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas Wright|title=Circulation: William Harvey's Revolutionary Idea|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary='Circulation' by Thomas Wright is a biography of English physician William Harvey’s life, and the story of the 'birth of a theory'. It takes the reader through time before, during and after the creation and completion of ''De Motu Cordis'', 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 have their farm 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552698</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Morrison|title=The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=This book is a biography of and based largely on the letters of Lina Prokofiev. Born Carlina Codina in Madrid in 1897manage, but she spent most 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 the Soviet composer and pianist Serge Prokofiev, best remembered was also responsible for the children’s musical fable ‘Peter and the Wolf’. They married in 1924 and for convicts who worked the first thirteen years of their marriage they lived in Paris, where two sons, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were born to themland. Soon after moving to Moscow in 1936 their marriage fell apart. In 1941 he left her for a writer, Mira Mendelson, 24 years his junior, whom he married six Two years latershe would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846557313</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yehuda Koren and Eilat NegevPeacock_mountain|title=Giants: Into The Dwarfs Mountain, A Life of Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of the Lilliput TroupeNan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock

|summary=The title of this book does of course carry a sense of irony, although Mostly we never quite know exactly how much. When a man of diminutive stature was born in rural Romania in the 1860s nobody was to know choose what would happen books to his lineage – read because there was no clue then that he would father ten children, is so little time and seven of them would inherit his genetic dwarfism. But history has pieced together all that followed, including so many books… I can understand the careers those children had as a performance troupeapproach, belting out showtunes to their own accompanimentbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and acting in their own tragiwe sell the myriad lesser-comic skitsknown authors short as well. And then having the limelight stolen from them by the NazisSo while, and a transportation to Auschwitz. And then being surprisingly savedlike most other people I have my favourite genres, and given what passed as a cushty lifefavoured authors, fed and togetherwhile, but tortured at like most other people I read the hands of the camp doctor, avidly researching anything he thought might shed clues reviews and follow up on what singled out his Aryan race's genetic destiny. appeals, I say the amount of irony is unknown because we are not told exactly how short these little characters are – but he, the doctor, would also have known. As one of the more ominous sentences you'll read all year has it – 'Mengele had plans for them'a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849544646</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Peter Ackroyd|title=Wilkie Collins|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=While Peter Ackroyd has published some extremely long books over the last few years, he has also been responsible for some commendably concise volumes as well. This life of the Victorian novelist is one of the latter, the latest in his series of 'Brief Lives', which have also included Chaucer, the painter Turner and [[Poe by Peter Ackroyd|Edgar Allan Poe]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287471</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Raymond|title=3-Minute JRR Tolkien: A Visual Biography of The World's Most Revered Fantasy Writer|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=When something with such a built-in cult base 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, and then to try and buy everything worthwhile with even a tenuous link to the object of their affections, while avoiding the mountain of crud that could deluge the unwary. Such it will be until the third movie part of ''The Hobbit'' is safely behind us, and the six-film, three-month long Blu-Ray box set is Move on the shelves. Tolkien enthusiasts of course have a precarious situation – so great do they rightly hold the originals, and so low can the quality of the spin-offs be, there are some who will never be satisfied. But there remains the newcomer, freshly inspired to find out more, and those at least will certainly be able to enjoy this beginner's guide to [[:Category:J R R Tolkien|J R R TolkienNewest Business and Finance Reviews]].|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908005831</amazonuk>}}