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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of AuschwitzClaire Dederer|authortitle=Thomas HardingMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This dual Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography concernsof the audience'' in a deconstructed, as thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the title makes clear, two men. One was art from an inherently German, rich Jewish family – they had a powerboat so he could waterski on the lake at their country cottage – who fled artist in the rise context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the Nazis early in impression that the 1930s, thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and got away moderately lightlyonto the page. In particular, only losing properties and the prologue packs a large punch: she simultaneously condemns and successful medical career. The other was from exalts the director Roman Polanski, an inherently German family, who signed up artist she personally admires for First World War service before his ageart, but only really wanted to be a farmer and family man, yet who ended up running probably historydespises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men's worst slaughterhouse. Both had a connection and a shared destiny that was largely unknown before this book was researched, there's a chance that both of as she calls them had , is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the blood likes of one man Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and only one man directly on their hands from WWII servicePablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and both of them – againmaintaining her own subjectivity, as the title makes clear – are given the dignity of the familiarshe holds it so dearly, and a personal, first name throughout this incredible bookrather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434022365</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360702|title=Penelope FitzgeraldCharles, The Alternative Prince: A LifeAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Hermione LeeEdzard Ernst|rating=54

|summary=Penelope Fitzgerald came from For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an earnest ardent supporter of alternative medicine and renowned academic familycomplementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the KnoxesPrince's opinions, which included several prominent clerics; her grandfather was beliefs and aims against the Bishop background of Manchesterthe scientific evidence. A considerable biographer herself, she wrote a book on the Knox brothers, these included two Oxford pastors (one There are few instances of whom, Ronald Knox, converted to Catholicism, was famous as a biblical translator his beliefs being vindicated and whilst chaplain at Trinity College became a mentor his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the future prime minister, Harold Macmillan), reputation of a top Bletchley cryptographic analyst and Penelope's own eminent father, 'Evoe' man who was editor is proud of Punch. Fitzgerald wrote prolifically from childhood and fulfilled some of these high expectations by gaining a brilliant First at Somerville. Graduating in 1938his refusal to apply evidence-based, she was already known for her membership of the smart set, for her student journalism and a reticent, indeed peremptory manner. Women could not actually graduate at Oxford until a statute was passed in 1920. Hence she was amongst Oxford's early women graduates. Her striking appearance within the smart set earned her the nickname of the ''blonde bombshell''logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184957</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Freeman1739805100|title=How to Read Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a Novelist: Conversations with Writerstime of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=As a book reviewer there are certain people whom I hold ''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 high regard and one the early days of these is John Freemanthe Nazi regime in the 1930s. Not yet forty he has an enviable record as an editor to Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the big names growing hostilities between nations unfolding in literature and it seems that every book of note for a decade and a half has been greeted by his reviewEurope at the time. DonFred't be misled by the title ''How s attempts to Read a Novelist'' - this isnseparate individual people from ideology weren't a guide to literary criticism, universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a collection of Freeman's interviews with eminent authors. There are fifty six in total, ranging from literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan, Gunter Grass and Kazuo Ishiguro through to popular crime fiction writers such as Donna Leonlifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472109376</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Inside The Centre: The Life of J Robert OppenheimerWill Brooker|authortitle=Ray MonkThe Truth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Thinking back to Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the early 1960s, Bertrand Russellmost successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the subject thousands of another prize winning biography by Ray Monkless successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, was frequently seen on black as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and white television declaring his concerns over Nuclear Weaponscloser together. He stated The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, 'Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.' For nearly seventy yearsher anecdote about cup cakes, mankind has wondered in the words of Stingher latest book she was reciting, and her being in a 'How can I save my boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' As concerns about nuclear proliferation in relation (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to Iraqattend), Pakistan and North Korea escalate it but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is salutary to return Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a thorough biography of year in the manpublished author's life, known as the father working to make a success of the bomblatest title, that felt a deep and urgent need to be at struggling with the centre and to belongnext in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, J Robert Oppenheimeragrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099433532</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan MooreMartha Leigh|authortitle=Lance ParkinInvisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=I don't think that I ever saw [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]] when I lived Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in Northamptona slightly eccentric, and I immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don't think I coincided with , forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the publication complete correspondence of ''Maxwell the Magic Catphilosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life'' in the local newspapers work. So I missed out on the memorable frame of someone else who Her mother is six foot two, albeit a generation older and looking so hirsute he would seem to be afraid of scissorsconcert pianist who practises for hours every day. But I certainly would not have been alone Neither parent is hugely interested in not recognising him for what he is. How many Northampton housewives flicked past the daily panels practicalities of ''Maxwell'' life. There is love in complete ignorance of who Alan Moore actually is? – With no idea that the years he spent drawing house but also darker undercurrents that cartoon for £10 a week – later to be £12child does not fully understand but knows is there.50 – were just him gearing up to be the biggest man of letters in the comic book world?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781310777</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreview|title=Alan Turing (Real Lives)Frontpage|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 of World War II, working in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley Park, cracking German naval codes used to lethal effect organising U-boat attacks. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machine. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472900103</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPolly Barton|title=Cher: Strong Enough|author=Josiah HowardFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Having looked at Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the title question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and subif the world hadn't gone into melt-titledown I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, the latter being no more than the two-word title of one of her latter-day hitsbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I assumed this was going don't know the answer to be a fairly comprehensive biography of the American singer. The sub-title, question ''Strong Enoughwhy Japan?'', taken from one She explains her feelings in respect of her latter-day hit singlesthe question in the first essay, 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 at the blurb which is on the back sound ''giro' '' – at which point all became clear. This was not the full story of a showbiz career which has lasted close on half a centuryshe describes as being, among other things, but for the most part an extraordinarily detailed account sound of her 1975 TV variety show''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654842</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Empress Dowager CixiFrederic Gros|authortitle=Jung ChangA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=It’s easy to see why Jung Chang selected Cixi as I confess I picked this one up from the focal point for her study library in my pre-lockdown forage of China’s tumultuous modern historyrandom stuff. Cixi is a truly fascinating woman, one of few human beings whose existence can be honestly said to Now I have shaped the course of history. Cixi’s biography is not only a fascinating read due to her go out an buy my own political machinations, but also because of the immense transformations copy so that occurred in China during her lifetime. Jung Chang offers a detailed exploration of I can turn down the period from Cixi’s entrance pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to court . Some books draw you in 1852 to her death slowly. This one had me in 1908the first two pages, during which time the ancient dynastic customs of China gave way to the advent of the industrial agewherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087436</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Bertie: A Life of Edward VIISharon Blackie|authortitle=Jane RidleyIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=Several of the main facts about King Edward VII (1841-1910) are reasonably well-known. Considered oversexed by his parents, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, he was blamed by the former for breaking the latter's heart and causing his early death with the news I normally say that he (Edward) had enjoyed himself with you can tell how much a lady book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the nightone I've borrowed. He was notoriously unfaithful I want to his charming but prematurely deaf avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and lame wife Alexandra, hated reading books and learning only time will tell about the third – but became clichés exist for a first-class unofficial ambassador to courts reason and countries abroad, and despite low expectations of others and poor health he made an excellent King for the last nine years of his lifeI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575442</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Summers0241446732|title=Not In Your LifetimeOur House is on Fire: The Assassination Scenes of JFK|rating=4.5|genre=True Crime|summary=Originally published as ''The Kennedy Conspiracy'', Anthony Summers has massively revised the text, updated it with the latest evidence a Family and it's been republished as ''Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK'' which refers to the statement made by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was asked if the truth about what happened would come out. He said that it would, but added the rider that ''it might not be in your lifetime''. Fifty years on most of the people directly involved are now dead, but the truth has not officially emerged. In fact, it's difficult to avoid the thought that the US government would prefer that it did not see the light of day. Further documents are due to be released a Planet in 2017, but, in the meantime Anthony Summer has examined what is available, investigated on his own behalf and given us this comprehensive book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755365429</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the WorldCrisis|author=Greg King Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Sue WoolmansSvante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Possibly no assassination in history can have had such momentous consequences for the history The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the world as that parenting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and his wife Sophie in Sarajevoher sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the capital of Bosnia, in June 1914family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. It was If they were to find a way to live happily again their killing which led directly solution would need to the outbreak of the First World War, just six weeks laterbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759572</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Red LoveClara Colby: The Story of an East German FamilyInternational Suffragist|author=Maxim LeoJohn Holliday|rating=54

|summary=Chances are there have been major disagreements and splits in your The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her familyemigrated to the USA. One black sheep might have supported At the wrong football team. Some time she was just three-years-old but because of you will be strictly ''Strictly''some childhood ailment, the rest ''X Factor'she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. But probably nothing compares to what went Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in the Leo household over decades in Eastern Berlinand out of school. One of our author's grandfathers, Gerhard, She was too Jewish and bourgeois to survive life the only child in Germany, fled to France, the household and came back a Communist having fought against Nazismher childhood was glorious. His counterpart Werner ended By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the war with some semblance mid-west of PTSD, the United States and more or less landed in Communist Berlin due to facts of administrationlife was hard, yet became a fully-fledged Party activist. Author's mother Anne worked as a journalist on the Communist mouthpiece newspaper, even if she managed Clara was to doubt things find out when she was forced and her grandparents eventually went to write during join the Prague Spring and morefamily. Her husband Wolf – Werner's son – in Clara would only know her mother for a similar industry few months: she was involved in sort-of Photoshopping married for propagandafifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and often sabotaged his own outputdied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. He was violent, awkwardAs the eldest girl, but very anti-establishment. And if you can't see how having a non-Communist in such heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a family in the heightened times of Cold War Berlin would be, you certainly will after reading this gripping collective biographyrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968516</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara A Perry1789017977|title=Rose KennedyRonnie and Hilda's Romance: The Towards a New Life and Times of a Political Matriarchafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=ItRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's about fifty birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years since the assassination of President John F Kennedy older than Ethel and it was he (and particularly might well have shaved a few years off his death) who brought age. For a while, the Kennedy family was quite well-to -do but disaster struck in the attention of 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a new generationvery different lifestyle. An earlier generation had been split about the virtues (or otherwise) of One thing he did inherit from his father, Joe Kennedy, multi millionaire was his need to be well-turned-out and United States Ambassador to Great Britainthis would stay with him throughout his life. But behind both of these men was mother and wife, Rose Kennedy and Barbara A Perry has produced a superb biography using letters, diaries and other archived material recently made availableHe joined the army at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068951</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Eminent ElizabethansPatti Smith|authortitle=Piers BrendonYear of the Monkey

|summary=On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, 'Eminent Elizabethans'Anything is possible: after all, it' is in effect a descendant s the year of the author’s ''Eminent Edwardiansmonkey''. The latter, a volume of short biographies of four British iconic figures As Smith wanders the coast of the early twentieth century, was Santa Cruz in turn inspired by Lytton Strachey’s barbed 'Eminent Victorians'solitude, published she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in 1918her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, a debunking of four Victorian heroes whom as it the iconoclast Strachey wished to demonstrate had feet of clayshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532638</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Sisters of the East End1912242052|author=Helen Batten|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summarytitle=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>}} {{newreviewO Joy for me!|author=Jerry Oppenheimer|title=Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson DynastyKeir Davidson

|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Back in 1885 three brothers were inspired by a speech by Joseph Lister, ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the pioneer of antiseptic surgerymountains alone, not because he had to create for work, as a range of surgical dressings miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack- such things were previously unheard of - and this was the beginning of Johnson & Johnsonhorse driver, providers of Band-Aids but because he wanted to for pleasure and baby powderadventure. It also brought phenomenal wealth to the founders His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and a variety of trusts continued this down the years. The first president its literary consequences, changed our view of the company was Robert Wood Johnson. NFL fans will be aware of his great grandson, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as world'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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=America's Mistress: The Life and Times of Eartha Kitt|author=John L Williams|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Two quotes on the back of the dust jacket testify to the power and public perception of Eartha Kitt during her lifetime. Orson Welles once called her ‘the most exciting woman in the world’, while to the CIA she was ‘a sadistic nymphomaniac’.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857385755</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGraff_Find|title=Inferno Decoded: The essential companion to the myths, mysteries and locations of Dan Brown's InfernoFind Another Place|author=Michael HaagBen Graff|rating=43.5|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=Here be spoilers. Not so much in my review, but certainly in its subject, a very quickly produced companion guide to the latest [[:Category:Dan Brown|Dan Brown]] blockbuster. ItWhen Ben Graff's not so much grandfather Martin handed him a page-by-page guideplastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, but certainly serves as an educational and intelligent look at the background to the biggest-selling book he didn't take much notice of 2013.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251800</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household|author=Kate Hubbard|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies old and new of Queen Victoria, her husband and her children are plentiful enoughit. The vast majority of them are based to some extent on At the diaries, memoirs and biographies of some age of the most important figures who served her24, and Kate Hubbard has put these as well as supplementary archive papers to good use in presenting a thoroughly engrossing account of Graff didn't realise the royal household throughout the Queen’s lengthy reign. I might almost say ‘lively’, though that could be an exaggeration. The court gravity of Victoria may have been homely after a fashion, but for the most part it pages he was hardly livelyholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532239</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Sellers1789016304|title=What Fresh Lunacy is This?War and Love: The Authorised Biography A family's testament of Oliver Reedanguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=For rather more Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''The Diary of his career than he, his Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family 's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and closest friends might have liked, seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the name Oliver Reed was a byword for boozewar years, brawls but only five thousand survived and all types of laddish behaviourMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. As Sellers’ very full and remarkably objective biography revealsMost 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 way that it was a funny yet sad life all at oncedid, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. For although he repeatedly played It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up to the image of the lovable rogue which he had created, underneath the bad boy tens of thousands of popular legend he was at heart a professional actor who could always deliver a first-rate performance on the film set when requiredindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147210112X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Thompson1786893452|title=A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It or Not' Ripley Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5

|summary=Robert LeRoy Ripley was indeed Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a curious manregular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. He throve on curiosityBut all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, his own and that of everyone else. By exploiting and never underestimating almost always, no matter how deep the public demand for triviainvestigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the world and by being the situations that refugees find themselves in . It's rare that we find out the right place at journeys from the right time just as the news refugees themselves – and broadcasting media were beginning this is a rare opportunity to develop do that, in America into the unassailable forces they were this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the end middle of the centurya revolution in Iran, he became one of the most successful men of the agefleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847947204</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hermione Lee0857058320|title=Edith WhartonLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=A prolific ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author, Edith Wharton's published output included over twenty novels, one a Pulitzer Prize winner, and 85 short stories, as well as poetry and books on interior design lost ancestor's life and traveldeath. Born Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the United States in 1862Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, she travelled extensively throughout EuropeCercas' great uncle, and settled permanently in France where she is the figure who looms large over the book. He died in 1937relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845952014</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sylvie Simmons|title=I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=If you or I wanted to write a story about an imaginary figure who began as a novelist and poet, then became acclaimed as a singer-songwriter in the swinging sixties, made and lost a fortune, became a monk, and returned to a musical career question at an age when most mortals are well into retirement, and found himself not only more popular than ever but also playing to the largest audiences in centre of this book is whether it is possible for his entire life, it would great uncle to be dismissed as total fantasy. Nobody could make it up – and nobody needs to, because in a nutshell that is the life (so far) of Leonard Cohen, the subject of this biography and surely one of hero whilst having fought for the music business’s most unique figureswrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549328</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J C Kannemeyer1788037812|title=J.M. Coetzee: A life in writing|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee is described as probably the most celebrated and decorated writer throughout the English-speaking world. The author Fraternity of sixteen published novels, he has been awarded the Nobel Prize Estranged: The Fight for Literature and the Booker Prize twice. At the same time he has guarded his privacy jealouslyHomosexual Rights in England, tending to decline interviews and requests to discuss his work, and refusing to collect prestigious awards in person. On one occasion he explained his absence by saying that he could not imagine 'anything better calculated to reduce me to misery'. One acquaintance claims to have attended several dinner parties at which the author was a fellow guest and did not utter a single word.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922070084</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1891-1908|author=Vladimir Alexandrov|title=The Black RussianBrian 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 He was in command of Loneliness'. Lawrence's many novels, stories the troops and poems are widely read todayconvicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, but Hall Australia: his wife and her works are hardly remembered except by a minorityyoung son accompanied him. Diana Souhami has done her He was not destined to live a service in this generous yet deeply probing long life , dying suddenly at the age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a literary trailblazerdifficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana SouhamiPeacock_mountain|title=Greta and CecilInto The Mountain, A Life of Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock|rating=4.5

|summary=The story of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the noted British photographer is a curious one. Neither ever marriedapproach, both were androgynous and bisexual, plucked their eyebrowsbut I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and had numerous we sell the myriad lesser-known authors short-term relationshipsas well. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, So while Garbo was reluctant to pick up a pen even to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicitylike most other people I have my favourite genres, 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 from 1925 if he tried)favoured authors, and while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, like most other people I read the reviews 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 bookfollow up on what appeals, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like I also have a handbagthird-string to my reading bow: randomness.|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, 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 Move on Paris for much of this period. Barney, a poet, was a flamboyant character who used to say that '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 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, 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 to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life [[Newest Business 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>}}Finance Reviews]]