Newest Biography Reviews
The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughter by Lucinda Hawksley
As a previous biographer once called her, Princess Louise was Queen Victoria’s unconventional daughter. Always popular with the public for her comparatively easygoing manner (though, being royal, she was not averse to pulling rank), her forward-looking views on social issues, notably education and votes for women, and her artistic interests, she was certainly one of the most interesting of her family. Full review...
The Frood by Jem Roberts
They say that you should never meet your heroes. After reading 'The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' a.k.a. the Frood I understand why.
I never heard the original radio series and I have quite deliberately shied away from the Americanised film version (even if it does sell itself well by having Stephen Fry as 'the voice of the book' - I mean, really, in this day and age, who else?!). Full review...
A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan by Laura Thompson
It's difficult to believe that it's forty years since the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett and the subsequent disappearance of Lord Lucan, not least because there have been numerous theories about what happened on November the 7th 1974 - and what became of Lucan. It might also be thought that - short of the Earl turning up with an explanation - there's not a great deal new which can be added to the pile of published material on the subject, so I began reading A Different Class of Murder with the thought that there would be no great surprises. Full review...
Effie Gray by Suzanne Fagence Cooper
Effie Gray was born in Perth in 1828, and knew art critic John Ruskin from an early age. When he finally decided to ask her to be his wife, she called off an engagement and happily accepted. Full review...
Victoria: A Life by A N Wilson
Every few years, it seems, we are presented with another generously-sized biography of Queen Victoria. How many times can another author follow Elizabeth Longford, Stanley Weintraub, or Christopher Hibbert to name but three, produce 500 pages or more and still say something new about her? Can the blurb’s claim that this shows us the sovereign ‘as she’s never been seen before’ really be justified? Fortunately it can, for even more than a century after her death, there is still new material from previously unseen sources to add to what we already know about her. Full review...
The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous: Everything You Need To Know About Everyone Who Mattered by The Week
To describe a book as unputdownable is a pretty bold claim to make. Jeremy O'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week does just that in the foreword to The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous, a collection of obituaries from the weekly magazine. Thankfully, his bold judgement is largely spot on.
For those unfamiliar, The Week collates the best offerings from print media outlets around the world, condenses them into smaller chunks, adds a little of its own commentary and creates a highly concise and entertaining look at the news. Full review...
Golden Parasol by Wendy Law-Yone
If you look her up Wendy Law-Yone is described as a Burmese-born American author. That Burmese-born American might be an accurate description of her current citizenship, but it barely hints at the ethnic mix of her heritage, nor of her personal closeness (through her father) to her original homeland's struggle for freedom and democracy. Full review...
The Art of Neil Gaiman by Hayley Campbell
An early Neil Gaiman book was all about Douglas Adams, and came out at the time he had a success with a book of his own regarding definitions of concepts that had previously not had a specific word attached. Gaiman himself is one of those concepts. I know what a polyglot is, and a polymath – but there should be a word for someone like Gaiman, who can write anything and everything he seems to want – a whimsical family-friendly picture book, a behemoth of modern fantasy, an all-ages horror story, something with a soupcon of sci-fi or with a factor of the fable. He can cross genres – and to some extent just leave them behind as unnecessary, as well as cross format – he was mastering the lengthy, literary graphic novel just as 'real' books were festering in his creativity, and songs and poems were just appearing here and there. So he is pretty much who you think of as regards someone who can turn his hands to anything he wishes. He is a poly-something, then, or just omni-something else. Full review...
A Corner of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations) by Brian Thompson
In the early seventies Brian Thompson met Elizabeth North, both of them part of failing marriages which would have died without any intervention on their parts. They became friends, they fell in love but they never felt the need to marry and would be together until Liz's death in 2010 at the age of seventy eight. Both are authors - Thompson would maintain that North was the better writer - and North would perhaps have said that she should have made that clear. A Corner of Paradise tells the story - not of the homes they lived in - but of the joy of their relationship. Full review...
Grace: Her Lives - Her Loves: The startling royal exposé by Robert Lacey
Twenty-five years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out to be anything but, one of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed the Atlantic and married into the principality of Monaco. The ceremony in 1956 was hailed as the wedding of the year, but like the later and similar event, it was not the happiest of unions. Full review...
One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rainforest by Wade Davis
As someone who has always enjoyed learning about the Amazon, and with plans to travel to South America next year, this book practically screamed at me to be reviewed. And, although a little tough going and long-winded in parts, I'm glad I had the opportunity to get lost in Davis' incredible work of non-fiction. Difficult to describe in terms of genre, this book combines history, politics, science, botany and culture. It is delivered through a biographical account of Davis' own travels and as a memoir to Richard Evans Schultes, an ethnobotanist well known for his work and travels in the Amazon and Wade Davis' highly regarded mentor. Full review...
Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her World by Stefan Kornelius
You have to admire the lady, this rather awkward and shy daughter of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholic. His daughter studied with such intelligence and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistry. At the age of 26, she obtained her doctorate and - in passing, it rather seems - her first husband, the physicist Ulrike Merkel. Her rise to power was rapid and took place through the period in which the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry and dry sense of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment of the characteristic known in German as fleissig - hardworking, sedulous, diligent and assiduous. Full review...
Blazing Star: The Life and Times of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester by Alexander Larman
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was the ultimate 'live fast, die young' icon of the Stuart age, the seventeenth-century embodiment of 'Hope I die before I get old'. Restoration dandy, satirist and pornographic poet, he died a lingering death at the age of 33, racked by venereal disease and alcoholism. If he is remembered at all these days, except by those familiar with the history or literature of the age, it is as the James Dean or the Keith Moon of his day, a hellraiser whose poetry was heavily suppressed for many years by the censors. In fact much of his verse was not published under his name until long after his death, and as most of it was only circulated in manuscript form during his lifetime and a good deal destroyed by his mother after his death, it is uncertain how much does still survive. Full review...
Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France by Stephen Clarke
Although he was Anglo-German by birth, so Stephen Clarke suggests, King Edward VII was very much a Parisian by nature. As we would expect from the author of several lighthearted books on our Gallic neighbours, including ‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’, this is not the most weighty or solemn biography of the King you will ever find, but it is certainly an entertaining, racy gallop through the life of its subject. Full review...
Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon by Kate Williams
Until reading this biography, it had never really occurred to me just how shadowy a figure the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the best-known European rulers of the age, really was. It may be common knowledge that her name was Josephine, but few of us perhaps really know anything of the woman behind the name. Full review...
The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation by Roy Hattersley
According to the back of this book, ‘the story of the Devonshires is the story of Britain’. That’s an extravagant claim, but it contains more than a germ of truth. Certainly one would be hard-pushed to find an aristocratic, non-royal British family who has more consistently been central to our history since medieval times, as this detailed chronicle demonstrates. From the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over in part by Sir William Cavendish, father of the first Earl, to the big business that their ancestral home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has now become, the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires have often been, or helped to, contribute to, part of the fabric of Britain’s past and present. Full review...
The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price
A newly-married couple make their way home from the chapel, riding on a horse-drawn cart as it winds its way round familiar country lanes towards the beautiful valley of Maesglasau. The horse pauses atop a hill and the valley spreads out before them: 'the vessel of their marriage'. The centuries-old stone farmhouse in the crook of the mountain is to be their homestead; a sturdy, silent witness to the tragedy and joy that is an intrinsic part of the fabric of family life. Full review...
Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation by Andrew Lycett
Wilkie Collins has come down to us as the chief exponent of the Victorian ‘sensation novel’. This was the genre of story written specifically to expose deep-rooted domestic or family secrets, uncovering illegitimacy, bigamy or other irregular activities by supposedly respectable citizens leading outwardly normal, uneventful lives. There were mysteries, deceptions, betrayals, evil characters and good innocent ones. Measured by these standards, he led a ‘sensational’ life himself. When not writing novels, short stories, plays or articles for journals in order to earn a living, this apparently fine upstanding bachelor maintained two households, two mistresses, and children at the same time – and managed to keep them a secret from the public who would doubtless have been scandalized to know the truth. Full review...
Four Sisters:The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses by Helen Rappaport
A few years ago, Helen Rappaport wrote and published Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, a painstaking, chilling account of the final days and death of the last Tsar of Russia and his family. To a certain extent this biography is a prequel to that volume, an account of the short lives of OTMA, as they referred to themselves – the Tsar’s daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia. Full review...
The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax by Andrew Roberts
Of all the British nearly-Prime Ministers Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, must be unique. He was the one who came closest to assuming the mantle only to find the job denied him, and had he done so, on him Britain’s destiny would have depended. For he was the man whom several confidently expected, and many wanted, to take over after the resignation of Neville Chamberlain during the dark days of May 1940. Full review...
The Boys In The Boat: An Epic Journey to the Heart of Hitler's Berlin by Daniel James Brown
You see, Jesse Owens had it easy – all he had to do was run fast. Alright, he did have to face unknown hardship, heinous prejudice at home and abroad, and make sure he was fast enough to outdo the rest of his compatriots then the world's best to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but others who wished to do the same had to do more. People such as those rowers in the coxed eights squad – people such as young Joe Rantz. He certainly had to face hardship, the prejudice borne by those in the moneyed east coast yacht clubs against an upstart from the NW USA, and when he got to compete he had to use so many more muscles, and operate at varying tempi, with the temperament of the weather and water against him, all in perfect synchronicity with seven other beefcakes. Despite rowing being the second greatest ticket at those Games, Joe's story is a lot less well known, and probably a lot more entertaining. Full review...
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent by Robert A Caro
It's only a matter of days since I finished listening to The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, the first part of Robert A Caro's definitive work on the President and despite having just spent over forty hours on the book I wanted to learn more. I was torn though - the second book in a series is not often as good as the first and it struck me that these might not be the most exciting years in Johnson's life. Was this book going to be the link which took us on to the more exciting times? Not a bit of it. Full review...
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert A Caro
Lyndon Baines Johnson was the 36th President of the United States, preceded by John F Kennedy and succeeded by Richard Nixon, with both being remembered most for the way they left office. His five-year term in office was overshadowed at the start by the Kennedy assassination and increasingly blighted by the debacle which was Vietnam, but there was something about Johnson which always intrigued me: how does a poor boy from Texas hill country without an exceptional (or even 'good') education become president of the United States? 'The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power' tells you all that you need to know. Full review...
Born in Siberia by Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater
I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's a title that doesn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual way, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities. Full review...
The Pike: Gabriele D'Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Gabriele d’Annunzio was a strange and perhaps fortunately unique character, a kind of 20th century Renaissance man who almost defies posterity to pigeonhole him. At various times he was a poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, adventurer, self-styled demagogue and philanderer. Although he lost several friends during the First World War, as well as the sight of one eye when his plane was shot down, he had a passion for war, seeing bloodshed as manly and death in battle as glorious self-sacrifice. He had the dodgiest of moral compasses, and yet was hardly the Adonis he believed himself to be. One French courtesan who firmly rebuffed his physical advances later called him ‘a frightful gnome with red-rimmed eyes and no eyelashes, no hair, greenish teeth, bad breath and the manners of a mountebank’. Had he been alive today, he would have probably been an instant celebrity and media personality with a very short shelf-life. One half Jeremy Clarkson, one half Russell Brand, one might say. Full review...
Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second Son by John Van der Kiste
Prince Alfred was the second son of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. At the time of his birth he was second in line to the throne after his brother, the Prince of Wales and was generally known within the family as Affie. In his early teens he joined the Royal Navy - at his own request - and whilst his family and status was undoubtedly no disadvantage to him, he worked hard and had a genuine talent for the navy, eventually receiving his Admiral's baton and visiting all five continents in the course of his service. He was created Duke of Edinburgh (along with various other titles) by the queen. His marriage - to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia - was not a happy union, with his wife being not well-liked in society and obsessed by her precedence. They had six children (one of whom was stillborn) but only one son - 'young Affie' who committed suicide at the age of twenty four. Full review...
