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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Richard GirlingClaire Dederer|title= The Man Who Ate the ZooMonsters: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural historyWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating= 4.53|genre= BiographyPolitics and Society|summary= As Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a conservationist ''biography of the audience'' in Victorian England before a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the term existedold aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, Frank Buckland was very much the prologue packs a man ahead of punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his timeactions. SurgeonThis model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, naturalistMichael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, veterinarian never slipping into anonymity and eccentric sums him up perfectlymaintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tellpersonal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784701610</amazonuk>1399715070

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ivor George Williams1788360702|title=Captain Ronald Campbell of Bombala StationCharles, CambalongThe Alternative Prince: His Military Life and TimesAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of the 17th Regiment of Footalternative medicine and complementary therapies. He was in command of ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to SydneyPrince's opinions, Australia: his wife beliefs and young son accompanied himaims against the background of the scientific evidence. He was not destined to live a long life, dying suddenly at the age There are few instances of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left beliefs being vindicated and his widow in a difficult position: not only did she relentless promotion of treatments which have their farm no scientific support has done considerable damage to manage, she was also responsible for the convicts reputation of a man who worked the land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbellis proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1546280804</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ingrid Seward1739805100|title=My Husband and ILoving the Enemy: The Inside Story Building bridges in a time of 70 Years of the Royal Marriagewar|author=Andrew March

|summary=I'm writing this review on 'Loving the eve of Enemy'' tells the seventieth anniversary quite extraordinary story of the wedding the the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh: itauthor Andrew March's an amazing achievement particularly grandparents, who first met when you add grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the difficulties of maintaining any relationship for that period early days of time the burden of Nazi regime in the Queen being our monarch for sixty-five years 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the challenges of having to live their joint and separate lives growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the public eyetime. Ingrid Seward gives us the story of the marriage Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and insights into both parties, particularly Prince Philipconnections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471159558</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Charlotte PeacockWill Brooker|title= Into The Mountain, A Life of Nan ShepherdTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Mostly we choose what books to readMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand one of the approach, but most successful British authors I also think we sell ourselves short by it've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, and we sell one of the myriad lesser known thousands of less successful authors short as wellI quite confidently never have read. So while, like most This book starts with the two meeting each other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authorsas well, and while, like most other people I read shows how 2021 drew the reviews two closer and follow up on what appeals, I also have a third string to my reading bow: randomnesscloser together. It The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in such a 'left'black lace mini-fielddress with gold brocade' move ' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. Brooker decides he'Into d like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the Mountainpublished author'' was offered s life, working to memake a success of the latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1903385563</amazonuk>1529136024

 <!-- Hewitt -->[[image:Hewitt_Renoir.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785782738?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785782738]] ===[[Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Biography|Biography]], [[:Category:Art|Art]] Deep in the rural parts of France in the 1860s, you would never really expect to find someone who would come to embody a full artistic period – and not just a movement at that, but a full generation of both creative and societal change. And if you were to expect that someone, they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the circus that first caught her teenaged eye, although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what she did have from that was the poise to be an appealing model for some seriously important painters, and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiences. And what she also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own… [[Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt|Full Review]]<br> {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Robin RaviliousMartha Leigh|title= James RaviliousInvisible Ink: A LifeFamily Memoir

|summary= The name of Eric Ravilious Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, war artistimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, engraver and designerforever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has long been familiarhis life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Less well-known was his equally gifted son JamesNeither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. This delightful biography by his widow should help to put There is love in the situation righthouse but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908524944</amazonuk>1800460384

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Melita ThomasPolly Barton|title= The KingFifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question 's Pearl: Henry VIII 'Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and His Daughter Maryif 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|rating=5|genre= Politics and Society|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the 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 pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|isbn=1781688370}}{{Frontpage|author=Sharon Blackie|title=If Women Rose Rooted|rating= 5

|summary= As I normally say that you can tell how much a 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 one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the eldest surviving child first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|isbn=1912836017}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a much-married father whose main aim Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was to secure an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the royal succession parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with sonswhat was happening. In such circumstances, Mary Tudorit's relationship with Henry VIIInatural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, who called her his it became clear to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet'pearl of the world', was inevitably an important and often fraught one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144566125X</amazonuk> If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Edmund Gordon0648684806|title= Clara Colby: The Invention of Angela CarterInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 54|genre= Biography|summary=Angela Carter is remembered as an influential and inventive writer – with works like ''The Bloody Chamberpath 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' t allowed to sail with her parents and ''Nights at the Circus'' propelling three brothers. Instead, she remained with her to famegrandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a status as an icon good education, both in and inspiration for many modern-day writersout of school.Here author Edmund Gordon delves into She was the only child in the life of Carter – from household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the London mid-west of the 1940s through United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the London of the 1990sfamily. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, with stops in Bristol, Tokyo, Australiahad ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and various other places died in betweenchildbirth not long after Clara arrived. A work that is as full of detail as it is full of devotion to a remarkable woman As the eldest girl, ''The Invention of Angela Carter'' is the first authorised biography of a woman heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a writer who is hugely missed todayrude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575728</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Luke Dittrich1789017977|title= Patient H.M.Ronnie and Hilda's Romance: A Story of Memory, Madness and Family SecretsTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wendy Williams|rating= 4.5|genre= Popular ScienceHistory|summary= Luke Dittrich seeks Ronnie 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 birthdate: he claimed to shed light on the man behind the initialshave been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and in doing sohe might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while, uncovered the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a bit more than very different lifestyle. One thing he expecteddid inherit from his father was 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>0099571862</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Roald DahlPatti Smith|title= InnocenceYear of the Monkey|rating= 54|genre= Short StoriesBiography|summary=What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring On the autobiographical stories telling coast of Roald Dahl's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of innocence betrayedthe monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, Dahl touches on the joys and horrors of growing upunexpected moments. Among other storiesIn a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, youit'll read about s the year of the wager that destroys a girlmonkey''s faith . As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in her fathersolitude, the landlady who has plans for she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her unsuspecting young guest life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it the commuter who is horrified to discover that a fellow passenger once bullied him at schoolshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405933259</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S Morris and N Grueninger1912242052|title=In the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII: The visitor's companion to the palaces, castles & houses associated with Henry VIII's iconic queensO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating= 53|genre= HistoryArt|summary= It was inevitable that each of ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the six wives of Henry VIII would have left their mark in some way on first person to walk the places they lived 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 visitedadventure. This book straddles several categories; history His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, gazetteer or guide bookand its literary consequences, and collection changed our view of potted biographiesthe world''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>144567114X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Terry BrevertonGraff_Find|title= Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor DynastyFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating= 43.5|genre= BiographyAutobiography|summary= Owen Tudor was one When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of those shadowy yet very important characters in medieval history. While we may know little about himhandwritten notes from his journal, or at least did not until this biography appeared, his historical importance can hardly be overestimatedhe didn't take much notice of it. Without himAt the age of 24, there would have been no Tudor dynastyGraff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654180</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jenny Landreth1789016304|title= SwellWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin|rating= 5|genre= Politics and SocietyBiography|summary= I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and I love her encouragement that we should each write our own. This is more than just (I say was entranced by what she discovered, particularly in ''justThe Diary of Ann Frank''!) a recollection of the author's but then realised that her own encounters with water; itfamily's also a history of women's fight for stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the right to swim. That sounds absurd until you start reading about it, then it becomes serious. Not too serious though – because Jenny Landreth is clearly a lover of city during the absurd. Not a lover of book blurbs myselfwar years, I do always seek but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to give happen in a shout-out country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who get 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 dead right: in this case I'm definitely with Alexandra Heminsleydid, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's ''giggles-an atrocity on-the-commute funny''a vast scale but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472938941</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Blackburn1786893452|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John CraskeUngrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=John Craske was Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a fishermanregular basis – some media welcoming them, from a family some scaremongering about them. But all of fishermenthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, who became too ill outsiders to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 world and would eventually die the situations that refugees find themselves in . It's rare that we find out the journeys from the Norwich hospital in 1943 after refugees themselves – and this is a life which could have been defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed himrare opportunity to do that, what caused him to sink into a stupourin this intelligent, sometimes for years at a time powerful and he moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. But John had born in the middle of a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to be done on the available surfaces revolution in his home. Chair seatsIran, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on fleeing to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast America as a ten-year- and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirkold.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099582198</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Elkin0857058320|title=Flaneuse: Women Walk Lord Of All the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice Dead|author=Javier Cercas and LondonAnne McLean (translator)

|genre=History Biography|summary=Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame BovaryLord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor'Revolutionary Roads life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle'')s death in the Spanish Civil War. When she imagines to herself what the female version of that well-known historical figureManuel Mena, the carefree ''flâneur'Cercas'great uncle, might be, she thinks about women is the figure who freely wandered looms large over the worldbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great cities without uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to themwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593378</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael Jones1788037812|title= The Black PrinceFraternity of the Estranged: The Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating= 5

|summary= Generally known Originally passed in 1885, the 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 shortly after his lifetime 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 Edward the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of Woodstocksociety and studying homosexuality was common on the European Continent, having been born at Woodstock Palace, Oxfordshirebut barely talked about in the UK, so the eldest son publications of King Edward III was arguably one these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the Kings that never was. At last we have a modern biography struggle for recognition and equality, leading to put him the milestone legalisation of same-sex relationships in his proper perspective1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784972932</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= David E HoffmanBuckland_Zoo|title=The Billion Dollar SpyMan Who Ate the Zoo: A True Story Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Cold War Espionage and Betrayalnatural history|author=Richard Girling|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary=With As a conservationist in Victorian England before the Cold War at its frostiestterm existed, Frank Buckland was very much a man ahead of his time. Surgeon, naturalist, there were few tougher locations for western intelligence agencies to try veterinarian and run an agent than 1970s Moscow. That makes the tale of Adolf Tolkacheveccentric sums him up perfectly, and any biographer is immediately presented with a Russian engineer who provided thousands of top secret documents colourful tale to the Americans right under the noses of the KGB, all the more incredibletell. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785781979</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kieron Moore and Rajesh NagulakondaWilliams_Captain|title=BuddhaCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: An Enlightened His Military Life (Campfire Graphic Novels)and Times|author=Ivor George Williams

|genre=Graphic NovelsBiography|summary=I don't do religion, but still there In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the 17th Regiment of Foot. He was something that drew me to this comic book. For one, in command of the whole Buddhist faith is still troops and convicts on board a little unknown ship sailing from Plymouth to meSydney, Australia: his wife and this young son accompanied him. He was certainly going not destined to be educational. Yeslive a long life, I knew some dying suddenly at the age of the terms it ends up using34 at Bangalore, but not others, such as bhikshu, and had never really come across the manleaving his widow to raise their two young sons. Edwards's life story. Yes, I knew he found enlightenment and taught death left his widow in a very pacifist kind of faith, but where did he come from? What failings difficult position: not only did he she have on his paththeir farm to manage, and but she was also responsible for the convicts who were worked the ones that joined him along the way?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182299</amazonuk>land. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Arman Peacock_mountain|title= Into The Warrior Queen: The Mountain, A Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Daughter of Alfred the Great Nan Shepherd|author=Charlotte Peacock|rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= AethelflaedMostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, the 'Lady of the Mercians'but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, was and we sell the daughter and eldest child of King Alfredmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Considering the scanty details of her life which So while, like most other people I have been handed down to posteritymy favourite genres, the author has done a very good job in presenting us with a portrait of her life and times.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445662043</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kathryn Warner|title= Edward II: The Unconventional King|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= Edward II has come down to us as one of the worst English kings of all. With a reign filled by reliance on male favouritesfavoured authors, constant threats of civil warsand while, endless quarrels with his barons, unsuccessful military campaigns (including what was perhaps like most other people I read the worst English military defeat ever to take place reviews and follow up on British soil)what appeals, abdication and – so we are led to believe – I also have a brutal death in captivity third- the balance sheet is a pretty poor onestring to my reading bow: randomness. But is it the full story?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445666723</amazonuk>