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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen EmersonClaire Dederer|title=Escape to ProvenceMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the 1920s two womenaudience'' in a deconstructed, one Americanthoroughly nitpicked, one British, settled exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the south context of France, both for different reasonscontemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. Elisabeth Starr had left The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her home in Philadelphia after an unhappy childhood brilliant mind and onto the death, possibly suicide, of her fiancépage. In particular, the prologue packs a nephew of punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the American President. Drawn to Parisdirector Roman Polanski, ''the chosen European city an artist she personally admires for the sophisticated his art, and well-heeled yet despises for his actions. This model of the New World'', she worked monstrous men'' as a nurse during the Great War, then moved to Provence where she made her home in an ancient stone housecalls them, is consistent for the Castellofirst few chapters, and took French citizenship. Winifred (Peggy) Fortescue was interrogating the wife likes of the Royal Librarian at WindsorWoody Allen, who retired in 1926 with a knighthood Michael Jackson and became a renowned (though hardly successful in financial terms) military historianPablo Picasso. After the fall of the poundHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it was hard for them to make ends meet in Englandso dearly, and they were drawn to find a property in Provence partly by the lifestylepersonal, partly by a favourable exchange raterather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955832101</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sushila Anand 1788360702|title=DaisyCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Lives and Loves of the Countess of WarwickAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=Born Daisy Maynard in 1861For over forty years, the Countess Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Warwick lived a colourful life by any standards. She was notoriously promiscuous, a spendthrift who did not hesitate to try alternative medicine and provoke a royal scandal to shore up her parlous finances, and although she relished her lifestyle to the full, she spent several years fighting wholeheartedly for the pioneer socialists in Britain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749909773</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Blind Side|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Footballcomplementary therapies. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Well'Charles, I knew it was about a boy who The Alternative Prince''playedcritically assesses the Prince'' American Footballs opinions, but I'd thought that was just going to be beliefs and aims against the background story, you know, like in ''Jerry Maguire''of the scientific evidence. So the first chapter seemed to go on There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and on forever, and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the real heart reputation of the story; the story a man who is proud of Michael Oher, a young Africanhis refusal to apply evidence-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never aroundbased, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him logical reasoning to social services at a young agehis ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039333838X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy Hopkins1739805100|title=Tommy's World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one of the poorer, inner-city suburbs of Manchester. His father had quite a good job and there wasn't a lot time of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughter. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form of worldly goods. All that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgings. Even that tenuous security wasn't to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewwar|author=Claire Tomalin|title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn ManAndrew March

|summary=I came to this biography having read three ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of Hardyauthor Andrew March's novelsgrandparents, two quite recentlywho first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of his poetry, "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but knowing very little about him as he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a person. Claire Tomalin has brought him admirably to life in these pageslifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141017414</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham McCannWill Brooker|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasTruth About Lisa Jewell|rating=4.5

|summary=When Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I was in my early teens've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars thousands of almost every less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other five-star British comedy film around, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. He The meeting was certainly one some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the most recognizable characters words of all with his gap-toothed grinher latest book she was reciting, cigarette holder and inimitable her being in a 'Hel'black lace mini-lo!dress with gold brocade''(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'Hard cheese!d like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author's life, and best working to make a success of allthe latest title, and struggling with the angrynext in line. Jewell, 'You're an absolute shower!'due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stella Tillyard Martha Leigh|title=Invisible Ink: A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome SiblingsFamily Memoir|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=King George III was not the luckiest of Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English sovereignsfamily. AmericaHer father is a Cambridge don, and then forever clacking away on his sonstypewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in that order, gave him no end of grief, and the last few years practicalities of his life were clouded by madness. It There is thus often overlooked love in the house but also darker undercurrents that, before these troubles arose to haunt this most conscientious monarch, he also had a thankless task in trying to control his siblingschild does not fully understand but knows is there.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099428563</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy Borman Polly Barton|title=Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin QueenFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=So many biographies have Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been written about on my radar for a while and if the life and times of Englandworld hadn's longestt gone into melt-lived and longest reigning sovereign that one might wonder whether down I would have visited by now. I may get there is anything new left later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to say about the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her. However Tracy Borman has found an interesting new angle feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – by telling which she describes as being, among other things, the story sound of her life through the women closest ''every party where you have to herintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224082264</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James LeverFrederic Gros|title=Me CheetaA Philosophy of Walking|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Straight out of I confess I picked this one up from the golden age library in my pre-lockdown forage of Hollywood comes the bitchiest, most revealing memoir from one of its starsrandom stuff. There are scores Now I have to be settled, stars go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to be insulted, secrets its varying wisdom when I need to be hinted at none too subtley, and lost opportunities to be longed for. Oh, and Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the star telling all? Wellfirst two pages, for those of you who canwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport't tell from the title (or even the picture on the front cover) it's Cheeta - chimpanzee star of the Tarzan films.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007280165</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreview|author=Philippe Auclair |title=Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=Even though I'm not a Manchester United fan, Eric Cantona is one of my all time favourite players and I was really excited to get the opportunity to read a book which was billed as revealing his innermost thoughts, and being the definitive account of his career.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706347</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair Duncan Sharon Blackie|title=Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan DoyleIf Women Rose Rooted

|genre=Biography|summary=Even today, London is I normally say that you can tell how much a remarkable compromise of the old and the newbook means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. As Alistair Duncan shows in this volume, Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the city of Conan Doyle and Holmes has changed – yet not changedone I've borrowed. There have been a handful of books in the past on I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring'Holmes's Londonlife-changing', but this – although it is definitely the first of its kind to place equal emphasis on places associated with two and only time will tell about the detective third – but clichés exist for a reason and his creatorI'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312500</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 0241446732|title=Bobbles & PlumOur House is on Fire: Four Satirical Playlets by Bertram Fletcher Robinson Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and PG WodehouseSvante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=PThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal.G Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Wodehouse needs little if any introduction, but Bertram Fletcher Robinson's life Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and career were cut short talking and he is little known outside his connections her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with Sir Arthur Conan Doylewhat was happening. This set of satirical playlets on which they collaboratedIn such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, published in journals between 1904 and 1907 and virtually forgotten sincebut eventually, are presented in book form for it became clear to the first timefamily that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. As such If they show how the careers of both men were evolving, particularly while Wodehouse was finding his feet and experimenting with the different facets of journalism before finding his niche in comic fictionto find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312586</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham 0648684806|title=People of the Day 4Clara Colby: The Rich and Famous CaricaturedInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating=4.5

|summary=Have you ever been asked The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to buy a book in aid the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of a charity some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and wished saw that you'd given she received a donation good education, both in and not taken out of school. She was the only child in the book? household and her childhood was glorious. WellBy contrast, if you have I'm hoping her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to persuade you that there are exceptions find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to every rule join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and this book died in aid of childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is definitely worth the cover priceeldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954811038</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Nicholas 1789017977|title=Idle Thoughts on Jerome K Jerome: A 150th Anniversary Celebration|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Although he was a prolific novelist, short story writer, dramatist and journalist, Jerome Klapka Jerome will always be remembered first Ronnie and foremost as the author of Hilda''Three Men in s Romance: Towards a Boat''. This fascinating anthology, published on the 150th anniversary of his birth, reminds us that there was far more to the man than that one admittedly enduring book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956221203</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNew Life after World War II|author=Richard D Ryder|title=Nelson, Hitler and DianaWendy Williams

|genre=Popular ScienceHistory|summary=Was Horatio Nelson, a navy officer Ronnie Williams was the son of great renownThomas 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 have been born in 1863, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when but he was nine? already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in For a time of paternal disapprovalwhile, and a kind of Oedipal reaction the family was quite well-to being the man -do but disaster struck in the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Diana, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a claim she very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the army at eighteen in 1942.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor Hamilton Patti Smith|title=Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and Year of the Victorian Search for Life After DeathMonkey

|genre=Biography |summary=Born in 1843On the coast of Santa Cruz, Frederic Myers began his career as a classical lecturer at Cambridge University, but disliked teaching and soon gave it up in favour Patti Smith enters the lunar year of writing poetry and essays in literature. Although his social circle included men such as Gladstonethe monkey - one packed with mischief, Ruskinsorrow, Tennyson, Browning and Prince Leopold, the most intellectual of Queen Victoriaunexpected moments. In a stranger's sonswords, his books (which are not so well remembered today) might have been his sole claim to fame''Anything is possible: after all, had it not been for his passionate curiosity about 's the meaning year of human lifethe monkey''. If it had As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a purpose, he was convincedyear that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head-on, as it could only be discovered through the study of human experiencesshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845401239</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul R Spiring (Editor) 1912242052|title=The World of Vanity Fair - Bertram Fletcher RobinsonO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=Biography Art|summary=Every now and then, you comes across a really sumptuous book, where just turning and looking at the pages takes you into another world. Such is the case with this one. ''Vanity FairOh Joy for me!'' was a gentler Victorian forerunner of gives Coleridge credit for being ''Private Eye''. Subtitledthe first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, ''A Weekly'' ''Show of Politicalas a miner, Socialquarryman, and Literary Wares''shepherd or pack-horse driver, it appeared between 1868 but because he wanted to for pleasure and 1914adventure. Like the more successfulHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, longer-lasting ''Punch'', it began with radical aspirationsand its literary consequences, intending ''to expose what'' [the editor] ''perceived to be the'' ''vanities changed our view of the elite social classesworld''. However its satire was gently humorous rather than malicious, and almost everybody who was portrayed in its pages was flattered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312535</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Piers DudgeonGraff_Find|title=Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of NeverlandFind Another Place|author=Ben Graff

|summary=Emma Charles was on the edge When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of thinking that she and her family were doing quite well. They were an ordinary family – mumhandwritten notes from his journal, dad, two daughters, three dogs, a rabbit and a couple he didn't take much notice of guinea pigsit. Sprinkle in an Open University course for Mum, private schooling for At the girlsage of 24, a nice car in Graff didn't realise the drive gravity of the nice house, good clothes and fun holidays – and you can understand why she might be rather pleased with the way that life pages he was going. Then her fifteen year old daughter, Tamsin, gave her a note, couched in graphic terms, saying that her father had been sexually abusing her for the past five years.In moments the family's life fell apart. Gone were all the certainties, the hopes and the expectations. In came the police, Social Services and Child Protection Officersholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090005</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Walker1789016304|title=Pilgrim StateWar and Love: A family's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Written Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by the stepson of John Christopher Smith (a friend of Handel and composer what she discovered, particularly in his own right), ''AnecdotesThe Diary of Ann Frank''but then realised that her own family' is an overview of two men s stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who in their own ways were remarkableresistant to German occupation. HandelMost 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, of coursethat the Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the way that it did, was but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. It's an atrocity on a musical genius while Smith was a man vast scale but made up of tens of great kindness — a good friend thousands of Coxe's father, he married his widow to ensure she and her children would be cared forindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799396</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barney Hoskyns1786893452|title=Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom WaitsThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=Born and raised Here in Los Angelesthe West, Tom Waits probably enjoys we see news reports about immigrants on a status comparable to regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the UK's Richard Thompson. He has never sold investigative journalism they carry out to a mass pop audience, preferring instead outsiders to sustain an engagingly low-key career for over 30 years, feted by critics, fellow artists the world and a cult following while only achieving modest record salesthe situations that refugees find themselves in. While his 80s albums It'Swordfishtrombones' and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded as among s rare that we find out the finest of journeys from the decaderefugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, most of his royalties have come through cover versions of his songs. Twoin this intelligent, 'Downtown Train' powerful and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits for Rod Stewart, moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who once said that they paid for was born in the swimming pool middle of a revolution in Tom's gardenIran, while in his early days the Eagles gave him fleeing to America as a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third albumten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235522</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victor Schoelcher (Author), Anton de Moresco (Editor), James Lowe (Translator) 0857058320|title=The Life of HandelLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Although he ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is probably best remembered searching for the meaning behind his active role great uncle's death in the abolition of slavery in Spanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, is the figure who looms large over the French colonies, and as a campaigner book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for womenFrancisco Franco's rights, Victor Schoelcher was also a noted musicologistforces. His biography of the composer Handel, first published in 1857, was one of the first scholarly works Cercas ruminates on the subject, and why his uncle fought for this dictator. The question at the time centre of this book is whether it was generally regarded as one of is possible for his great uncle to be a hero whilst having fought for the finest portraits of a musician or composer ever writtenwrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904799388</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain McCalman1788037812|title=Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear Fraternity of non-fiction will enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Osborne|title=the Estranged: The Bolter|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Life in London just after the Great War must have been jolly, even frightfully good fun, what – Fight for the right (or the wrong?) people. The early 1920s were the years of the bright young things, the men who had been lucky enough to return from the fighting still Homosexual Rights in one pieceEngland, determined to make up for years of tedium in the trenches by whooping it up with the equally pleasure1891-loving gals barely out of their teens, just as willing to throw morals and discretion to the winds and party round the clock. This was the age when women thought nothing of receiving invited company while in the bath and slowly getting dressed in front of them. One hostess even greeted her guests walking down the staircase of her Belgrave Square mansion wearing a string of the family pearls – and nothing else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084809</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1908|author=Doris Kearns Goodwin|title=Team of RivalsBrian Anderson|rating=4.5

|summary=This hefty tomeOriginally passed in 1885, the cover tells uslaw that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this time, restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. Between 1891 and 1908, is 'three books on the book that inspired Barack Obama'nature of homosexuality appeared. For what it's worthThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, Obama's name appears no less than nine times as well as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the cover and spineEuropean Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, while Lincoln's appears only sixso the publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to the scientific understanding of homosexuality, and that beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, leading to the milestone legalisation of the author a mere twosame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043725</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Gribbin and Michael WhiteBuckland_Zoo|title=DarwinThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: A Life in ScienceFrank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=This straightforward and likeable biography of Charles Darwin charts As a conservationist in Victorian England before the evolution of his theories of evolutionterm existed, while providing solid insights into the Frank Buckland was very much a man in the context ahead of his upbringingtime. Surgeon, education naturalist, veterinarian and family life. Importantlyeccentric sums him up perfectly, it makes you want to read ''On the Origin of the Species'', acting as a primer for the ideas introduced in that famous volume.  ''Darwin: A Life in Science'' and any biographer is pitched beautifully for the reader of popular science, yet gives plenty of signposts enabling future study. It also gives immediately presented with a very believable picture of Darwin, based on convincing evidence and without falling into florid psychological speculationcolourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391494</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael D LemonickWilliams_Captain|title=The Georgian StarCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: How William His Military Life and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the CosmosTimes|author=Ivor George Williams

|summary=No-one can ever look at In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the night skies above our heads as Galileo did17th Regiment of Foot. The light pollution covering so much He was in command of our planet makes it impossible the troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to see nearly as much as he mightSydney, Australia: his wife and young son accompanied him. ConverselyHe was not destined to live a long life, he would have adored living 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 time such as ours – with the technology difficult position: not only did she have their farm to show him so much he couldn't seemanage, so much he daren't dream ofbut she was also responsible for the convicts who worked the land. Sitting happily between those two extremes was William HerschelTwo years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039306574X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GrannPeacock_mountain|title=Into The Lost City of Z: Mountain, A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the Amazon|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=For Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett there was more to the Amazonian jungle than El Dorado. His target was a treasure of a different nature – a lost city to be discovered because it was a city, not for any spurious material wealth it might hold. Could an entire civilisation have been founded in the inhospitable tracks Life of rain forest, and left remains he might find fame in locating? As this brilliant biography shows, Fawcett was the best man around to find it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374360</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Peter Wynter Bee and Lucy Clapham|title=People of the Day 3: The Rich and Famous Caricatured|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=I often find myself paying money for books where the profits go to charity and I'm usually left with the feeling that I'd much rather someone had simply asked me for a donation and not wasted the paper. Every once in a while a book comes along which proves me wrong and there's only one way to describe the ''People of the Day'' series. The books are a delight and it's all in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095481102X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Matteson|title=Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Louisa May Alcott and her father, Amos Bronson, shared the same birthday, she being born on 29 November 1832, his thirty-third. Throughout their lives, father and daughter remained extraordinarily close, and even almost died together. When he finally succumbed after a stroke and long-drawn out illness on 4 March 1888, she was too ill to be told and followed him two days later. Between them, they saw life as 'a persistent but failed quest for perfection', regarding themselves in their vain pursuit of paradise on earth as Eden's outcasts, hence the title of this dual biography.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393333590</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ranginui Walker |title=Paki Harrison: Tohunga Whakairo : the Story of a Master Carver Charlotte Peacock

|summary=It was an inspired choice that Ranginui Walker was commissioned Mostly we choose what books to write this bookread because there is so little time and so many books… I can understand the approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by it, and we sell the myriad lesser-known authors short as well. He successfully places the extraordinary character of master carver Paki Harrison into an historicalSo while, culturallike most other people I have my favourite genres, academic and political contextfavoured authors, whilst never letting us forget that this almost mythical genius is very much a man with his personal conflictsand while, successes like most other people I read the reviews and devotionfollow up on what appeals, I also have a third-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143010069</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Megan Hutching|title=Over the Wide and Trackless Sea: the Pioneer Women and Girls of New Zealand|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=This book offers a valuable insight into the lives of twelve pioneer women who suffered, endured and triumphed in New Zealand.  Their journey by boat from Europe to New Zealand was a long and sometimes perilous one. The European explorers had previously been certain that their destination existed, mainly because they abhorred a vacuum, and couldn't believe there could be such a vast expanse of ocean without the existence of a great land. Some also believed that without a land mass south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the world would be tipped upside down, while others were fearful they would burn up whilst crossing the equator, a myth finally dispelled by the Portuguese voyaging around Africa.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869507061</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joanne Drayton|title=Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Joanne Drayton successfully introduces us Move on to the reclusive Ngaio Marsh, her extraordinary success, and her love for the theatre, the arts, her friends and the country she loved and would always call home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869506359</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Wendy Kendall|title=Wind Driven: Barbara Kendall's Story|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Barbara Kendell is an extraordinary woman. She has not only won windsurfing medals at three Olympics, she is a mother, an IOC representative, public speaker and mentor. This biography, written by her sister, tells the inspiring story of an extraordinary woman who overcame her personal challenges [[Newest Business and remains at the top of her sport after twenty years of competition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186979043X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian W Pugh and Paul R Spiring|title=Bertram Fletcher Robinson: A Footnote to The Hound of the Baskervilles |rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Bertram Fletcher Robinson was a great friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and a prolific writer, who tragically died aged just thirty-six in 1907. His collaboration was crucial to the revival of Sherlock Holmes in ACD's best-known tale, ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''. This volume is described as a 'footnote' to that story and while there is much of value to Sherlock Holmes fans, I got little impression of BFR the man, despite the meticulously recorded details which the authors have painstakingly uncovered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312403</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=George Johnson|title=The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=''The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments'' looks at the most elegant, stylish, simple, ground-breaking, thrilling and inspiring experiments throughout history. There's a real feel that this is how science should be done: one person, alone in a room, forming a hypothesis and creating a method to test it. It doubles as a potted biography of some of the greatest scientists ever, but it's more about the experiments themselves than the people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224071963</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Keates|title=Handel: The Man and His Music |rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=The chances are that most people who have any knowledge of classical music, even if it's only some familiarity with short soundbites, will have something by Handel embedded in their subconscious – probably a few bars from 'Hallelujah Chorus'. There are few other composers of whom the same can be said. The exceptions – Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mozart come to mind – also seem a little better known as historical figures, while Handel remains something of an unknown quantity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082027</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]