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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]==Biography==__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Penelope Hughes-HallettClaire Dederer|title=The Immortal DinnerMonsters: A famous evening of genius and laughter in literary London, 1817What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=A book based around just one dinner sounds Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a little extraordinary. But ''biography of the hostaudience'' in a deconstructed, painter Benjamin Robert Haydonthoroughly nitpicked, was no ordinary artist. He was a friend exploration of many the old aphorism of separating the major artistic and literary figures of art from the day, artist in addition to being an ambitious painter the context of historical scenescontemporary ''cancel culture''. Sadly, his ambition was not matched by popularity or good fortune, and despite or perhaps parly because an exaggerated belief in his own abilities, one and a half centuries after his death he Dederer's work is largely forgotten except for his suicide after years of despair, original and perhaps his diary as wellexpressive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009956372X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sara Turing|title=Alan M Turing: Centenary Edition|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=June 2012 will see The reader gets the centenary of impression that the birth of Alan Turing, thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mathematician, the man who played a major part in breaking the Enigma codes in the Second World War mind and is widely thought to be onto the father of computer sciencepage. To celebrate In particular, the anniversary Cambridge University Press have reprinted prologue packs a short biography written by Turing's mother punch: she simultaneously condemns and included a memoir written by exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his older brotherart, Johnand yet despises for his actions. IThis model of ''monstrous men'm rarely impressed by biographies written by [[No Ordinary Man by Dominic Carman|family members]] particularly when they're still coming to terms with their own griefas she calls them, but this book is startling consistent for what it says about the family members as much as for what it says about Alan Turing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107020581</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sally E Svenson|title=Lilyfirst few chapters, Duchess of Marlborough (1854 - 1909): A Portrait with Husbands|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The woman we will eventually come to know as Lily, Duchess interrogating the likes of Marlborough was born Eliza Warren Price in TroyWoody Allen, New York in 1854Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her father hailed from Bluegrass Country in Kentucky critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and met his future wife (who was from Troy) in Washington DC. The family was comfortably off (but not rich) and became part of the Troy's social elite when they returned to live there. Lily (maintaining her own subjectivity, as she became known) had an unremarkable childhood and youth but became wealthy though her marriage to Louis Hammersleyholds it so dearly, who died when she was twenty eight and left her a wealthy widow. His will would leave her legal problems which would simmer all her life and even after her own death twenty one years and two more husbands laterpersonal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1457507765</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Brown1788360702|title=Lancelot 'Capability' BrownCharles, The Alternative Prince: The Omnipotent Magician 1716-1783An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst

|summary=Among those who helped their contemporaries living through the Age For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Enlightenment to see alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the world around them in a different lightPrince's opinions, Brown was unquestionably one beliefs and aims against the background of the most influentialscientific evidence. Having trained as a gardener, as a young man he acquired an exhaustive knowledge There are few instances of plants his beliefs being vindicated and trees, as well as his relentless promotion of drainage and water management. To this was added a rare ability treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to look at the dullest reputation of gardens and landscapes, decide that they had 'capabilities' for improvement (hence the timea man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-honoured epithet)based, and persuade the owner that a transformation was both possible and desirablelogical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951794</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johanna Adorjan1739805100|title=An Exclusive LoveLoving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew March

|summary=This moving memoir ''Loving the Enemy'' tells of the double suicide quite extraordinary story of both István (a Hungarian-Jewish form of Stephen) and his wife Vera one Sunday morning in October. The story is told by their granddaughterauthor Andrew March's grandparents, Joanna Adorján and tells of her close fondness for them both but who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in particular with Vera, with whom the author shares many characteristics. The story begins with the systematic persecution early days of such Hungarian Jews in Budapest under the Nazi occupation and describes their perilous flight to Denmark after the Soviet occupation of Hungary regime in 1956. It ends with the police reports of the duty officer dated 15.101930s.91 with the discovery of their bodies in their bungalow in the CharlottenlundFred, a town sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the Capital Region of Denmarkgrowing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Entry is gained by Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a local locksmith who charged 297.02 kroner. It is the charm and lyricism with which this tale is related which makes this fateful, haunting and profoundly moving story about identity both sad and memorablelifetime. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552671</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlumenthalWill Brooker|title=Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought DifferentTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Framed by JobsMeet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I' iconic speech at a Stanford College graduation ceremonyve never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, and one of the three stories he told thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the studentstwo meeting each other, as well, about connecting and shows how 2021 drew the dots, love two closer and losscloser together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, and mortalityit seems, this biography gives a succinct and balanced account of Jobs' lifeher anecdote about cup cakes, his successes and his failuresthe words of her latest book she was reciting, his passions and his ideals, and his infamously polarized personality. The her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author actively annotates the backstory of Jobs with references from this speechevents I get to attend), as well as future eventsbut pulled Brooker, carefully chosen statisticsa professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and Jobsdown the rabbit-hole that is Jewell' own reminiscence, giving a rich context to his storys diverse output. Jobs Brooker decides he' achievements are incredible and theyd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published author're not simply down s life, working to his geniusmake a success of the latest title, but his attitudes towards life and his incredible charismastruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408832062</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan TalbotMartha Leigh|title=Dotter Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir|rating= 5|genre= Biography|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of Her Fatherthe philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's Eyeswork. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds

|genre=Graphic NovelsPolitics and Society|summary=If thereWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?''s one person able to produce Japan has been on my radar for a worthwhile potted history of James Joycewhile and if the world hadn's daughtert gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, it should be Mary M Talbotbut I am not hopeful. SheAnd like Barton, I don's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with t know the same names too - James and Nora, both took answer to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but itquestion ''why Japan?''s She explains her feelings in respect of the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similaritiesquestion in the first essay, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as more than able being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to produce a delightful graphic novel - [[:Category:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]]introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael HolroydFrederic Gros|title=A Book Philosophy of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent FathersWalking

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Picture I confess I picked this one up from the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors library in my pre-lockdown forage of Lord Grimthorpe's mansionrandom stuff. Perhaps you might prefer Now I have to frequent go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the brightly lit splendour of the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there was that tempestuous iconoclast, D Some books draw you in slowly.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. She, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends This one had me in the first two pages of annotated diaries which became , wherein Gros explains why ''A Book of Secretswalking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548941</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colin GrantSharon Blackie|title=I & I: The Natural MysticsIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=45|genre=Biography|summary=Just mention the word reggae, and the name I normally say that nearly always springs you can tell how much a book means to mind is that of Bob Marley and the Wailersme by how many pages have corners turned down. The music has always been very much a product Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the Jamaican culture, nurtured in years of turbulent historyone I've borrowed. In this book Colin Grant, born in Britain of Jamaican parents, goes back deep into its roots, and in the process examines the childhood lives of I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the Wailers’ three main personalities, namely Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, first two and Neville Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer, to provide an account of only time will tell about the group third – but much more than thatclichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526727</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Ackroyd0241446732|title=DickensOur House is on Fire: A Memoir Scenes of Middle Agea Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=45|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=With publishers falling over each other in The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an effort to outdo each other in celebrating opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the bicentenary parenting of Charles Dickens’ birththeir two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her 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 was perhaps inevitable became clear to the family that we should see they were ''burned-out people on a reappearance of what has become the modern standard life, by Peter Ackroydburned-out planet''. The 1200-page original was first published in 1990, while this 600-page abridged edition surfaced in 1994, and now makes another timely appearanceIf they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437090</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Hendrickson0648684806|title=Hemingway's BoatClara Colby: Everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934-1961The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday

|summary=This substantial volume is not exactly a full biography The path of Ernest HemingwayClara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. In factAt the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, it might almost have been subtitled ‘The rise she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and fall’three brothers. Its theme is more or less the second half of his lifeInstead, she remained with her grandparents, from 1934who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, when he returned from an African safari both in and took delivery out of his boat Pilar, to his tragic death 27 years laterschool. Hendrickson intends it to be an account of She was the only child in the writerhousehold and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, bringing together her family had become pioneer farmers in the different elements mid-west of his the United States and life – fishingwas hard, friendship, wives as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family - . Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and above alldied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, naturally, his writinga heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921930</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bradford1789017977|title=Queen Elizabeth IIRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Her Towards a New Life in Our Timesafter World War II|author=Wendy Williams

|genre=BiographyHistory|summary=As a biographer who has previously written substantial biographies Ronnie Williams was the son of the Queen Thomas Henry Williams (published 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 1996)1863, of her father George VIbut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. For a while, the family was quite well-to-do but disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and her daughterfive-inyear-law Diana, Sarah Bradford needs little introductionold Ronnie had to adjust to a very different lifestyle. At around 260 pages of text, One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this is barely half would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the length of her other titles, and probably aimed more army at the general reader with an eye on the Diamond Jubilee marketeighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>067091911X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mick O'SheaPatti Smith|title=Amy Winehouse: A Losing GameYear of the Monkey

|summary=At On the risk coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of stating the obviousmonkey - one packed with mischief, this sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is a sad book. Writing this review some five months possible: after her deathall, now it's the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the immediate smoke has clearedcoast of Santa Cruz in solitude, it is apparent from this book (as well as other general sources) that she was reflects on a gifted performer, with a jazz voice which could have qualified year that brings huge shifts in her for a lengthy career long after scores of aspiring Xlife -Factor contestants had given up singing loss and opted for less glamorous, more steady careers. After all, her idols had been not only nearageing are faced head-contemporaries like Michael Jackson and Missy Elliotton, but also those of an earlier generation such as it the classic 1960s girl groups, as well as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, with whom she was thrilled to record a duet four months before she diedshifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0859654826</amazonuk>1526614758

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Hollis1912242052|title=Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward ThomasO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=53|genre=BiographyArt|summary=Most historians tend to refer ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to Edwardian England as the thirteen-year interlude between walk the Victorian era and the shots at Sarajevo which precipitated the First World War, an era of relative stability. Howevermountains alone, there not because he had been ominous rumblings from the new order of things during the two years or so prior to June 1914for work, particularly from as a new spirit among the younger literary generation. The old Victorian writersminer, quarryman, notably the uniquely terrible Poet Laureate Alfred Austin (doubtless a very good manshepherd or pack-horse driver, but an almost comically inept writer of verse) were dismissed as irredeemably old hat by the likes of Rupert Brooke because he wanted to for pleasure and W.H. Daviesadventure. For a short time London was the poetry capital of the worldHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and the book opens with the opening in January 1913 its literary consequences, changed our view of Harold Monro’s poetry bookshop in Bloomsbury, which rapidly became a magnet for the self-proclaimed Georgian poets and readersworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245986</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia BlackburnGraff_Find|title=Thin Paths: Journeys in and Around an Italian Mountain Village|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Julia Blackburn had known Herman for many years, but they had drifted apart. She put the postcard which she received from him in an album: it mentioned a cottage he had discovered in Liguria and which he was renovating. Some time later there was another postcard and an invitation to visit. Over time the cottage would become her home and Herman her husband. 'Thin Paths' is the stories of the people who inhabit this harsh, wild landscape and of the way in which the landscape has formed the people. The thin paths join the people and the places together in a way of life which is rare.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090682</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFind Another Place|author=Erica Heller|title=Yossarian Slept HereBen Graff|rating=3.5

|summary=When Ben Graff'To live forever or die in the attempts grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn' was the essential glory in life and living that is at the heart t take much notice of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]it. This autobiography of At the daughter age of his creator24, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chambers and Joan Bakewell|title=Chambers Biographical Dictionary|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=ItGraff didn's now t realise the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as a bit gravity of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised that my copy dated back to 1974 and pages he was still in regular use for a quick guide as to who might have been who. It's advertised as 'the great, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wicked' and it's difficult to better that summary. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from ''Who's Who'' with it's thirty thousand entries in that covers the dead as well as the living and the ''interesting'' rather than those who need to be included because they have achieved a certain positionholding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claire Tomalin1789016304|title=Charles DickensWar and Love: A Lifefamily's testament of anguish, endurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Melanie Martin

|summary=Having already written biographies of Thomas Hardy Melanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and Jane Austenwas entranced by what she discovered, among others, to say nothing particularly in ''The Diary of a study of Dickens Ann Frank'' but then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. A hundred and his mistress Nelly Ternanseven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the war years, Claire Tomalin is admirably qualified but only five thousand survived and Martin could not understand how this could be allowed to produce happen in a major life of country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those who thought that the Germans might reach the city were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, that the author Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to mark escalate in the bicentenary of his birth in 1812way that it did, but initial protests melted away as the organisers became more circumspect. (Sadly, she says this will be her last large-It's an atrocity on a vast scale book)but made up of tens of thousands of individual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917672</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jermaine Jackson1786893452|title=You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's EyesThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=It is inevitable that Here in the books West, we have already seen see news reports about Michael Jackson in immigrants on a 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 two years since his sudden passing will be merely investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the tip of world and the icebergsituations that refugees find themselves in. Yet for those which comprise It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and are based on firstmoving work by Dina Nayeri -hand knowledge someone who was born in the middle of his life and deatha revolution in Iran, there will surely be few if any fleeing to rival this account by his brother Jermaine and ghostwriter Steve DennisAmerica as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007435665</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham Holderness0857058320|title=Nine Lives of William ShakespeareLord Of All the Dead|author=Javier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=There ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a subtle irony journey to uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the fact that the world’s best-known playwrightSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, and possibly the most famous author of all timeCercas' great uncle, is a character about whom so little is known the figure who looms large over the book. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for certainthis dictator. Nevertheless, as we are looking The question at someone who died nearly 400 years ago, the indisputable documentary evidence centre of this book is whether it is bound possible for his great uncle to be lackinga hero whilst having fought for the wrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Isba1788037812|title=Dickens's WomenThe Fraternity of the Estranged: His Life and LovesThe Fight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Brian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=The subject of Originally passed in 1885, the several women 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 1908, three books on the life nature of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme to build a biography aroundhomosexuality appeared. They were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose as wellas the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens Exploring the margins of society and studying homosexuality was a man who 'craved a love common on the European Continent, but barely talked about in the UK, so unconditional that the yearning was unlikely publications of these men were hugely significant – contributing to be satisfied in this worldthe scientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the struggle for recognition and equality, a man in thrall leading to a vision the milestone legalisation of a womanhood so idealized that it was incompatible with everyday domesticity'same-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce DuffyBuckland_Zoo|title=Disaster was my GodThe Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history|author=Richard Girling

|summary=Machiavelli, 'the first philosopher to define politics as treachery', has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being As a synonym for duplicity conservationist in statecraftVictorian England before the term existed, than as Frank Buckland was very much a historical personman ahead of his time. InterestinglySurgeon, the term 'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective naturalist, veterinarian and noun around 1570eccentric sums him up perfectly, although none of his works were translated into the language for another seventy years or so after thatand any biographer is immediately presented with a colourful tale to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger HutchinsonWilliams_Captain|title=The Silent Weaver|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=There is no question but that the story of Angus has all the right ingredients for a fascinating study. Taken from his Scottish Lowlands agricultural early childhood to the isolation of a Hebridean island of South Uist, joining the last ever horse platoon in the British Army at the outbreak Captain Ronald Campbell of the Second World WarBombala Station, then mental breakdown and effective incarceration for almost all the rest of his life, he created some of the most unusual works of folk art that have existed this century. And Hutchison tackles every angle of this rich narrative, exploring the military thinking behind how horse regiments were to combat Hitler, through to the operations of mental health care in later twentieth century Scotland, and all points in between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589713</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Thompson|title=TintinCambalong: Herge and His Creation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I love Tintin. I love his quiff and his innocence, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles language. So I was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasm. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Games|title=Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and Art|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Nikolai Pewsner – the minor changes of name came as a young adult - was born in Saxony in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish family. Just too young to avoid having to take part in the war, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by the age of 22. He then became an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen University.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441190937</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nancy Mitford|title=The Sun King|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two years. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern era.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528886</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Kelly|title=Finding Poland|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity of the Polish homeland. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921. It was an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough to warrant a town hall, was situated. These wild borderlands – known as the Kresy - were fought over for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. It was here that Matthew Kelly's great-grandfather, who had imbibed the values and élan of the dashing officer class, Rafal Ryzewscy, came to teach with his clever young wife, Hanna. They were deeply committed to progress through education and to peaceably raising their two little daughters. However, the dreadful and calamitous year of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pact.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515997</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cita Stelzer|title=Dinner with Churchill: The Prime Minister's Tabletop Diplomacy|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=Winston Churchill was never a man to don the hair shirt. A comfortable upbringing in the days when elaborate multiple courses were the done thing imbued in him from an early age a taste for the good things in life, and a bon viveur he remained until the very end. Throughout his life he loved his food, and until near the end of his life, his appetite and digestion remained excellent, whereas many men in their advancing years might have cut back a little.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595422</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Savage|title=Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft|rating=5|genre=Crafts|summary=David Savage is a master furniture maker and one of the artists featured in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who to include in the book. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty and – often – originality. It's the text that makes the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one woman's work, but to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the bad. It is, if you like, ten in-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D R Thorpe|title=Supermac: The Military Life of Harold Macmillan|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844135411</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewTimes|author=Robert Ross|title=Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy LegendIvor George Williams

|summary=Some years ago, I was given a Penguin edition of Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face on the front cover. In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A year or two later, I saw a photograph Edwards of Marty Feldman and was convinced he must have inspired it if not actually been the model.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857683780</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bettany Hughes|title=The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his death, his life is something 17th Regiment of a mysteryFoot. He didn't like to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something was in command of a 'Socrates-sized hole' in it. What we do see is the city of Athens, troops and the hugely important changes which were going convicts on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and the right board a ship sailing from Plymouth to a fair trial. This was an important time in the development of modern valuesSydney, Australia: his wife and Socrates was an important manyoung son accompanied him. He was not only destined to live a brilliant thinkerlong life, he was also a man that didn't quite fitdying suddenly at the age of 34 at Bangalore, infuriating leaving his widow to converse with, yet fascinating to be aroundraise their two young sons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554054</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stacy Schiff|title=Cleopatra: A Life|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Stacey SchiffEdwards's biography starts more of less from Cleopatra's infamous meeting with Caesar, where she sneaks into death left his rooms widow in a sack. This is one of the most popular images of Cleopatra in the public consciousness and Schiff happily refutes the image of her emerging as a well polished seductressdifficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, pointing out that anyone who had been carried in a sack but she was also responsible for a considerable period of time will more likely be fairly dishevelled. Schiff takes us through from this moment up to Cleopatra's much dramatised death, and beyond, to the end of convicts who worked the Ptolemaic dynastyland. Two years later she would marry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075353956X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tina BrownPeacock_mountain|title=Into The Diana Chronicles|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=''The Diana Chronicles'' was first published in 2007Mountain, ten years after Diana's untimely death (forgive me if I proffer information that you already know, but prior to reading this book, I was one of the small group A Life of people in this country happily oblivious to the Princess Diana industry). The book has been re-released in shocking pink, white and gold livery, as a 'commemorative edition' to coincide with The Royal Wedding. A fanciful Foreword now imagines Diana's life and reaction to Will and Kate's marriage, had she survived.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099568357</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNan Shepherd|author=Frances Wilson|title=How to Survive the Titanic or the Sinking of J. Bruce IsmayCharlotte Peacock

|summary=As Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and so many books… I read 'How to Survive can understand the Titanic' approach, but I was conscious that also think we're only a matter of months away from the centenary of the sinking – sell ourselves short by it, and a slew of media to mark we sell the occasionmyriad lesser-known authors short as well. Given that the subject has been mined extensively over the years it will be interesting to see whether there's anything new to be said about So while, like most other people I have my favourite genres, and favoured authors, and while, like most other people I read the tragedy. It's a subject which has always fascinated me – reviews and it was with follow up on what appeals, I also have a sense of anticipation that I opened the bookthird-string to my reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809222</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Andrew Crowther|title=Gilbert of Gilbert Move on to [[Newest Business and Sullivan: His Life and Character|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Gilbert and Sullivan were the Rice and Lloyd Webber of the late Victorian era. Some might regard their work as slightly dated these days, especially the satirical lyrics which were so much a product of their time, but their appeal has never really faded and it surely never will.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752455893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D J Taylor|title=Thackeray|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Today, William Makepeace Thackeray is remembered almost exclusively as the writer of 'Vanity Fair', considered as among the greatest novels of its time. Yet he was a prolific writer, also responsible for 'Pendennis' and 'The Newcomes', as well as several sketches, essays and much poetry. However most of his work is largely forgotten today, while as a person he remains little known, and he has been somewhat overshadowed by his better-known contemporary, old friend and rival Charles Dickens, born one year later. This biography does an excellent job in rescuing him from such semi-obscurity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563258</amazonuk>}}Finance Reviews]]