Biography Recent Picks

June 2003

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Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

	Behaving badly : the life of Richard Harris, 1930-2002 by Cliff Goodwin. (2003) "Richard Harris is one of the most successful actors of his generation. Hailed for the extraordinary early films, such as 'This Sporting Life', and the native American films, 'A Man Called Horse', his prodigious appetites for drink (and drugs) ensured that he lived his turbulent life as much in the eye of the media as his films. Always driven by a restless intellect, he published a novel, wrote poetry and performed his own songs, and, as singer, performed in the hit musical 'Camelot'. [Recent films include] the chilling Clint Eastwood award-winning film 'The Unforgiven', and of course ... the prime position as Professor Albus Dumbledore in 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. The book explores his background life in Ireland, his public successes and failures, and his on-going battle with his own demons." (Amazon UK)
	How did I get here from there? by Claire Rayner. (2003) "It is no secret that happiness was spread a little thinly in Claire Rayner's far from easy childhood. Born in Stepney, East London, in the early 30s during the Depression, she was evacuated during the war. Choosing nursing as a career, she lied about her age in order to enrol as a cadet in the Epsom Cottage Hospital in Surrey, after which she studied at the Royal Northern, winning their gold medal for achievement. Thus began a lifetime's passion for proper medical care for all, a passion that has made Rayner one of Britain's most important and successful campaigners. She is a patron of more than 60 social and charitable organisations, but it is as advice columnist extraordionaire that she is most famous." (Amazon UK)
	Imperial vanities : the adventures of the Baker brothers and Gordon of Khartoum by Brian Thompson. (2002) "'Imperial Vanities' is an adventure story in the high tradition, ranging from the Upper Nile, to Ceylon, Egypt and the slave markets of the Balkans. In his second book on Victorian life, Brian Thompson recounts the beginnings of the end of British Empire through the story of three men - the explorer Samuel Baker, whose second wife was a slave; his brother Valentine, who indecently assaulted a girl on a train and their friend Gordon of Khartoum, who preferred the company of men and the Bible." (Amazon)
	Swan river : a family memoir by David Reynolds. (2001) "As a child, David Reynolds developed a fascination with the mysterious disappearance of his long-dead grandfather. Over the years he has pieced together the story: of tragic romance in Victorian London, and of the harsh lives of turn-of-the-century Canadian homesteaders. He recounts the tale with grace and humour, introducing a colourful cast of family patriarchs, cockney urchins and music hall artistes. All of this contrasts with the story of David's own childhood, of his thoroughly enjoyable mispent youth in the swinging London of the 1960s, and of his sometimes uncertain relationship with his father, a complex man best encapsulated as a warm-hearted monster." (Amazon UK)

Life in a cold climate : Nancy Mitford : a portrait of a contradictory woman by Laura Thompson. (2003)
"Drawing on Mitford's highly autobiographical early novels - as well as the biographies and novels of her more mature French period, her journalism and the vast body of letters to her sisters, lovers and friends such as Evelyn Waugh and Cyril Connolly - Thompson has put together a portrait of a courageous and contradictory woman: a woman who expressed anti-feminist views while living a life of financial and emotional independence; a woman who appeared quintessentially English but who was only wholly able to be herself once she moved to France; a woman who believed implacably that the best response to life's pain was laughter." (Amazon UK)

Giving up the ghost : a memoir by Hilary Mantel. (2003)
"This is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's wry and shocking autobiography. It opens in 1995 with "A Second Home", in which Mantel describes the death of her stepfather, a death which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of childhood. "Now Geoffrey Don't Torment Her" begins in typical, gripping Mantel fashion: "Two of my relatives have died by fire." Set during the 1950s, it takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating with the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelit ceremony of her mother's "churching". Mantel then moves to a haunted house and mysteriously gains a stepfather. When she is almost 11, her family flee the gossips and the ghosts, and resolve to start a new life. Teenage perplexity displaces childhood dreams of Arthurian knights as her home turns into a place where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Convent school provides a certain sanctuary, with tacit assistance from the fearsome "Top Nun". After making good her escape to university and her own marriage, the author reveals how, through medical misunderstandings and neglect, she came to be childless, and how the ghosts of the unborn, like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer." (Amazon UK)

The greatest traitor : the life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England, 1327-1330 by Ian Mortimer. (2002)
"One night in August 1323 a captive rebel baron, Sir Roger Mortimer, drugged his guards and escaped from the Tower of London. With the king's men-at-arms in pursuit he fled to the south coast and sailed to France. There he was joined by Isabella, the Queen of England, who threw herself into his arms. A year later, as lovers, they returned with an invading army: King Edward II's forces crumbled before them, and Mortimer took power. He removed Edward II in the first deposition of a monarch in British history." (Amazon UK)

Diana & Jackie : maidens, mothers, myths by Jay Mulvaney. (2002)
This book compares and contrasts the lives of the two most famous women of the last century.

The book of Iris : a life of Robin Hyde by Derek Challis & Gloria Rawlinson. (2002)
Robin Hyde's son tells of the writer's tumultuous life and her many incredible adventures.

Notes of a bag lady by Margaret Mahy. (2003)
Montana Estates essay series. Margaret Mahy amusingly recounts events from her life and shows the mettle which has made her one of the world's best loved children's authors.

The compleat naturalist : a life of Linnaeus by Wilfrid Blunt ; introduction by William T. Stearn. (2001)
The life of Count von Linnaeus, a Swede first categorised the natural world and was pivotal to the age of Enlightenment is chronicled here.

Carnegie by Peter Krass. (2002)
Details how Carnegie rose from the position of a lowly bobbin-boy to that of an extremely wealthy steel magnate and the greatest philanthropist the world has ever known. Attempts to reconcile the contradictions in his character.

The Queen's story by Marcus Kiggell and Denys Blakeway. (2002)
Published to coincide with the Queen's fiftieth jubilee. Attempts to show the changes the monarchy has had to undergo within her reign.

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