Biography Recent Picks

June 2006

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	Too close to the sun : the life and times of Denys Finch Hatton by Sara Wheeler. (2006) "Denys Finch Hatton was an aristocrat of leonine nonchalance. He was 6 foot 3 inches tall, and once lifted a car out of a ditch unaided. After a dazzling career at Eton and Oxford, he sailed in 1910 for British East Africa. There, in this earthly paradise, he first had an affair with the pantherine aviatrix Beryl Markham, and then - famously - with Karen Blixen, a romance immortalised in her book "Out of Africa". 'No one who ever met him,' his "Times" obituary concluded, 'whether man or woman, old or young, white or black, failed to come under his spell.' "Too Close to the Sun" tells the true story of this now legendary love affair, and recreates in telling detail the life of one of the key figures in the mythic story of the British settlers in East Africa. Finch Hatton was a soldier in the East Africa Campaign, a white hunter, a farmer, a pilot, the epitome of the brave pioneer." (Amazon)
	Keeping Mum : a wartime childhood by Brian Thompson. (2006) "Mum and Dad - Squibs and Bert - were a complete mystery to Brian Thompson, as he grew up in Cambridge and London during the 1940s. His mother danced with the Yanks all night and slept under a fake fur coat all day, and when his father bothered to come home, he resolutely discouraged Brian in everything. Whilst other children were evacuated out of the big cities, Brian found himself travelling into London, and spent much of the war with an eccentric crowd of ribald relations." (Amazon)
	Nigella Lawson : a biography by Gilly Smith. (2005) "Nigella was born in 1960 into a family of privilege and wealth: her father was to become chancellor and her mother was an heiress. She began her career at the Sunday Times and Spectator, writing on books and restaurants. In 1992 she and fellow journalist John Diamond were married in secret in Venice. When nine-months pregnant with her first child, daughter Cosima, Nigella's younger sister Thomasina died of breast cancer, aged 32. Nigella joined Vogue as their food writer, and a second child followed: Bruno. When [Bruno] was 6 months old Nigella learned that her husband had throat cancer. John Diamond wrote powerfully of his illness in a column in the Times and then in a bestselling book... In 1997 she lost her husband. Despite such tragedy Nigella has gone on to achieve huge success." (Amazon)
	Patricia Neal : an unquiet life by Stephen Michael Shearer. (2006) "With her commanding presence, legendary actress Patricia Neal anchored such classic movies as "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "A Face in the Crowd", and "Breakfast at Tiffany's". She is perhaps most well known for her crowning acting achievement: her performance as Alma in "Hud", which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1963. Growing up in Packard, Kentucky, Neal began acting as a teenager, and her career soared after moving to New York. She performed in several Broadway plays, winning a Tony Award for Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest". She was then courted by Hollywood, and after being cast in "The Fountainhead", Neal quickly became regarded as one of the most promising actresses of the era. In 1965, several years after marrying famed children's author Roald Dahl, Neal suffered a severe and debilitating stroke, after which "Variety" mistakenly reported that she had died. After a difficult recovery, Neal returned to film acting, earning a second Academy Award nomination." (Amazon)
	The Audubon reader by John James Audubon; edited by Richard Rhodes. (2006) "John James Audubon (1785-1851) was for half a century America's dominant wildlife artist. His seminal "Birds of America", a collection of 435 life-size prints, is still a standard work, and the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation the world over. Born in Haiti, the illegitimate son of a French sea-captain, he was raised in France and sailed to America at the age of 18 where he went into business and began his study of birds. In 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy; with no other prospects, he set off on his epic quest to depict America's avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist's materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence while his devoted wife, Lucy, earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families. In 1826 he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. Lionized as the 'American woodsman', he hit just the right Romantic note for the era, and was an overnight success, finding printers for his book first in Edinburgh, then London. It was a classic American tale of triumph over adversity." (Book jacket)

I have heard you calling in the night : a memoir by Thomas Healy. (2006)
"Thomas Healy was a drunk, a fighter, sometimes a writer, often unemployed, no stranger to the Glasgow police or to the courts. He came from the Gorbals, that byword for hard men and the school of hard knocks, and his life was going nowhere other than downhill. Then one day he bought a pup - a Dobermann. He called him Martin. Gradually man and dog became unshakeable allies, the closest of comrades, the best of friends. Martin, in more ways than one, saved Thomas Healy's life." (Book jacket)

The Ralph Glasser omnibus by Ralph Glasser. (2005)
"A re-issue of three famous books in one volume. Ralph Glasser was a Russian Jewish refugee who grew up in the poorest part of Glasgow, but who overcame insuperable odds to win a scholarship to Oxford (by means of night classes). In the final book he details the wayward world of post - war London He became a psychologist and an economist, concerned for many years with development problems, mainly in the Third World, campaigning against the destruction of traditional communities." (Book jacket)

Margaret Olley : far from a still life by Meg Stewart. (2005)
"Margaret Olley paints only interior and still life scenes in her own and friends' homes - fruit, vegetables and flowers, but her life has been interesting and eventful." (Book jacket)

And from New Zealand:

Something for the birds by Jacqueline Fahey. (2006)

Titch : sevens is my game : the Gordon Tietjens story by Heather Kidd. (2006)

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