Biography Recent Picks
September 2009
The title-underlined links will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.
Me : the authorised biography, Byron Rogers.
Byron Rogers' two previous biographies have been real critical and sales successes: 7000 hardbacks sold of The Man Who Went into the West, three printings of the paperback already, the award of the James Tait Black Prize and reviews praising a work of genius; The Last Englishman hailed by Simon Jenkins as a minor masterpiece, serialised on Radio 4, five hardback printings alone. Now Byron tackles, in his own idiosyncratic and compulsively readable way, a third biographical subject: himself. Several years ago he started receiving letters forwarded to him by his then-employer, the Daily Telegraph Magazine. But these weren't the usual readers' letters. These were passionate, not to say, steamy, love letters. They were also from women he'd never met. But they seemed to know all about him, the illustrious journalist...Rogers' quest to find out about this other Mr Rogers - not your normal kind of imposter, but one who did you the double-edged favour of spreading far and wide your undeserved reputation for unbridled priapism - is what sets off this strange and hilarious memoir. (Amazon.co.uk)
The first tycoon : the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, T.J. Stiles.
A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation. (Book Jacket)
A tug on the thread, by Diana Quick.
'Be sure you marry a pure-blooded Englishman.' The memory of this inexplicable command to nine-year-old Diana Quick by her terminally ill grandfather was to remain buried for years. It wasn't until she played Julia Flyte in the celebrated Granada TV dramatisation of Brideshead Revisited that it resurfaced, setting her on a quest to uncover the hidden enigma of her father's family in India. Gradually Diana unpeeled the layers of family secrets that revealed changed names, the stigma of being 'country born', her grandfather's obsessive ambition for his son. This knowledge helped her both to understand her own heritage and to interpret the roles she played on stage and screen. It also gave her pride in her family's history: the bravery of her great-grandmother who, as a child, narrowly escaped being murdered during the 1857 Indian Mutiny; her father's struggles as a penniless student in a foreign country. (Amazon.co.uk)
Chanel : her life, her world, the woman behind the legend, Edmonde Charles-Roux ; translated from the French by Nancy Amphoux.
She revolutionized how women looked. She banned corsets, shortened skirts and scented the world with Chanel No.5. Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was an icon. But how closely did her carefully moulded image match the truth? Born illegitimate and raised in an orphanage - not by the two aunts that she invented - Gabrielle Chanel fought constantly to escape the mundane. She rose from back-street milliner to become the head of a vast business empire, and socialised with Picasso, Stravinsky and Cocteau. Edmonde Charles-Roux also reveals one of Chanel's best-kept secrets - her love affair with a prodigal German spy. Chanel's legend did not fade with her death, and nor has the mark of sheer elegance that she left upon the world of fashion. This is the living woman behind the vibrant legend. (Amazon.co.uk)
Mrs Simpson : secret lives of the Duchess of Windsor, Charles Higham.
The romance of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor has been called the greatest love story of the twentieth century. However with the first edition of this biography in 1988, highly acclaimed author Charles Higham used explosive secret intelligence files to reveal a far darker side to their forty-year relationship. Now the author has re-visited and updated his international bestseller, resulting in a fascinating, and at times shocking expose of Wallis Simpson. New and disturbing revelations have come to light, adding to the now classic story of an illegitimate child from Baltimore who rose to become the mistress of the king of England and brought about his abdication. Wallis gained control of the Monarch through sexual techniques learned in China, but risked losing everything through a reckless, long-term affair with William Bullitt, US Ambassador to France. Newly released FBI files demonstrate, as no other source has done, the extent of the Duchess' espionage activities and how she conspired against Britain in the interest of Hitler. This is an intimate and extraordinary account of the woman who very nearly became the Queen of England. (Amazon.co.uk)
Florence Nightingale : the woman and her legend, Mark Bostridge.
In this book, the first major biography of Florence Nightingale in over fifty years, Mark Bostridge draws on a wealth of unpublished material, including previously unseen family papers, to throw significant new light on this extraordinary woman's life and character. By disentangling elements of myth from the reality, Bostridge has written a vivid and readable account of one of the most iconic figures in modern British history. (Book Jacket)
Kiyo's story : a Japanese-American family's quest for the American dream, by Kiyo Sato.
In this memoir, originally published as Dandelion Through the Crack, first generation Japanese-American Sato chronicles the tribulations her family endured in America through the Great Depression and WWII. Emigrating from Japan in 1911, Sato's parents built a home and cultivated a marginal plot of land into a modest but sustaining fruit farm. One of nine children, Sato recounts days on the farm playing with her siblings and lending a hand with child-care, house cleaning and grueling farm work. Her anecdotes regarding the family's devotion to one another despite their meager lifestyle (her father mending a little brother's shoe with rubber sliced from a discarded tire) gain cumulative weight, especially when hard times turn tragic: in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the Satos find themselves swept up by U.S. authorities and shuffled through multiple Japanese internment camps, ending up in a desert facility while the farm falls to ruin. Sato's memoir is a poignant, eye-opening testament to the worst impulses of a nation in fear, and the power of family to heal the most painful wounds. (Publishers Weekly)
Wildflower : an extraordinary life and untimely death in Africa, Mark Seal.
Vanity Fair contributing editor Seal tells the mesmerizing story of the captivating life and shocking death of world-renowned naturalist Joan Root. (Publisher summary)
From New Zealand:
Ngaio Marsh : her life in crime, Joanne Drayton.
One of the celebrated "Queens of Crime" Ngaio Marsh was probably New Zealand's first million copy author. Her tightly written, stylish whodunits were perennial favourites, rating alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. She was also seriously in love with the theatre, and her triumphant return to New Zealand to establish the Court Theatre in Christchurch saw her feted and honoured with the title Dame of the British Empire. With her coterie of 'luvvies' - the handsome gay boys who were a part of her entourage and her proteges in many fields of the arts, and her impeccable landed gentry upbringing, Dame Ngaio dominated the New Zealand performing arts scene for many years before her death. Dr Jo Drayton, award winning art historian and writer was awarded the Alexander Turnbull fellowship for 2007 and has used the time to complete the research and writing of this her most exciting book to date. Here is the fascinating biography of Ngaio Marsh, a young woman of ambiguous sexuality who reveled in the abandon of the Bohemian Riviera, whose spurned suitor committed suicide and whose scintillating murder mysteries all took their inspiration, setting or characters from the heady life she enjoyed. (Amazon.co.uk)
Helen Clark : a political life, Denis Welch.
Helen Clark led the Labour Party for 15 years, resurrecting it from the rifts of Rogernomics before becoming one of New Zealand's most successful Prime Ministers. Her term as Prime Minister lasted nine years. In 2006 Forbes magazine listed her as the 20th most powerful woman in the world. Clark's time in politics stretches from the anti-war protests of 1968 through the rise of feminism, environmentalism and market forces, to the global financial crisis of 2008 - 40 years of extraordinary political change. Remarkably, no proper political biography of Helen Clark has been written before. Here, for the first time, is the full story of how Clark rose to power and held both the Labour Party and the New Zealand Government together, cementing her place in our country's political history. This is an unauthorised biography. (Fishpond)
Check your card I New fiction, DVD and cd lists I How to place a reserve I Borrowing I Contact us
