Biography Recent Picks
August 2010
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At the Loch of the Green Corrie, Andrew Grieg.
"'I should like you to fish for me at the Loch of the Green Corrie,' MacCaig commanded months before his death. 'Go to Lochinver and ask for a man named Norman MacAskill - if he likes you he may tell you where it is. If you catch a fish, I shall be delighted. If you fail, then looking down from a place in which I do not believe, I shall be most amused.' The quest sounds simple and irresistible, but the loch is as demanding as it is beautiful. In the course of days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland, the search broadens. The waters of the Green Corrie finally reflect personal memoir, joy and loss, poetry, geology, land ownership in the Highlands, the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world." (Amazon.co.uk)
Voltaire : a life, Ian Davidson.
"We think of Voltaire as the epitome of the Enlightenment; in his own time he was also the most famous and controversial figure in Europe. This dazzling new biography celebrates his extraordinary life through the thousands of his letters to have survived." (Amazon.co.uk)
Lesley Blanch : inner landscapes, wilder shores, Anne Boston.
"Lesley Blanch, writer, artist and adventuress, followed her own compass in everything she did. She called herself a romantic traveller; her appetite for the exotic colours all her books. The first, The Wilder Shores of Love, became a worldwide bestseller and is still in print. Emotions, she insisted, can be transposed to places or countries and in this she was her own best example. Her guiding passion for Russia began in childhood; later she found the ‘eternal Slav’ in Romain Gary, Franco-Slav diplomat and writer, and with him embarked on a series of postings from Bulgaria to Los Angeles. After their divorce she transferred her obsession to Turkey, Persia and the Islamic East where she travelled widely, with tremendous baggage. She eventually settled on the Côte d’Azur, in a small pink villa dressed as exotically as herself. Lesley Blanch loved mystery; vivid yet elusive, she hid as much as she revealed and created a legend about her early past. In this first biography, Anne Boston draws on publishers’ archives, unpublished journals and conversations with those who knew her, to piece together the portrait of an escapist for whom ‘character plus opportunity equals fortune’." (Amazon.co.uk)
Hugh Trevor-Roper : the biography, Adam Sisman.
"Hugh Trevor-Roper's life is a rich subject for a biography - with elements of Greek tragedy, comedy and moments of high farce. Clever, witty and sophisticated, Trevor-Roper was the most brilliant historian of his generation. Until his downfall, he seemed to have everything: wealth and connections, a chair at Oxford, a beautiful country house, an aristocratic wife, and, eventually, a title of his own. Eloquent and versatile, fearless and formidable, he moved easily between Oxford and London, between the dreaming spires of scholarship and the jostling corridors of power. He developed a lucid prose style which he used to deadly effect. He was notorious for his acerbic attacks on other historians, but ultimately tainted his own reputation with a catastrophic error when he authenticated the forged 'Hitler Diaries'. Adam Sisman sheds new light on this fascinating and dramatic episode, but also shows that there was much more to Hugh Trevor-Roper's career than the fiasco of the Hitler Diaries hoax that became his epitaph. From wartime code-breaking to grilling Nazis while the trail was still fresh in 1945 (and finding Hitler's will buried inside a bottle), to his wide-ranging interests, his snobbery and his malice, his formidable post-war feuds with Evelyn Waugh, Tawney, Toynbee, Taylor and many others, and his secret and passionate affair with an older, married woman. A study in both success and failure, Adam Sisman's biography is a revealing and personal story of a remarkable life." (Amazon.co.uk)
Lonely : a memoir, Emily White.
"This boldly honest and elegantly written memoir reveals the painful and sometimes debilitating experience of living with chronic loneliness—the first book of its kind devoted exclusively to the subject. Despite having a demanding job, good friends, and a supportive family, Emily White spent many of her evenings and weekends alone at home, trying to understand why she felt so disconnected from everyone. To keep up the façade of an active social life and to hide the painful truth, the successful young lawyer often lied to those around her—and to herself. She was suffering from severe loneliness. In this insightful, soul-baring, and illuminating memoir, White reveals her battle to understand and overcome this crippling condition, and contends that chronic loneliness deserves the same attention as other mental difficulties such as depression. "Right now, loneliness is something few people are willing to admit to," she writes. "There's no need for this silence, no need for the shame and self-blame it creates. There's nothing wrong with loneliness, and we need to start acknowledging this through a wider and more open discussion of the state."" (Amazon.co.uk)
Car trouble : a childhood on four wheels, Stafford Hildred and Tim Ewbank.
"Wensley Clarkson's mum and dad lived on a different planet from most parents as he grew up in post-war London in the late 1950s and '60s. His mother spent much of her time nursing a tumbler of whisky and a bottle of pills, while his father edited one of Britain's bestselling weekly newspapers. Most children were taken to playgrounds and parks to play, but Wensley was left sitting in the front seat of the family saloon car outside pubs for hours with a bottle of pop and a packet of crisps. As a result, he got a taste for driving at a dangerously early age and created his own strange motoring netherworld away from the boozy, irresponsible, childish adults he was supposed to look up to. "Car Trouble" presents a portrait of a middle-class boy, virtually left to run his own life in one of the world's biggest cities. Yet through that neglect emerged a quick-witted survivor whose life was uniquely shaped by his childhood obsession with cars." (Amazon.co.uk)
Furious love : Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the marriage of the century, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger.
"He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Marc Antony. For a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were the creme de la creme of Hollywood royalty. Their tempestuous, on-again off-again romance, which began on the set of the colossal flop Cleopatra, made headlines worldwide. In this addictively readable, first dual biography of these legendary personalities, veteran reporter Sam Kashner and noted biographer Nancy Schoenberger demonstrate how Taylor and Burton's two marriages to each other represented much more than outlandish romance. Together, Elizabeth and Richard were a fascinating embodiment of the mores and transgressions of American culture, and even luminaries like Jacqueline Kennedy looked to them as a barometer of the times. The enduring glamour, grandeur, drama, and bravado embodied by this legendary duo in many ways gave rise to the rabid gossip and wide-eyed adoration that are the staples of today's tabloid media." (Amazon.co.uk).
Songs of blood and sword : a daughter's memoir, Fatima Bhutto.
"In September 1996, a fourteen-year-old Fatima Bhutto hid in a windowless dressing room, shielding her baby brother while shots rang out in the streets outside the family home in Karachi. This was the evening that her father Murtaza was murdered, along with six of his associates. In December 2007, Benazir Bhutto, Fatima's aunt, and the woman she had publically accused of ordering her father's murder, was assassinated in Rawalpindi. It was the latest in a long line of tragedies for one of the world's best known political dynasties. "Songs of Blood and Sword" tells the story of a family of rich feudal landlords - the proud descendents of a warrior caste - who became powerbrokers in the newly created state of Pakistan. It is an epic tale full of the romance and legend of feudal life, the glamour and licence of the international political elite and ultimately, the tragedy of four generations of a family defined by a political idealism that would destroy them. The history of this extraordinary family mirrors the tumultuous events of Pakistan itself, and the quest to find the truth behind her father's murder has led Fatima to the heart of her country's volatile political establishment. It is the history of a nation from Partition through the struggle with India over Kashmir, the Cold War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan up to the post 9/11 'War on Terror'. It is also a book about a daughter's love for her father and her search to uncover, and to understand, the truth of his life and death. It is a book about a family and nation riven by murder, corruption, conspiracy and division, written by one who has lived it, in the heart of the storm. "Songs of Blood and Sword" is a book of international significance by a young woman who has already established herself as a brave and passionate campaigner." (Amazon.co.uk).
Marcus of Umbria : what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love, Justine van der Leun.
"Tired of laboring in city cubicles, the author sublets her studio apartment, leaves her magazine job, and moves to Collelungo, Italy, population: 200. There, in the ancient city center of a historic Umbrian village, she sets up house with the handsome local gardener she met on vacation only weeks earlier. This impulsive decision launches an eye-opening series of misadventures when village life and romance turn out to be radically different from what she had imagined. Love lost with the gardener is found instead with Marcus, an abandoned English pointer that she rescues. With Marcus by her side, Justine discovers the bliss and hardship of living in the countryside: herding sheep, tending to wild horses, picking olives with her adopted Italian family, and trying her best to learn the regional dialect. Not quite up to wild boar hunting, no good at gathering mushrooms, and no mamma when it comes to making pasta, she never quite fits in with the locals who, despite their differences, take her in as one of their own. The result is a rich, comic, and unconventional portrait about learning to live and love in the most unexpected ways." (Amazon.co.uk)
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