biography – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: Caring Conservationists Who Are Changing Our Planet, by Kate Peridot, illustrated by Sarah Long

Caring Conservationists Who Are Changing Our Planet.

Travel around the world and discover the stories of 20 conservationists and the endangered animals they are helping to save, including the orangutang, blue whale, Indian tiger, rhino, honeybee, Komodo dragon and sea turtle. Positive, uplifting and packed full of information, with 20 fun activities for children to try, this book will show children no one is too small to make a difference.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Caring-Conservationists-Who-Changing-Planet/dp/1529506158 https://www.amazon.com/Caring-Conservationists-Who-Changing-Planet/dp/1529506158

Review: Stephen From The Inside Out, by Susie Stead

Publication date: 2 Apr 2021
Category: Biography / Memoir
Paperback price: £9.99
Page count: tbc
ISBN: 978-1-911293-68-2
E-book price: £3.99
ISBN: 978-1-911293-67-5

Stephen struggled for most of his life with severe mental health issues, endured 25 years inside British psychiatric wards and never felt acceptable outside, in the ‘normal’ world. People found him difficult and demanding yet on the inside was a man with wide interests, deep longings and an integrity that would not be compromised, whatever the cost.
This is his story, inside and out; a story of grave injustices, saints and bigots, a faithful dog, a wild woman, a fairy godmother and angels hidden in plain sight.
It is also the story of the author, Susie, who started off by wanting to ‘help’
Stephen ‘get better,’ and instead found herself profoundly challenged by a
friendship she did not expect.
Idiosyncratic, unorthodox, tragic, yet at times hilarious – this book not only tells a compelling and important story but will be vital reading for anyone who cares about mental health in our contemporary world or who might just be open to a different way of seeing: from the inside out

Review: The Queen of Romance, by Liz Jones

18 MARCH 2021
Market: Biography
Paperback
ISBN:9781912905119
Price: £9.99

Blurb

The first biography of the bestselling author and journalist Marguerite Jervis.
Daughter of an officer of the Indian Medical Corps, Marguerite Florence Laura Jarvis (1886 – 1964) was born in Burma and became one of the most successful novelists of her time. During the course of her 60-year career, Marguerite published over 150 books, with 11 novels adapted for film, including The Pleasure Garden (1925), the directorial debut of Alfred Hitchcock. In her heyday she sold hundreds of thousands of novels, but is now largely forgotten; under numerous pseudonyms she wrote for newspapers, women’s magazines and the silent movie screen; she married one of Wales most controversial literary figures, Caradoc Evans. She also trained as an actress and was a theatrical impresario. Known variously as Mrs Caradoc Evans, Oliver Sandys, Countess Barcynska and many other pseudonyms, who was she really?

Liz Jones has dug deep beneath the tale told in Marguerite Jervis’s own
somewhat romanticised memoir to reveal what made this driven and
determined woman. And what turned her from a spoilt child of the English
middle classes to a workaholic who could turn her hand to any literary
endeavour and who became a runaway popular success during the most
turbulent years of the 20th century.

Review: The Magic of Terry Pratchett, by Marc Burrows

Published By: Pen & Sword – Imprint: White Owl
Price: £13.99
ISBN: 9781526765505
Published: 6th July 2020

The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain’s best-selling living author*, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. Best known for the Discworld series, his work has been translated into 37 languages and performed as plays on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. Journalist, comedian and Pratchett fan Marc Burrows delves into the back story of one of UK’s most enduring and beloved authors; from his childhood in the Chiltern Hills, to his time as a journalist, and the journey that would take him – via more than sixty best-selling books – to an OBE, a knighthood and national treasure status. The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the result of painstaking archival research alongside interviews with friends and contemporaries who knew the real man under the famous black hat, helping to piece together the full story of one of British literature’s most remarkable and beloved figures for the very first time.

*Now disqualified on both counts.

Review: Hidden Wyndham, by Amy Binns

New biography explores the secret love life of celebrated author John Wyndham

Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters includes previously unpublished love letters from The Day of the Triffids author

The first biography of the life of science fiction author John Wyndham is now available. It includes the first publication of a collection of love letters to his long-term partner and later wife, Grace Wilson.

Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters, by Dr Amy Binns, author and senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), explores Wyndham’s wealthy but traumatic childhood. This was transformed by a spell at the first mixed-sex public school Bedales from 1915 to 1918, the source of the strange but fervent feminism of Consider Her Ways and Trouble with Lichen.

The biography covers his formative years as a pulp fiction writer, his experiences as a censor during the Blitz and his part in the Normandy landings. He described his struggles with his conscience in a moving series of letters to Grace, the teacher with whom he had a 36 year love affair.

After the war, he transformed the searing experiences of wartime London, France and Germany into a series of bestselling novels: The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos and The Kraken Wakes. But he remained intensely private, shunning fame and finally retiring to live anonymously with Grace in the countryside he loved.

Hidden Wyndham is distributed by Gardners Books and is now available on the Waterstones and Amazon websites, in Kindle and in paperback edition.

Review: ‘Frankie’, by James Essinger and Sandra Koutzenko

Frankie: The Woman Who Saved Millions from Thalidomide

Thalidomide: patented in Germany as a non-toxic cure-all for sleeplessness and morning sickness. A wonder drug with no side-effects.

We know differently now.

Today, thalidomide is a byword for tragedy and drug reform – a sign of what happens when things aren’t done ‘the right way’. But when it was released in the 1950s, it was the best thing since penicillin – something that doctors were encouraged to prescribe to all of their patients. Nobody could anticipate what it actually did: induce sleeping, prevent morning sickness, and drastically harm unborn children.

But, whilst thalidomide rampaged and ravaged throughout most of the West, it never reached the United States. It landed on the desk of Dr Frances Kelsey, and there it stayed as she battled hierarchy, patriarchy, and the Establishment in an effort to prove that it was dangerous. Frankie is her story.

Purchase Links

https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/frankie/9780750991919/

Promo Post: ‘Stand Against Injustice’, by Michelle Diskin Bates #LoveBooksTours

Blurb

On April 26, 1999, BBC TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered outside her home in London. Barry George was convicted and imprisoned for the murder but was later acquitted after an appeal and retrial. Stand Against Injustice is the powerful memoir of the sister of Barry George. For the first time, Michelle Diskin Bates tells her story, the human side and truth behind one of recent history’s most high profile and damaging miscarriages of justice whose life is inextricably interwoven in the drama, the trauma, the conspiracy and the fight for justice. A self-confessed ‘ordinary housewife’, Michelle’s voice weaves the personal everyday struggles that bring depth, color, and passion into what is an extraordinary account. A troubled childhood weighted with overbearing responsibility, fear and insecurity, depression, and the challenges of marriage and adult relationships, Michelle’s life has never been easy. However, the one constant in her life – her faith in God – underpins and provides the foundation upon which she now stands – against injustice.

Buy Link https://amzn.to/2pc2i5o

This was going to be a review post, but the book didn’t turn up in time. However, I am going to review the book at a later date.

Review: ‘Charles and Ada’, by James Essinger #BlogTour #Rachel’sRandomResources #ConradPress #OneDayBlogBlitz

Charles and Ada: the computer’s most passionate partnership

The partnership of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace was one that would change science forever.

They were an unlikely pair – one the professor son of a banker, the other the only child of an acclaimed poet and a social-reforming mathematician – but perhaps that is why their work is so revolutionary.

They were the pioneers of computer science, creating plans for what could have been the first computer. They each saw things the other did not; it may have been Charles who designed the machines, but it was Ada who could see their potential.

But what were they like? And how did they work together? Using previously unpublished correspondence between them , Charles and Ada explores the relationship between two remarkable people who shared dreams far ahead of their time.

Purchase Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charles-Ada-Computers-Passionate-Partnership/dp/0750990953

US – https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Ada-Computers-Passionate-Partnership/dp/0750990953

Review: ‘Lady of the House’, by Charlotte Furness

Blurb

This book tells the true stories of three genteel women who were born, raised, lived and died within the world of England’s Country Houses. This is not the story of ‘seen and not heard’ women, these are incredible women who endured tremendous tragedy and worked alongside their husbands to create a legacy that we are still benefitting from today.

Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville was the second born child of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire who married her aunt’s lover, raised his illegitimate children and reigned supreme as Ambassadress over the Parisian elite.

Lady Mary Isham lived at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire with her family where, despite great tragedy, she was responsible for developing a house and estate whilst her husband remained ‘the silent Baronet’.

Elizabeth Manners, Duchess of Rutland hailed from Castle Howard and used her upbringing to design and build a Castle and gardens at Belvoir suitable for a Duke and Duchess that inspired a generation of country house interiors.

These women were expected simply to produce children, to be active members of society, to give handsomely to charity and to look the part. What these three remarkable women did instead is develop vast estates, oversee architectural changes, succeed in business, take a keen role in politics as well as successfully managing all the expectations of an aristocratic lady.

Bonus Review #2: ‘Margaret Tudor: The Life of Henry VIII’s Sister’, by Melanie Clegg

Published by: Pen & Sword
ISBN: 9781473893153
Published: 19th November 2018

Price: £19.99

Format: Hardback

Blurb

When the thirteen year old Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, married King James IV of Scotland in a magnificent proxy ceremony held at Richmond Palace in January 1503, no one could have guessed that this pretty, redheaded princess would go on to have a marital career as dramatic and chequered as that of her younger brother Henry VIII.

Left widowed at the age of just twenty three after her husband was killed by her brother’s army at the battle of Flodden, Margaret was made Regent for her young son and was temporarily the most powerful woman in Scotland – until she fell in love with the wrong man, lost everything and was forced to flee the country. In a life that foreshadowed that of her tragic, fascinating granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots, Margaret hurtled from one disaster to the next and ended her life abandoned by virtually everyone: a victim both of her own poor life choices and of the simmering hostility between her son, James V and her brother, Henry VIII.

My Review

Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Ever heard of her?

As a child she lived in luxury in the royal nursery with Prince Henry and Princess Mary. There were others but they died young, and Prince Arthur had his own household elsewhere. At the age of 13, after losing her brother Prince Arthur, her mother and then her grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Princess Margaret married King James IV of Scotland, who was 29.

That’s about the time her life got complicated. Poor lass, her first husband slept around on her, her second and third husbands were abusive theives, her brother was a dick to her, she was separated from her daughter, and people who were supposed to support her didn’t. She wasn’t the most intelligent or educated woman and didn’t really care for politics, but she did her best when she was dropped in the muck, to help her son on to the throne and keep him there. She tried to act as peace maker between her husband, and then her son, and her brother, however the distrust between monarchs put paid to all her efforts.

This is a sympathetic and easy to read biography of a rather unfairly obscure but important woman in a formative time in early modern Europe.