Showing posts with label biography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biography. Show all posts
Sunday, February 26, 2023

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

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Dreams From My Father is Barack Obama’s early autobiography, written before he went to law school. It details his early years and basically ...
Friday, October 14, 2022

El balcón en invierno by Luis Landero

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El balcón en invierno by Luis Landero is beautiful, if at times frustrating book. It could all be said much more simply, succinctly and perh...
Tuesday, April 5, 2022

The Life of Lord Byron by John Galt

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John Galt published his Life of Lord Byron in 1830, just six years after the poet's death in Missolonghi, in what is now modern Greece a...
Monday, March 28, 2022

G. F. Watts by G. K. Chesterton

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GK meets GF sounds like the title of one of those mid-twentieth century albums when a producer with an eye for a buck teamed up some ancient...
Tuesday, January 19, 2021

A Postillion Struck by Lightning by Dirk Bogarde

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A Postillion Struck by Lightning is the first part of Dirk Bogarde’s seven volume autobiography. First published as long ago as 1977, it has...
Saturday, January 16, 2021

Mary Swann by Carol Shields

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I have just completed four years of thinking through a project. There were several false starts, many rejected, some reworked ideas. What I ...
Thursday, October 1, 2020

Giacomo Puccini by Wakeling Dry

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  Another Project Gutenberg book is a short biography and critical appraisal of Puccini, written around the time of Madame Butterfly's p...
Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The Journey of Anders Sparrman by Per Wästberg

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To say that The Journey of Anders Sparrman , by Per Wästberg is a tale of two halves would transcend cliché. Rarely will one encounter such ...
Saturday, July 25, 2020

A Tale Of Love And Darkness by Amos Oz

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In A Tale Of Love And Darkness Amos Oz writes an autobiography of his early years. Though written from a much later perspective, this memoi...
Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Gainsborough, A Portrait by James Hamilton

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Gainsborough, A Portrait by James Hamilton is much, much more than a biography of a painter, though if it were only that it would still be ...
Tuesday, July 14, 2020

The Life of Ezra Pound by Noel Stock

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A review of The Life of Ezra Pound by Noel Stock must begin by acknowledging the phenomenal achievement of its author. It is comprehensive,...
Monday, July 6, 2020

Verdi: Man and musician by Frederick J Crowest

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I began reading this on the bus coming back from Valencia, having consumed Byron’s Corsair on the way up, before a performance of Il Corsar...
Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Perfect Hostage – A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi by Justin Wintle

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Justin Wintle’s Perfect Hostage – A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi is not a book with a particularly perfect title. It sounds like it will be a s...
Friday, January 10, 2014

Doves Of War by Paul Preston

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Writers of fiction are often accused of forcing their characters to jump through ever more fanciful hoops to satisfy a presumed need for eng...
Thursday, November 3, 2011

Beyond the Schoolboy Fringe - Untold Stories by Alan Bennett

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Untold Stories by Alan Bennett is something of a pot pourri. It starts with an autobiographical exploration of social and family origins, an...
Thursday, August 25, 2011

Wole Soyinka’s Aké

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I expected to get a lot more from Wole Soyinka’s Aké than I did. It’s not every day that the childhood memoirs of a Nobel Laureate come to h...