Upon discovering I was pregnant this time last year, my ponder of the forthcoming journey dwelled on two things: 1) ‘Wow I’m up the duff and gonna be a muvver!’ Who signed that off?’ etc and 2) ‘Finally, some time to deal with Bertie aka my TBR book case, so monstrous it inspired a rap,…
Tag: Biography
Titanic Lives: Migrants and Millionaires, Conmen and Crew by Richard Davenport-Hines
As a seven-year-old I was obsessed with the story of the Titanic, prompted, I’m told, by the publicity surrounding the opening of a safe recovered from the wreck in 1987. My dad bought me a (still) great book by Dr Robert D. Ballard, the professor of oceanography who located the wreck in 1985, and I repeatedly…
If Only They’d Met: The Book of Imaginary Meetings by David Cohen
In If Only They’d Met, David Cohen uses a healthy dollop of artistic license (time travel, a lack of language barriers) to imagine the conversations that might have taken place if certain famous characters of yore had had the chance to meet. There are some inspired pairings – Coco Chanel trying to get Queen Victoria…
Scarlet Women: The Scandalous Lives of Courtesans, Concubines, and Royal Mistresses, by Ian Graham
For the last post as part of this week’s International Women’s Day theme, a book that I wasn’t really sure I should be posting about during this important week: Ian Graham’s history of courtesans, concubines and mistresses, from the ancient to the modern world, across the continents and centuries. Readers, I love a tale of…
The Map of My Life: The Story of Emma Humphreys, edited by Julie Bindel and Harriet Wistrich
Next up in commemoration of International Women’s Day on March 8th, and in contrast to yesterday’s collection of relatively sedate biographies of over-achieving Victorian ladies, the story of a 20th century prostitute whose acquittal of her partner’s murder transformed the British legal system. It’s a roller coaster journey at Brontë’s Page Turners, this reading lark……
Some Eminent Women of Our Times by Mrs Henry Fawcett (1889)
Following on from last year’s set of posts, to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, this week I will be posting about a selection of books connected to women’s place in the world. To kick things off this year, a second-hand find filled with unexpected hidden treasures within. Some Eminent Women of Our Times…
The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price
Bore da! To celebrate St David’s Day – I’m an eighth Welsh, so will admit a vested interest – a book that has been hailed as the ‘first Welsh classic of the 21st century’. The author Angharad Price’s family has farmed in the Maesglasau valley for 1000 years. The Life of Rebecca Jones is an…
Her Brilliant Career -Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties, by Rachel Cooke
Her Brilliant Career is a collection of ten mini-biographies of women whose extraordinary professional achievements go some way towards debunking our understanding of 1950s women as obedient housewives happily in exile from the workplace. Cooke’s examples are drawn from vocations as wide-ranging as architecture, cookery, archaeology, gardening, film production, journalism, theatre and rally car driving,…
Frances Kray The Tragic Bride: The True Story of Reggie Kray’s First Wife by Jacky Hyams
Everything about the cover of this tale of gangster bridal woe screamed ‘THIS REALLY IS NOT YOUR SORT OF BOOK, BRONTE’: the Woman’s-Own-headline-esque title, the rose-between-two-Kray-shaped-thorns picture of its heroine, and the melodramatic front blurb trumpeting ‘the first full account of the beautiful, innocent young woman who married Reggie Kray – and became trapped in…
Elizabeth The Great by Elizabeth Jenkins
We are almost at the end of ‘Monarchy Week’, having wished Elizabeth II a very happy birthday yesterday (I for one loved that bright green outfit – nothing says ‘I’m not dead yet, Charles’ as well as fluorescent green). Before we sign off, here’s a book about that first Queenly Liz. As a 9 year…
Brontë's Page Turners 