Biography

Search:

Enter keywords...

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk Delivers Biography
Editor, Catherine Taylor

FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL:
* Bestsellers of 1999
* Editor's Choice: Best of 1999
* Preview for 2000

1999 proved to be another bumper year for biographies, from
the memoirs of mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary to Francis
Wheen's life of political visionary Karl Marx and literary
treats such as Judith Thurman's "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life
of Colette". We've compiled a list of the best biographies
published this year, as chosen by you and our expert editors,
and our best recommendations for 2000. Happy reading.

***BESTSELLERS OF 1999***
"View from the Summit"
by Sir Edmund Hillary
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385600208/entertainments08
The only way is up for Sir Edmund Hillary, who climbed to the
pinnacle of British Commonwealth pride in 1953 when he ascended
Mount Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. "View From the Summit"
takes the reader on a rugged expedition through the peaks and
troughs of the life of an ineffably modest hero.

"Karl Marx"
by Francis Wheen
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857026373/entertainments08
Revealing the man behind the beard, Francis Wheen's biography
of Karl Marx is a fascinating fresh insight into perhaps the
most famous and influential rationalist humanist of modern
history, carbuncles and all. Marx may have been a hell-raising
bohemian and a rebel but less well known is his conventional
Victorian family life.

"Rudyard Kipling"
by Andrew Lycett
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0297819070/entertainments08
A sure-handed, mellow expertise is evident in Andrew Lycett's
biography of Rudyard Kipling, one of the three finest short-
story writers in English and a poet of genius, who also happened
to be an imperial apologist tinged with racism and militarism.
Lycett manages to present both sides of this flawed individual
without giving way to facile judgement.

"Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String"
by Michael Crawford
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0712684409/entertainments08
Michael Crawford is one of Britain's best-loved entertainers,
and it's hard to believe that the ever-youthful thespian has
been in the business for 40 years. "Parcel Arrived Safely" is
an honest, generous memoir, full of hilarious anecdotes and
star-struck encounters.

"'Tis"
by Frank McCourt
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0002570807/entertainments08
"'Tis", the sequel to Frank McCourt's memoir of his Irish
Catholic boyhood, picks up the story in October 1949 with his
arrival in America. He views his return through the same sharp
eye and dark humour that distinguished "Angela's Ashes": Race
prejudice, casual cruelty and dead-end jobs.

***EDITOR'S CHOICE: BEST OF 1999***
"Rodinsky's Room"
by Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1862072574/entertainments08
In the late 1960s a Jewish scholar vanished from his reclusive
lodgings above a disused synagogue in the East End of London.
It was not until 1980 that "Rodinsky's Room" was rediscovered,
suspended in time. Artist Rachel Lichtenstein and writer Iain
Sinclair recreate the history of "The Man Who Never Was" in
this illustrated bio-mythography of the Jewish East End.

"Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette"
by Judith Thurman
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747543097/entertainments08
The scandalous French writer Colette was "the century's first
modern woman", whose long and turbulent life included male and
female lovers, a stint in vaudeville and an affair with her
stepson. "Secrets of the Flesh", Judith Thurman's acclaimed
biography, shrewdly disentangles fact from legend.

"Bruce Chatwin"
by Nicholas Shakespeare
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1860465447/entertainments08
"There seem to be as many Bruce Chatwins as people he met."
When the charismatic author of such modern classics as "In
Patagonia" and "The Songlines" died from an AIDS-related
illness in 1989, his brilliant literary career came to an
untimely end. An elusive, seductive man who constantly
reinvented himself, Chatwin was a journalist, archaeologist, art
collector and incessant traveller. Nicholas Shakespeare's vast,
Whitbread Award-short-listed biography can surely be counted as
the definitive life of the man who has been called "the ultimate
storyteller".

***PREVIEW OF 2000***
"Rasputin"
by Edvard Radzinsky
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0297819755/entertainments08
A revelatory biography of the monk and mystic who exerted a
profound and some would say malign influence over the last Tsar
of Russia and his family.

"M"
by Peter Robb
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747545995/entertainments08
Radical naturalistic painter Caravaggio enlivened the style of
Italian Renaissance art--and had a lifestyle to match. Peter
Robb, author of the bestselling "Midnight in Sicily", has
written a sensational new life of the artist formerly known as
Michelangelo Merisi.

"Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis"
by Ian Kershaw
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0713992298/entertainments08
Ian Kershaw's "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris" was one of the
bestselling biographies of 1998 and was short listed for the
Whitbread Biography Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-
Fiction among other honours. His sequel takes us through Hitler's
years of consolidation of supreme power, World War II and the
ultimate defeat of the German chancellor and of Fascism in
Europe.

******

You'll find more great books, articles, excerpts and
interviews in Amazon.co.uk's Biographies section at
Biography

BOOKS
Bestsellers
Biography
Business & Finance
Computers & Internet
Children's Books
Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
and much more....

MUSIC
Classical
Jazz & Blues
Pop
Rock
Soundtracks
and much more....

******

Book Search | Browse Categories | Bestsellers | Computer Books | Book Awards

Music Search | Browse Categories | Classical | Charts & New Releases |

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws