Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2004-02-05
Dewey code: 941
RRP: £9.99
Price: £0.01
Review The Courtesan's Revenge: The Life of Harriette Wilson, the Woman Who Blackmailed the King / Faber and Faber:
Edition: Open market ed
Publication date: 1999-03-04
RRP: £10.99
Price: £3.50
Review Desert Flower / Virago Press Ltd:Waris Dirie's story puts "rags to riches" to shame. The "Desert Flower" started life as one of 12 children of a Somali nomad family, a people with no written culture, where the basic unit of currency is the camel. Faced at 12 with the prospect of marriage to a 60-year-old man she didn't know, she broke all the rules and ran away, surviving a traumatic trek across the desert to end up in London, as a maid to the Somalian Ambassador. It was in McDonalds that her striking beauty was "discovered", leading to a career in modelling and another as an ardent campaigner against female genital mutilation (circumcision). As a novel it would be unbelievable, as Waris survives circumcision, rape, arranged marriage, a lion attack-you name it, she's lived through it. But the book is remarkable less for its deliberately dramatic set pieces, and more for its haunting evocation of the little-told life of Somalian nomads, seen from a child's telling perspective, where life centres on the beloved camels, the horrors of womanhood are still an exciting mystery, and the nights are filled with the smell of frankincense. Desert Flower is a recollection of such gentle beauty that "rags to riches" seems hardly appropriate. -Alan Stewart.
Publication date: 2007-02-01
RRP: £11.99
Price: £3.13
Review In the Name of Honour / Virago Press Ltd:
Publication date: 2001-10-01
Dewey code: 362.1981780092
RRP: £12.95
Price: £4.02
Review Inconceivable: A Woman's Triumph Over Despair and Statistics / Broadway Books:
Publication date: 2003-09-02
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.24
Price: £7.60
Review Women from Another Planet?: Our Lives in the Universe of Autism / AuthorHouse:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2006-12-26
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £11.04
Price: £6.16
Review Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England / Ballantine Books:
Publication date: 2001-05-08
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £4.99
Price: £1.55
Review The Hated Wife: Carrie Kipling 1862-1939 / Faber and Faber:Adam Nicolson, author of books on the Dome and on Windsor Castle, is no stranger to writing about lost causes, and in The Hated Wife: Carrie Kipling 1862-1939 he does a fair job of rescuing Rudyard Kipling's wife from the battering she has received from biographers of Britain's last great white poet. Nicolson recreates the tragedy that beset their marriage-the poet's love for her brother, the death of their children, Kipling's own drawn-out illness-and makes the case, if not for sympathy (he indulges in some rather biting criticism of Caroline Kipling himself), then at least for empathy. -Miles Taylor.
Publication date: 2007-10-10
Dewey code: 355.033073092
RRP: £17.99
Price: £0.22
Review CONFIDANTE, THE: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy / St Martins Press:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-07-03
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.00
Review How Do You Want Me? / Ebury Press:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2002-10-03
Dewey code: 320
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.59
Review The Autobiography / Arrow Books Ltd:Betty Boothroyd: The Autobiography has Baroness Boothroyd of Sandwell, with her characteristic endearing zeal, recounting her trail from working-class Dewsbury to Westminster. The daughter of a weftman, she passes from rags to political riches with the Labour Party, to which she claims an umbilical loyalty. After a now-notorious spell with the Tiller Girls, she started working full-time for the Labour Party, and eventually, after four attempts at securing a seat, she finally won West Bromwich in 1973-the constituency she was to represent for 27 years. Pro-Europe, pro-choice, anti-capital punishment, she was made a junior Whip in 1974 and Deputy Speaker in 1987 before finally succeeding Jack Weatherill to become the 155th-and first female-Speaker of the House of Commons in 1992. By the time of her retirement from the Chair in July 2000, her "wigless informality" had seen her become one of the most recognisable and popular faces, not just in the House or West Bromwich, but throughout the country. The woman Private Eye cruelly and unfairly accused of having "all the charm of carbon monoxide gas in an airtight room" airs her story with unstuffy grace and emphatic integrity. Much has been made of the large sum the publishers paid for her story, but Boothroyd chooses discretion over revelation in describing her path from model to Madame Speaker: while she discusses her brief experience training with the Tiller Girls, she includes no photographs from the period, and declines to elaborate further on the three proposals of marriage she claims to have received. Nevertheless, she assesses her political career and tenure on the Chair with splendid candour, from the fight to rid the Party of Militant, ding-dongs with party Whips, the "cash for questions" controversy, Nelson Mandela's first state visit to London, Gerry Adams' and Martin McGuinness' refusal to take the Parliamentary oath, to the fuss over her banning women MPs from breastfeeding during committee. Never constrained by doctrine but always fiercely loyal to her principles, her motto as Speaker, "I Speak to Serve", fittingly sums up the distinguished, quietly extraordinary political career of this much-loved Yorkshire terrier. -David Vincent.
Edition: Rev. Ed
Publication date: 2006-07-01
Dewey code: 362.196852620092
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.67
Review Empty: A Story of Anorexia / Fleming H. Revell:
Publication date: 2008-07-02
Dewey code: 613.04244
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.15
Review Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45 / Health Communications:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-08-08
Dewey code: 797.14092
RRP: £10.55
Price: £10.49
Review Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed / W. W. Norton & Co.:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2005-01-21
Dewey code: 790
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.00
Review No Woman No Cry / Pan Books:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2002-10-03
Dewey code: 305
RRP: £9.99
Price: £0.19
Review Warrior Queens (Women In History) / Phoenix:
Publication date: 2006-09-27
Dewey code: 508.092
RRP: £19.95
Price: £14.25
Review Wild and Fearless: The Life of Margaret Fountaine / Peter Owen Ltd:
Publication date: 2008-04-17
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.00
Review Unbroken Spirit: A true story of a girl's struggle to escape from abuse: The True Story of a Girl's Struggle to Break Free / Hodder Paperback:
Creator: Martin Jarvis
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-04-17
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.90
Review Richmal Crompton: The Woman Behind William / Sutton Publishing Ltd:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2008-04-29
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £9.77
Price: £5.43
Review Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations / Farrar Straus Giroux:
Publication date: 2003-10-16
RRP: £25.00
Price: £12.99
Review Margaret Thatcher: Iron Lady v.2: Iron Lady Vol 2 / Jonathan Cape Ltd:
| Models & Brands:
The Courtesan's Revenge: The Life of Harriette Wilson, the Woman Who Blackmailed the King, Desert Flower, In the Name of Honour, Inconceivable: A Woman's Triumph Over Despair and Statistics, Women from Another Planet?: Our Lives in the Universe of Autism, Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, The Hated Wife: Carrie Kipling 1862-1939, CONFIDANTE, THE: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy, How Do You Want Me?, The Autobiography, Empty: A Story of Anorexia, Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45, Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed, No Woman No Cry, Warrior Queens (Women In History), Wild and Fearless: The Life of Margaret Fountaine, Unbroken Spirit: A true story of a girl's struggle to escape from abuse: The True Story of a Girl's Struggle to Break Free, Richmal Crompton: The Woman Behind William, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, Margaret Thatcher: Iron Lady v.2: Iron Lady Vol 2 |
