Advantages: Touching portrait of the actor and his family Disadvantages: The mix of biography and memoir can be a little blurred and disjointed at times
‘Godfrey’s Ghost’ is part biography, part memoir. As the author explains in his Prologue, it is a book written about his father Arnold mainly with his own young son in mind. Arnold Ridley (1896-1984) was well known before the Second World War as the dra ...
Advantages: Compelling story, well told. Disadvantages: None
...The mystery man threw off his disguise and started to run. Furious stewards gave chase. The crowd roared. A legend was born. Soon the world would know him as "the ghost runner". Bill Jones first heard of the "ghost runner" in 1984, nine years after Joh ...
Advantages: Objective biography of his good and less wonderful sides Disadvantages: None really for anybody interested in the subject
...Until I read this book, Mohandas Karamchand (better known to us as Mahatma) Gandhi had always been a very shadowy figure. I was familiar enough with the picture of the loincloth-clad man who fell victim to the bullets of an assassin shortly after the proc ...
Advantages: Witty, funny and insightful Disadvantages: None, other than it is obviously very subjective, but what do you expect?
...Julius Henry Marx, most famously known as Groucho Marx, is perhaps the wittiest comedy actor I have ever had the pleasure of hearing or watching. It's a skill he perfected with his four brothers, Chico, Harpo, Gummo and Zeppo, through the hard graft of th ...
Advantages: Well written, appropriate tone, fascinating insight into George VI Disadvantages: Photos should be on proper photo paper
Sarah Bradford's biography of George VI deals with a king who faced a great deal of adversity in his short reign. The second son of George V, he ascended to the throne on the abdication of his older brother, Edward VIII, who chose marriage to Wallis Simps ...
