Tag: biography

Wifedom

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life

by Anna Funder (Knopf, 2023)

audiobook read by Jane Slavin & Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood (Bolinda, 2023)

Book cover: “Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life” by Anna Funder (Knopf, 2023); audiobook read by Jane Slavin & Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood (Bolinda, 2023)

The reconstructed biography of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a remarkable woman whom the patriarchal gatekeepers, when not omitting her altogether, render anonymous as merely George Orwell’s wife. Funder confronts the historical record to wrest Eileen’s due back from oblivion. Orwell himself emerges greatly diminished.

Hello, Darlings! The Authorized Biography of Kenny Everett

Hello, Darlings! The Authorized Biography of Kenny Everett

by James Hogg & Robert Sellers (Bantam, 2013)

Hogg_Sellers_Hello Darlings

Kenny Everett once wrote an autobiography; or rather, he didn’t. It was ghost-written by a friend and Kenny didn’t even read it. He wasn’t interested in the past. For those who are, Hogg and Sellers’ comprehensively researched biography is well worth reading.

 

 

Orwell’s Cough

Orwell’s Cough: Diagnosing the Medical Maladies & Last Gasps of the Great Writers

by John Ross (Oneworld, 2013)

Ross_Orwell's Cough

Whereas the medical diagnoses alone would have made for a much shorter book, (Dr) Ross has used the subject of medicine as a unifying theme by which to biograph and contextualise a dozen famous writers, astutely dissecting their lives and (squalid) times.

 

The King’s Speech

The King’s Speech

by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi (Quercus, 2010)

Logue_Conradi_The King's Speech

This significant if straightforward dual biography of speech therapist Lionel Logue and King George VI, supplemented by excerpts from both men’s correspondence, will be of particular interest to those familiar with the film but not the liberties this took in dramatising events.

 

42 Word Review: Seinfeld – the Making of an American Icon by Jerry Oppenheimer

Seinfeld: the Making of an American Icon; the Unauthorised Biography

by Jerry Oppenheimer (HarperCollins, 2002)

Oppenheimer_Seinfeld

Further to Oppenheimer’s curious use of the definite article in prefacing ‘unauthorised biography’, Australians may question his authority, finding it difficult to read beyond the slipshod fact-checking (page seven) of placing Seinfeld’s father at a WWII army base in Rock Hampton [sic].

 

Derelict Space Sheep