Gethin says: I think it's a book that everyone should have. It's a brutally honest account of how David Nott steps away from his day-to-day life as a general and vascular surgeon and goes to work in the heart of war zones around the world. It does go into quite graphic detail about situations, but also talks about the impact of his experiences and what he's learned. The part of the book I found the most touching was a memory of the daughter of the elderly Princess' housekeeper.

We'd be walking, and she'd be telling me about the world and elections and how important they were. And then she would kneel down in front of me, looking me right in the eye and say 'I want a solemn promise from you' even though I don't think I knew what a solemn promise was at that stage. She would say 'You are never, ever not to vote. You must promise me. When you are allowed to vote you are never, ever to fail to do so. You don't realise how far we've come. Promise me.' For the next three years, Sophia made Drovna promise again and again." The audiobook narration by Tania Rodrigues was superb. The accent was British, utterly delightful and easy to follow. I did have trouble with the Indian names, but this never became a problem. The written book and the narration both get five stars.Sometimes you hear biographers complain that all the great figures have gone ... In this book, her confident and compelling debut, the BBC journalist and presenter Anita Anand leaves that argument in shreds ... Anand has triumphantly rescued Sophia from the pampered oblivion in which a fearful Raj sought to bury her. In doing so, she traces the excruciating double binds, emotional as much as political, that tied imperial Britain to the jewel in its crown * Boyd Tonkin, Independent Book of the Week * Sophia is the sort of remarkable, almost unbelievable untold true story that every writer dreams of chancing upon. A wonderful debut, written with real spirit and gusto. Anita Anand has produced a winner' William Dalrymple Anand was then on maternity leave for the first of her two children (Hari,12 and Ravi, 8) with husband Simon Singh, a scientist and science writer. She became intrigued by the rare and forgotten Indian suffragette in this old photo. “Sophia Duleep Singh had this fascinating story, as the daughter of the last Sikh ruler of Punjab, Maharajah Duleep Singh — also the man who was compelled to hand over the Kohinoor to British forces. As a Punjabi myself, I felt I had to tell this story.”

Sophia seems to have been a woman in search of a purpose in life. At one point she became a famous socialite and fashion icon; then a successful dog breeder and show competitor; and then abandoned it all to throw herself into the suffragette cause (she was never prosecuted for her militant activities because of her connection to her godmother Queen Victoria). Her life intersected with a whole cast of famous characters and some who should be more famous but aren't--like her, they were women and/or non-whites and their stories were systematically hidden from public view. Laura says: I love Louise O'Neill. She's a beautiful Irish writer who came to prominence a few years ago for her novel, Asking For It. Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2017). Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond. Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 978-1-63557-076-2.Anand was privately educated at Bancroft's School in Woodford Green in Redbridge, east London. [4] Anand then entered King's College, London, in 1990, graduating with a BA in English in 1993. Wow, I really loved this book. All the way through, except for the very beginning, which now in retrospect I think was good. I was going to give the book four stars. By the end, I realized I had come to know Sophia so very well and I liked her so very much that I simply had to give the book five stars. I was happy that the author focused on Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876 – 1948), even though any of the siblings could have been the focus of a book. We learned about the Suffrage movement at school, and also some of the prominent figures that spearheaded the movement and pushed for progress for the advancement of women and their rights, specifically the right to vote. Anand, Anita (27 September 2005). "At the heart of a heated debate". BBC News . Retrieved 21 October 2021.

Joe says: If somebody said they had time to read one more book before they died, I'd say read this. It's incredibly entertaining. It's about murder, really. But it's about murder committed by a group of highly educated, brilliant young people.Sophia's contributions to the Suffrage movement were extensive, part of Emmeline Pankhurst's inner circle - and she used her elevated status to work towards the cause. I knew literally nothing about the Maharaja Duleep Singh, Sophia and her siblings, and this book was an absorbing biographical insight into their lives. Anand married science writer Simon Singh in 2007. The couple have two sons and live in Richmond, London. [17] [18] Levin, Angela (7 August 2012). "My perfect weekend: Anita Anand, radio and TV presenter". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 16 December 2018.

A fascinating biography of a historical figure who, along with her family, deserves to be better known. Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire and raised in Britain, with Queen Victoria as her godmother. Her father presented the Koh-I-Noor diamond to the Queen. She's even more than the title implies--a loving if sometimes exasperated sibling, a champion dog breeder, a fashion plate, and a woman open to learning from people and situations, and changing--and not afraid to use her influence and intelligence to change the world. Vivid and compelling ... Anand writes with the vigour and imaginative reach of a novelist. The many horrors of her enthralling narrative are lightened with judicious flashes of dry wit and a fine eye for detail ... A gripping, emotionally powerful story * New Statesman * In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, a realm that stretched from the lush Kashmir Valley to the craggy foothills of the Khyber Pass and included the mighty cities of Lahore and Peshawar. It was a territory irresistible to the British, who plundered everything, including the fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond. In 2022, Anand collaborated with historian William Dalrymple to create the podcast Empire, which examines the British East India Company and British involvement and influence on India. [9] The pair had previously worked together on the book Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond.

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But most of all she obsessed about her pooches, refusing suggestions that she might put the dogs in steerage with her maid, and “adamant that she was the best person to care for them, she fed the dogs on fine cuts of meat and the occasional nip of brandy”. Anand herself is most animated when depicting the suffragette movement, from the brutal force-feeding of prisoners to the concerted molestation of women demonstrators by the police. But even though these point to the contemporary horrors of the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo or the targeting of women by police at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, the book is happy to treat the past as sequestered terrain, steadfastly resisting any connections to the contemporary. In part, this may reflect its own unease with the character it has chosen to make central in movements that were far larger than her. But it may also be because the book goes to some pains to avoid being political. In spite of its critique of British rule in India, the words colonialism, imperialism or decolonisation never appear. It seems caught in two minds, unsure whether it is a story about a colourful individual, or about the social upheavals that pulled in disparate people: the working class as well as princesses; interlopers as well as natives. Anand has presented the BBC Radio 4 show Midweek, and on television she has been a presenter on the Heaven and Earth Show. She has co-presented the Daily Politics on BBC Two with Andrew Neil from September 2008, with a break for maternity leave from January to September 2010. I also enjoyed the structure of the biography, the narrative, almost novelistic structure to this book made it really interesting to read. The book also covers the topic of Indian Independence and other defining moments of history involving Britain and the Indian subcontinent, including some causes which Sophia herself worked towards supporting.