Shortlisted for the COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARDNo.1: Telegraph Best Books for Christmas'Light, ingenious, inspiring, a book to reread and cherish' Hilary Mantel'A delight...the book I would take with me to a desert island' David AaronovitchI was born about sun rising in my maternal grandfather's bedchamber on 12th March 1626. St. Gregory's Day, very sickly, likely to die. John Aubrey loved England. From an early age, he saw his England slipping away and, against extraordinary odds, committed himself to preserving for posterity what remained of it – in books, monuments and life stories. His Brief Lives would redefine the art of biography yet he published only one rushed, botched book in his lifetime and died fearing his name and achievements would be forgotten.Ruth Scurr's biography is an act of scholarly imagination: a diary drawn from John Aubrey's own words, displaying his unique voice, dry...