Tag: Biography
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Chasing Bright Medusas
Review: Being a Willa Cather enthusiast and a member of the National Willa Cather Center every new biography is pretty much required reading. So I pre-ordered this volume and eagerly awaited it. Well, I got it and I read it, and I’m very disappointed. First of all this slim volume is, a slim volume. 154… Read more
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Have Tux, Will Travel
Review: This one, out of all the Bob Hope Bios that I have read, ranks in the top. I can’t say “The Best” because each book has unique merits. This is an autobiography, written in mid-1950s (1954 I believe) when Hope was still at the top of his game. Top billing, top dollars, top of… Read more
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The Enormous Room
Review: Powerful and deeply personal narrative of the author’s experience in a prison in France during the Great War. So many of the things, feelings and experiences I know intimately from my own jailhouse experience. The prose was so exquisite in places that I grabbed my highlighter to preserve them. Really great reading, I’m sad… Read more
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Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time
Review: Finally got through this after an abortive fist attempt in 2020 (made it 50 pages). The prose is purple, just gushing descriptions of each song, each chord, each performance. Musicological language throughout with no purpose except to confuse and lose the non-musicologist reader. 2/3 of the way through he finally gets down to where… Read more
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Riders on the Storm
Review: I ordered this book with zero pre-conceptions and zero knowledge of The Doors. Okay, fractional knowledge. Like I had heard of them, and I had heard the main singles, and I knew Jim Morrison was their singer and that he died. Other than that, not much. This was written by the drummer, and is… Read more
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Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession
Review: An excellent exposition of Schubert’s legendary 24 song cycle: Winterreise (A Winter’s Journey). Written by a singer who has performed the song cycle over 100 times, we get a unique behind-the-scenes look at the most challenging and renowned of all the lieder cycles performed today. The poetry by Müller is explained and interpreted wonderfully,… Read more
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So, Anyway
Review: A brilliant and thorough autobiography. Kept my interest right from the beginning and never lost it. Like most talented and funny people, the on-stage character is very much removed from the real-life human that plays that character. Funny in parts that needed to be, and serious in those parts that needed to be. Just… Read more
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Johnny Carson
Review: A fast and penetrating look inside the world of the King of Late Night. I had no idea that Carson was that wealthy. Like most celebrities I have read about, the man behind the makeup is nothing like the face you see on the screen. Like his predecessor Bob Hope, Carson spent his life… Read more
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The Rat Pack: Neon Nights with the Kings of Cool
Review: An excellent non-whitewashed history of the legendary Rat Pack. These men are all terrible human beings. Malevolence, greed, political machinations, philandering, drinking, drinking, drugs, drinking, backstabbing, and possibly murder. I can see how they appeared to be the epitome of cool. When Joe Six-pack punches out from the steel mill he dreamed, as he… Read more
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The Last Christmas Show
Review: This was a difficult one for me to read at an emotional level. It was a page turner for sure, couldn’t put it down sometimes, but the one liners and sexy girls could never quite cover the tragic loss of so many lives, both military and civilian. The flag waving and anti-Commie one liners… Read more