Friday, September 2 2011
It’s Yesterday Once More in ‘Little Girl Blue’
Little Girl Blue is a damning and penetrating account of tortured and tormented artist, Karen Carpenter, and could just be one of the most depressing books you’ll ever read.
Friday, July 15 2011
A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster
All his life Morgan Forster lived in a world imprisoned by prejudice against homosexuals. He was 16 when Oscar Wilde was sent to prison, and he died the year after the Stonewall riots.
Monday, March 21 2011
Botticelli, Sandwiches Outside and Dreams of Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’
Boxed in by bandage-colored cubicle walls in downtown Manhattan, my thoughts drift to sweet days in Florence and Rome, and to lines in Ray Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’.
Friday, November 12 2010
Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock
What the world really needs is a straight-up account of one of the most important rock groups of all time. Now we have it in the form of music scribe Andrew Earles.
Thursday, February 11 2010
High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly by Donald Spoto
In his biography of Grace Kelly, Donald Spoto spends much time trying to polish a gem that shines all on its own.
Friday, January 15 2010
The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula
The Chiangs were an historical anachronism; their reign marked by corruption, ineptitude, and a quasi-Fascist nationalism that could not survive for long.
Tuesday, November 10 2009
Looking for Calvin and Hobbes by Nevin Martell
The creator of the universally-beloved Calvin and Hobbes was a perfectionist and a true believer in his art form, yet he hated the fame that his creations brought him.
Monday, November 9 2009
Ayn Rand and the World She Made
Ayn Rand set out to remake reality as if it were an ill-fitting dress: by sheer will, she tried to fashion a Balenciaga gown from a housedress.
Wednesday, July 29 2009
The Supremes by Mark Ribowsky
Without these players actually telling the story firsthand, it starts to read a bit like a Wikipedia entry.
Thursday, July 16 2009
The Chris Farley Show by Tom Farley & Tanner Colby
A complex community of personalities radiates around the main subject and a detailed, varied portrait inevitably appears.
