Tag Archives: Biography

A Year in Books/Day 210: Great Lives Great Deeds

Posted on September 12, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Reader’s Digest Great Lives Great Deeds
• Author: Various
• Year Published: 1964 (The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.)
• Year Purchased: 1966, by my Grandma
• Source: Reader’s Digest
• About: When my mom was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, a normal American family with kids owned a car, a television, a full set of encyclopedias, and at least a few Reader’s Digest books. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 209: Lives of the Poets

Posted on September 8, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Lives of the Poets
• Author: Michael Schmidt
• Year Published: 1998 (A Phoenix Paperback)
• Year Purchased: 2004/2005
• Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
• About: Michael Schmidt takes approximately 1000 pages to cover more than 250 poets, briskly but rigorously dissecting their lives, influences, historical circumstances, and professional interconnections. Mapping out seven centuries of poetic genealogy is a gargantuan task, but Lives of the Poets is a surprisingly quick read, and as riveting as most of its subjects’ creations.
• Motivation: The title + poets + biographies=bliss. Surprised?
• Times Read: Cover-to-cover-1/Excerpts-Multiple
• Random Excerpt/Page 11: “Poems swim free of their age, but it’s hard to think of a single poem that swims entirely free of its medium, not just language but language used in the particular ways that are poetry. Even the most pathenogenetic-seeming poem has a pedigree. The poet may not know precisely a line’s or a stanza’s parents; indeed, may not be interested in finding out. Yet as readers of poetry we can come to know more about a poem than the poet does and know it more fully.”
• Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 204: Audrey Hepburn An Elegant Spirit

Posted on August 29, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Audrey Hepburn An Elegant Spirit
• Author: Sean Hepburn Ferrer
• Year Published: 2003 (Atria Books)
• Year Purchased: 2003
• Source: Barnes & Noble
• About: Audrey Hepburn always seemed so decent. Not goody-goody, but all of those superlatives most of us wish we were (and only sometimes are): compassionate, patient, kind, loyal, curious, gracious, humorous, dignified and empathetic. Decency of character is not something I require of actors, writers, musicians or anyone else whose work I admire; in fact, many of the people I love-those whose talent pierces my core- are at least a bit morally scruffy. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 185: The Mistinguett Legend

Posted on August 2, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: The Mistinguett Legend
• Author: David Bret
• Year Published: 1990 (St. Martin’s Press)
• Year Purchased: 1990s
• Source: My mother
• About: Mistinguett was a widely, and wildly, famous French chanteuse. I’m not sure how well her appeal translates from French to American culture, but she was a first-class oddity. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 181: Legends of the Silent Screen

Posted on July 27, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Legends of the Silent Screen A Collection of U.S. Postage Stamps
• Authors: Charles Champlin and Linda Klinger (for the United States Postal Service)
• Year Published: 1994 (U.S. Postal Service)
• Year Purchased: 1994
• Source: This was a gift from my mom, received after some pleading on my part.
• About: In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service released a set of stamps commemorating ten of the silent screen’s greatest stars (which was, itself, part of a larger series dedicated to entertainers). This book was published as a companion piece, but is good enough to stand on its own merits. The detailed individual biographies are underpinned by amazing photographs and a time-line of the first 100 years of American film history. It’s a handsome volume, and the Al Hirschfeld caricatures commissioned for the stamps render the subjects instantly recognizable. The stars covered in this volume are: Rudolph Valentino; Clara Bow; Charlie Chaplin; Lon Chaney; John Gilbert; ZaSu Pitts; Theda Bara; the Keystone Cops; Harold Lloyd; and Buster Keaton.
• Motivation: I was already totally captivated with silent films, even at a relatively young age.
• Times Read: A few
• Random Excerpt/Page 39: “Film historians note that (Theda) Bara’s producer actually cast her in quite a few sympathetic-not evil-roles, knowing that after her vamp image had been accepted, the public would continue to read treachery into all her characters, regardless of their motivations.”
• Happiness Scale: 10
  

  Bara in the title role as Cleopatra (1917) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Year in Books/Day 174: Blumenfeld Photographs

Posted on July 18, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Blumenfeld Photographs A Passion for Beauty
• Author: William A. Ewing
• Year Published: 1996 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers)
• Year Purchased: 2010
• Source: My lovely Momma
• About: Before reading this book, I could recognize some of the more iconic images of Berlin-born photographer Erwin Blumenfeld as his, but I knew nothing of his life. Although I place value on my own emotional responses to art, music and literature, and as a parallel it could certainly be argued that the end product is all the biography we need, I love back stories, perspective; I’m obsessively curious about context, facts, and individual versions of the creative process. Artistic pathways fascinate me. The 235 illustrations in this thick coffee table volume are, of course, extraordinary. From erotica to fashion to adverts, it is all here; the experimental nature of his work is stunningly apparent. All are sumptuous, provocative, memorable. The biggest revelation for me-and it really was a revelation, make no mistake-is the extensive text, which, in forming a serious and detailed biography, echoes back to my love of concrete information. This two-sided approach gives us a bigger picture (ha!) than either traditional biographies or coffee table retrospectives usually offer. The result is aesthetically pleasing and deeply satisfying.
• Motivation: I love coffee table books and vintage photography.
• Times Read: Once
• Random Excerpt/Page 32: “It is more than likely that Blumenfeld’s mind had not been entirely focused on his work. Ever since his arrival in the Netherlands-indeed, since he had fallen in love with Lena just prior to the war-he had been making art, partly to communicate this passion, partly as a release from the mundane pressures of daily life, and partly as a means of expressing his outrage over the war and the bankrupt values which, in his view, had brought it about.”
• Happiness Scale: 8 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 173: John Stanislaus Joyce

Posted on July 16, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: The Voluminous Life and Genius of James Joyce’s Father John Stanislaus Joyce
• Authors: John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello
• Year Published: 1997 (St. Martin’s Press)
• Year Purchased: 2002/2003
• Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
• About: Even though they leave us more evidence of their existence than nearly any other (loosely aligned) group of people, opportunities to gain genuine insight into the lives and larger motivations of writers is exceedingly rare, and often unreliable. In according the elder Joyce a thorough and rigorous biographical treatment, the authors have given us a double-wonder: a fresh and informative look at the tender years of the singular writer of Ulysses and an introduction to his amazing father, whose remarkable storytelling ability influenced and shaped his son. Even if, like me, you come to this book because of James, you will leave with a keen appreciation and respect for the complex, colourful John Stanislaus.
• Motivation: See above. I bought it because of what James Joyce means to me. I’m glad I did, because JSJ is second to only John Butler Yeats as my favourite famous father.
• Times Read: 1
• Random Excerpt/Page 97: “Mr. and Mrs. John Stanislaus Joyce decided on a honeymoon abroad. It was another beacon to the world of John’s confident social expectations. As if to spite his mother for dragging him back from there when he was a boy, he took his bride to the capital of the Empire, London, where William Gladstone was currently busy, at the age of seventy-one, forming the Liberal government of 1880. An opportunity to meet Irish members was not to be neglected-to remind some of them the debt owed to John Stanislaus.”
  

  James Joyce in 1888 at age six. Possibly in Bray, a seaside resort south of Dublin. The Joyces lived there from 1887 to 1892. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Year in Books/Day 171: Walking with Garbo

Posted on July 15, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Walking with Garbo Conversations and Recollections
• Author: Raymond Daum
• Editor and Annotator: Vance Muse
• Year Published: 1991 (HarperCollinsPublishers)
• Year Purchased: 1993
• Source: Unknown
• About: Greta Garbo. The Swedish Sphinx. She of eternal mystery. One half of the most famous screen (and real-life, but that’s another story) couple of the 1920s. The great actress may have valued her privacy, both before and after retirement, but she was no shut-in. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 165: Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise

Posted on June 27, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise
• Author: Rachel M. Brownstein
• Year Published: 1993/This edition: 1995 (Duke University Press)
• Year Purchased: 1999/2000
• Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
• About: Tragic Muse is more than a biography. As the title suggests, its subject met a sad end. An actress rising to stardom before burning out whilst still young? You don’t say. Sounds like familiar (and familiar and familiar) stuff. Trite. Fate as formulaic plot twist. Not quite. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 163: The Secret Wife of Louis XIV

Posted on June 23, 2012 by maedez

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• Title: The Secret Wife of Louis XIV Francoise d’Aubigne, Madame de Maintenon
• Author: Veronica Buckley
• Year Published: 2008 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux))
• Year Purchased: December 2011
• Source: This was a Christmas gift from my husband.
• About: Francoise was Louis XIV’s second wife, the relationship entered into when they were both middle-aged. The union lasted more than thirty years, until his death in 1715. The marriage was morganatic, and was never officially announced. The incredible circumstances of her long life prove the soundness of the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Her uncommon path from destitution (as the daughter of a disastrously poor, imprisoned minor nobleman) to affluence (as the uncrowned wife of the Sun King) was a long one, and takes up three-quarters of the book; yet her relationship with Louis is the lodestar which we, as readers, are always chasing. Although controversial in her time, she was far too subtle, intelligent and charming to engage in cheap escapades. A reluctant mistress, she made an even more reticent royal bride (for reasons other than lack of love for the monarch). Surrounded by dozens of supporting players-the least of which is one of history’s most fascinating royals-Francoise’s story inextricably rises and declines with the fortunes of the great empire into which she was born and died.
• Motivation: This historical biography officially stripped my husband of his right to complain that I own too many books: after six years together, he finally buckled and bought one for me. That’s it, game over: that action put him on my side, like it or not.
• Times Read: 1 (I just finished it yesterday afternoon)
• Random Excerpt/Page 62: “This and another 125 similarly worthy verses were set for the three to learn by heart, a dozen or so daily, a stodgy dessert after their lunch of bread and cheese. They digested both in the same place every day, a natural grotto overlooking the governor’s meadows, before shepherding the turkey cocks back home.”
• Happiness Scale: A very solid 9
  

  Françoise d’Aubigné (Photo credit: Wikipedia)