Tag Archives: Reviews

A Year in Books/Day 87: Hollywood Kids

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  • Title: Hollywood Kids Child Stars of the Silver Screen from 1903 to the Present
  • Author: Thomas G. Aylesworth
  • Year Published: 1987 (E.P. Dutton)
  • Year Purchased: 1990?
  • Source: B. Dalton
  • About: Being a child actor has never been easy. You’re pushed and pulled between your parents and the studio powers-that-be. If you’re lucky, your parents aren’t crooks and the studio heads aren’t criminals (see: Coogan, Jackie and Garland, Judy for some chilling cautionary tales). While ‘Hollywood Kids’ doesn’t gloss over the grubby reality of what it meant to be a kiddie star during cinema’s breathless heyday, spilling sordid secrets is certainly not its focus, either. Aylesworth treats his subjects as the talented professionals they were; this is really just a typical mix of film history and biography seasoned with anecdotes. It’s well written and features standout stills and publicity photographs.
  • Motivation: When I bought this, I was a kid myself: hopeful and in love with Hollywood.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 10: “Griffith sized her [Mary Pickford] up as being too pretty, too short, and having a reedy voice-in a word, all wrong for the stage. But on screen, since this was the silent movie era and voice didn’t count, her petite beauty would be a big asset. He offered her $5 a day. Drawing herself up to her full five-foot height, she replied haughtily that she was “an actress and an artist” and must be paid “twice what ordinary performers” received. Griffith agreed.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9
    Lobby card showing Mary Pickford about to punc...

    Lobby card showing Mary Pickford about to punch actor Francis Marion during a scene from the film "Little Lord Fauntleroy". 1 photomechanical print : collotype, color. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 86: American Bloomsbury

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Frontispiece for Woman in the Nineteenth Centu...

Frontispiece for Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1855), by Sarah Margaret Fuller. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Title: American Bloomsbury
  • Author: Susan Cheever
  • Year Published: 2006 (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks)
  • Year Purchased: 2008
  • Source: Daedalus Books & Music
  • About: ‘American Bloomsbury’ weaves together the lives and friendships of five New England authors, loosely following them and their wider circles between the years 1840-1868. Alongside the expected Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two women: Louisa May Alcott and Margaret Fuller. Susan Cheever devotes just enough space to the latter to whet the appetite for a deeper analysis of their lives and work. Within the constraints of this book, she manages to rescue Alcott from her reputation as the sappy creator of saccharine kiddie lit (a tired trope unfair to both her and ‘Little Women’), setting her firmly into the harsher but more rewarding world of reality; her gutsy complexity is given space to breathe. The mostly forgotten Fuller (one of my favourite women) suffers from no such reputation; in fact, she largely has no reputation from which to suffer or gain. Cheever does her best to correct that.* If you don’t know who she is, start with this book and your awakened curiosity will take care of the rest.
  • Motivation: Like so many teens before me (and since, or so my optimistic heart likes to think), I was pulled under the spell of Thoreau and, from there, to Emerson. Although in all my years I have never been able to warm to Hawthorne, the period when these New Englanders flourished is, for me, the best of 19th century American literature. With Alcott and Fuller added to this mix, I was sold.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 35: “Without this obscure lawsuit in 1836, it’s hard to know what would have happened in Concord, Massachusetts, if anything. It was Ellen Tucker’s share of the Tuckers’ fortune that bought the Emerson House on the Cambridge Turnpike and was sustaining the Alcotts as well as the Hawthornes and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson not only paid the rent; Louisa noticed that after a visit from Mr. Emerson there was often a small pile of bills under a candlestick on the dining room table, or left on top of a pile of books he had brought from his library.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

* I just came across the more recent ‘Louisa May Alcott’ by Susan Cheever. Happy dance!

A Year in Books/Day 85: Shopgirl

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  • Title: Shopgirl
  • Author: Steve Martin
  • Year Published: 2000 (Hyperion)
  • Year Purchased: 2002
  • Source: A bookstore in Buffalo, New York.
  • About: Yes, this is a novella by that Steve Martin. It’s a surprisingly quiet, well-written and effective story about a young Neiman Marcus employee making her way delicately through the post-collegiate world of adult dating and responsibilities. By the time she becomes involved with an older man, you are invested in the heroine and her choices. Martin makes her world intriguing and inviting, even though nothing much happens there. The ability to transform every day emotions, via imagination, into something fresh yet realistic, requires a solid and subtle skill. Although it’s now well-known how multi-talented the comic truly is (banjo, anyone?), twelve years ago this slim little volume was an eye-opener.
  • Motivation: I was curious. It was on sale. I needed a quick read for the car ride home.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 21: “But that night, the voice does not come, and she quietly folds herself up and leaves the bar. The voice is to come on Tuesday.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 84: Picture This Debbie Harry and Blondie

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  • Title: Picture This Debbie Harry and Blondie
  • Author: Mick Rock
  • Year Published: 2004 (Sanctuary Publishing Limited)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Via mail, exact source unknown.
  • About: This is famed photographer Mick Rock’s obsessively lovely visual tribute to Debbie Harry and, casually, by way of association, her bandmates in Blondie. It’s a reminder-for those in actual need of one-of how truly stunning, original and photogenic the singer has always been. He also throws in anecdotes about other  rock and rollers who have been covered by his lens.
  • Motivation: Going into this one, I had to repeat the phrase “Must not natter on about my love for Debbie Harry, must not natter on about my love for Debbie Harry…” The Blondie frontwoman is who I wanted to grow up to be: confident, talented, singular and beautiful. I still feel that way.  I’m equipped with so many thoughts about DH that it is only with real effort that I pack them away for another day. I’ll move on to the next category before this becomes a 3,000 word essay or I stray into suspiciously flowery, fangirl territory.

    Debbie Harry performing with Blondie at the Zw...

    Debbie Harry performing with Blondie at the Zwarte Cross festival on Friday July 15th 2011 in Lichtenvoorde the Netherlands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Times Read: cover-to-cover: 3/picture gawking: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 103: “Not that her allure was any less potent, for her appeal did not (and does not) reside solely in her blondness. It’s an innate quality. There has always been a softness,a non-narcissistic casualness about the way she deals with her physical appeal.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++++++

A Year in Books/Day 83: Savage Beauty

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  • Title: Savage Beauty The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Author: Nancy Milford
  • Year Published: 2001 (Random House)
  • Year Purchased: 2002-2004
  • Source: Barnes & Noble
  • About: This distinguished biography of the Maine-born poet is one hell of an intense, engaging read. It’s well-researched and superbly written, pulling you with ease and throbbing immediacy into the bohemian haunts of the Greenwich Village and Paris of the early twentieth century. Thanks to Milford’s contact with the poet’s younger sister, Norma, she was able to access Millay’s personal archives. It is at once nuanced and immense, revelatory and re-affirmative; the result is one of my favourite literary biographies.
  • Motivation: Edna. St. Vincent. Millay. Seriously, her talent, intellect and life were breathtaking and bewitching. I also may or may not bear a striking physical resemblance to the red-haired poet. Really, I should write a one-woman show based on her life and cast myself in the role. Hmmm. Maybe I should start practicing that Down East accent.
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 78: “That was a remarkable note of affection, and it would not be the last time Edna St. Vincent Millay would win to her side an older woman who was in a position to help her. They were taken with Edna Millay. They wanted to assist her in any way they could, perhaps because in the careful structure of their lives they felt diminished. Her life would be grand, sweeping, urgent. Incapable of this themselves, they would help her.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Photograph of Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Photograph of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 82: The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction

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  • Title: The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction Inspiration and Discipline
  • Editors: Susan Burmeister-Brown and Linda B. Swanson-Davies
  • Year Published: 2007 (Glimmer Train Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2007/2008
  • Source: Writer’s Digest Book Club
  • About: This thick little volume offers some of the best writing advice I’ve ever read. Presented in the form of interviews, it captures disparate writers’ unique yet universal passion for the craft; mixed with sound, structured and common-sense, been-there-done-that advice, it completely lives up to its cover promise. It is one of the few inspirational resources that I have ever repeatedly consulted. Worth every penny, and then some.
  • Motivation: I think that I was sent this when I was too distracted  to mail in the monthly card and too lazy to return the book. I’m glad I didn’t, as I probably would never have chosen it otherwise. The writing gods fortuitously intervened.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover/1; as reference: countless.
  • Random Excerpt/Page 43: “When I was in college, I began to read Faulkner and Hemingway, two writers that changed my life. I hadn’t read anything so shockingly wonderful as those two writers, and what they could do on the page stunned me. I’ve never gotten over that shock, and don’t want to.”-Kent Haruf
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Year in Books/Day 81: Mortification Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame

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  • Title: Mortification Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame
  • Editor: Robin Robertson
  • Year Published: 2003 (Harper Perennial)
  • Year Purchased: 2007/2008
  • Source: This was a gift from my Mom.
  • About: This volume offers up seventy first-hand, real-life stories of writers’ deeply humiliating encounters with the public. Names as luminous as Margaret Atwood, Edna O’Brien and Chuck Palahniuk grace the pages with their always-humorous tales of woe and embarrassment.
  • Motivation: My Momma loves to indulge the writer in me (which, to be real, comprises a good chunk of who I am). She knows how to make her girl happy!
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page xi: “While there are occasional undercurrents of seriousness in these stories-a desire for something between expiation and exorcism, perhaps-their main intention it to make us laugh, while feeling a strong sense of ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I’. It is greatly to the credit of all the contributors that they have embraced their mortification so warmly-returning to the scene of the crime and leading us, hot-faced, through their hell.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 80: An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers

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  • Title: An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers Revised and Expanded Edition
  • Editors: Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter
  • Year Published: First Edition/1988; This Edition/1998 (Rutgers University Press)
  • Year Purchased: Early 2000s
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: From Eliza Acton to E.H. Young, every British woman writer of note, ever, is discussed here; comes complete with important life dates. It’s a rich source for many little-known wordsmiths.
  • Motivation: I write a lot about female writers. I’ve seriously dedicated tens of thousands of words to the ladies who came before me. They remain a huge source of personal inspiration. I bought this book to use as a reference tool.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover/1; As reference tool/countless.
  • Random Excerpt/Page 57: “B. (Hester Biddle) published nothing after 1662, although she was still an active speaker. Records show that in 1664 she was seized, punched, and imprisoned at Bridewell. And the following year she was sent to Newgate Prison for speaking in the street. She also had three sons between 1663 and 1668. Few details of her later life remain, although in 1694, only two years before her death, she visited France in order to meet King Louis XIV and plead for peace.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 79: Royal Panoply

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  • Title: Royal Panoply Brief Lives of The English Monarchs
  • Author: Carolly Erickson
  • Year Published: 2003 (History Book Club)
  • Year Purchased: 2003-2005
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: This handsome, heavily illustrated volume covers the English Monarchs from William I to Elizabeth II. Each ruler is given a short biography, usually consisting of a few pages. Although concise, the portraits are rich in detail and the historic context flows perfectly from one subject to the next.
  • Motivation: I actually know English history better than American (which I know pretty damn well, thank you very much). I’m just a gargantuan history nut in a teensy package. Plus, I love the intellectual order provided by such compilations.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 69: “When the nine-year-old King Henry III was crowned in October of 1216, hastily and with minimal ceremony, in a makeshift ritual at Gloucester Cathedral, the realm was in peril. The oppressive and divisive reign of Henry’s father, King John, had ended in disaster, the crown jewels were lost in the quicksands of the Ouse, and a foreign invader, the French dauphin Louis, had established himself in London.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Henry III of England Česky: Jindřich III. Plan...

    Henry III of England Česky: Jindřich III. Plantagenet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 78: Hollywood Glamor Portraits

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  • Title: Hollywood Glamor Portraits 145 Photos of Stars 1926-1949
  • Editor: John Kobal
  • Year Published: 1976 (Dover Publications, Inc., New York)
  • Year Purchased: 1990’s
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: The front cover boasts the timeless beauty of Louise Brooks; the back cover features the lovely, glamorous Carole Lombard. Everything in-between is equally stunning: two decades of Hollywood’s greatest stars as shot by movieland’s best photographers are sumptuously laid out, one per page. It has certainly lived up to the publisher’s promise: A DOVER EDITION DESIGNED FOR YEARS OF USE!
  • Motivation: I’m human-I enjoy looking at beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes whilst striking interesting poses. The work gracing the pages of modern-day ‘Vogue’ and ‘Harper’s BAZAAR’ usually bores me to tears. My solution is to step back in time! The re-touching done by photographers during Hollywood’s Golden Age, although ubiquitous, was much more subtle (if highly glossy and stylized) than the current mania for out-of-control Photoshopping that results in mangled limbs and plastic visages. Also, please see: John Gilbert! Ronald Colman! Buster Keaton! Frances Farmer! Myrna Loy! Rita Hayworth! Gloria Swanson! Clara Bow! Nancy freaking Carroll!
  • Times Read: Multiple
  • Random Excerpt/Page xi: “I was taking pictures at ten on my father’s ranch-from the saddle. In 1916, when I was sixteen, a company came to film ‘The Sunset Princess’ on the ranch and all I did was get in the cameraman’s hair from morning to night. The very next year, I was in Hollywood with Billy Beckay, learning.” -Bob Coburn (RKO; UA; COLUMBIA)
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++
    Publicity photo of Nancy Carroll from Stars of...

    Publicity photo of Nancy Carroll from Stars of the Photoplay (Photo credit: Wikipedia)