Biography
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Camp David - David Walliams
by scooch12 *It's very hard to describe this book without mentioning a couple of brief points he makes in it but they may come across as little spoilers. I won't be offended if you want to give the review a miss to read the book without any previous information!* Camp David by David Walliams I first came across David Walliams ... in his hit TV show Little Britain, before then I'll admit I wouldn't have recognised him or known his name. Now though, he's regularly on our TV screens, even a judge on Britain's Got Talent, as well as writing his own series of children's books. For the last few years, I've watched him a lot on TV and find his comedy work very amusing. It was for this reason I wanted to read his autobiography, entitled 'Camp David'. It's available in a hardback, paperback and electronic versions - the paperback is currently £5.99 on Amazon. I assumed it would be laughs a minute and give me an insight into how he ended up on TV making people laugh. I love to read how famous people have made it and the majority of the time I admire their determination to succeed. Here was no exception although it was a lot more serious on the whole than I expected. Having said that though, I think this is actually what I found most appealing about it after reading because I sometimes get the impression that comedy performers hide behind their jokes - this book to me conveys as being an honest piece of writing about his life and career. The autobiography starts by detailing his early life and schooling within the first few chapters. Although I find it interesting to hear how his childhood memories, I didn't find myself getting really stuck into the book as I usually do. This isn't my favourite part of autobiographies in general - I like hearing the nitty gritty of fame! I still however think this is usually a good starting point for these types of books. There were odd comments he made that made me sit up and take note but overall the first few chapters I found a bit average if I'm honest. Often with autobiographies, I find myself gripped from the start, not wanting to put the book down but with the first 7 to 8 chapters I just didn't get that feeling. But, I persisted - and I'm so, so glad that I did. From around the 8th chapter, I became completely hooked! I read it normally late at night before bed and I got to the stage where I'd only put it down when my husband decided enough was enough around midnight and switched the lamp off on my behalf! After his early years, David goes on to tell us about how he started out writing in comedy, performing year after year in various projects and how he met Matt Lucas who is the other half of the wonderful partnership that brought us Little Britain. From his words, it seems he didn't always seem eye to eye with his Little Britain co-star and I found this fascinating to read as on screen, I would never have thought this was the case as they seem perfect together and such a partnership on screen. Don't get me wrong, I got the impression that they are still great friends, but nonetheless I was surprised about how much detail he went into about their working relationship and some of the strains on their partnership during their earlier days together. There are quite a few references to this. There are some points where I found myself laughing at little comments he made, but not half as much as I was expecting. There are a lot of serious points to his writing. He details his battle with depression and mentions throughout the book how his father didn't really connect with him, never crediting his work - even when Little Britain hit our screens. Again, although these were more upsetting times of his life, I found the book impossible to put down and was fascinating to read in detail, partly because I was so surprised as I had no prior knowledge of it. He also talks a lot about his relationships from the past, including one with Caroline Aherne - something else I knew nothing about! The other thing that hit me was the amount of time he worked on other projects before Little Britain's rise - other people may remember him from previous TV work he'd done but as I say, the first time I came across him was on Little Britain. I had no idea of the long list of projects he'd been part of before then on channel 4, on radio and on the stage. I think that's why I really got into this book after the initial few chapters - he must be quite a private person I think as the majority of the book was completely new to me and I expect that it would be for a lot of people reading. The only other small criticism I have, but perhaps this is just personal taste of mine, was that he included reviews that had been received from writers in newspapers and although these were interesting on the whole, some did go on for a few pages and in the end I felt a little as though I wanted to skip through and get back to his version of events instead. Like I say though, others may find these a great read - it's just a personal choice I think there. I would definitely recommend reading this book, even if you're not really into the Little Britain series or any of his comedy. It details how he got into comedy at length but there are not many jokes in the book, it's more serious on the whole if anything and a great insight into how he made it big from a normal upbringing with very hard work. I used to like him before reading the book anyway, and the book has just confirmed that. I rate it 4 stars overall - just with the slowish start taking off a star but I would thoroughly recommend it. Thanks for reading :o) Read the complete review |
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M: The Caravaggio Enigma - Peter Robb
by lazywolfeyes Firstly, let me apologise. I've been absent for quite some time and I return and have nothing to offer you but a rant. A mega rant. Let me get this out of the way: I'm a huge fan of the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio. His genre paintings are full of humour and ambiguity, his portraits have a real intimacy to them, and his ... religious paintings are breath-taking, daring, vicious and beautiful. He used grubby beggars and prostitutes and cast them as martyrs. He gave hope to the hopeless. He introduced darkness into painting. He was darkness. For Caravaggio has quite the reputation; not only as the master painter who changed the face of art forever, but also as a scoundrel, a murderer who came to a sticky end. After years of being sneered at and eventually rubbed out of existence, in recent years he has enjoyed new found popularity. Programmes and films are being made about him, and books are being written about his art. In my quest to find out as much about the man and his art as possible, I've been devouring any book on Caravaggio I can find. I came to M with the knowledge that it had caused quite a stir when it was published in 2000. M by Peter Robb is a controversial biography of the Baroque bad boy. I've already reviewed a Caravaggio biography on here so it may seem a little tedious to review a book on the same subject. But holy cow these biographies are very different. Allow me to explain in my own nerdy way. I like watching TV. Sometimes I get really into a TV show. I get so into a TV show I read fanfiction. Fanfiction is essentially what people write to enhance their enjoyment of a certain TV show. Most of the time, they blithely ignore 'canon' and write what they really wanted to happen on the show. M by Peter Robb is the art history version of fanfiction. It's bollocks, basically. Now I'm by no means an expert, but I can tell when someone takes hearsay and presents it as fact. Alarm bells start ringing when on one page Robb tells us we don't know the outcome of a trial, and then a few pages later states Caravaggio was found guilty. He also accuses him of being a paedophile which isn't new but Robb takes rumours and runs with them. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. In no particular order, here are some of the things that annoyed me about M. Yes. M. Peter Robb decided to call his biography of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 'M'. That's pretty annoying in and of itself; but he calls him 'M' throughout, going so far as to alter quotes so people who would have referred to the painter by his name, now refer to him as 'M'. On a similar note, Robb uses modern slang when translating quotes from Caravaggio's contemporaries. Sometimes this was irritating and sometimes it was fun. Mostly it was irritating. Robb is also annoying when he doesn't translate. I don't know Italian. Clearly Robb does. That's wonderful. It's always useful to know another language. Would you mind translating those phrases for those of us who don't read Italian, Robb? That would be most helpful. One of the weirdest things Robb does is rename all the paintings. This is infuriating for two reasons. 1. I often struggle to figure out which painting he's actually discussing. They may not have been given a title by Caravaggio himself, but they all have 'accepted' titles. Why he chose to do this I will never understand. 2. He gives them really rubbish names. 'The Death of the Virgin' becomes 'Mary Dead', while 'The Calling of Saint Matthew' becomes 'Matthew Called'. Yeah, Robb? Matthew called. He wants you to STOP GIVING THE PAINTINGS STUPID NAMES. Yes. The paintings. There are hardly any plates of the paintings. No matter how fascinating Caravaggio was as a person, the reason people are drawn to him are his paintings. The reason (presumably) Robb wrote the book in the first place was because he was drawn to Caravaggio's paintings. There's plenty of black and white details of various model's faces, but very few of Caravaggio's paintings are seen in full here. Now, one of the most wonderful things about art is that you can have your own interpretations, but Robb sees things that just aren't there. At one point he calls a figure a 'lout'. This figure has his back to us. I think he has a loutish back, or something. What makes this so frustrating is that Robb makes some genuinely interesting and incisive observations, but the next sentence he says something daft and you forget about the clever stuff he occasionally comes out with. I mean, this quote: "...in a state of total frontal nudity -...though he was twisting round from sideways on" That's not frontal nudity, Robb. Frontal nudity is nudity...from the front. I think the reason I'm so angry with Robb is that he's clearly a very intelligent bloke and did a lot of research, but added 2 and 2 and came up with well... God alone knows. I learned far more about Peter Robb than I did about Caravaggio. I wanted to read about the painter whose art shocked the world and still shocks today. I wanted to read about the painter who got in brawls and scaled prison walls and managed to knock out masterpieces in his spare time. I wanted to read about the painter who influenced Rembrandt and Scorcese. I wanted to read about the rise and fall of one of the most important painters in history. Instead I ended up reading a book that was an ode to Robb's ego. And yet... I read the damn thing all the way to the end. To quote film critic Mark Kermode; "I was often cross, but never bored." Price and Availability: Really easy to get hold of in bookshops. The Paperback is on Amazon for £12 (new). Read the complete review |
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Marilyn The Passion and The Paradox - Lois Banner
by JOHNDMR With the possible exception of Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe is probably the most written-about deceased woman in twentieth-century history. The thirty-six years of her life (1926-62) and the manner of her death will no doubt continue to provide an opportunity for as many writers as they have already done since her sudden passing. ... After a decade of research Lois Banner, a Professor of History and Gender Studies at university in California, has added another weighty tome to the relevant shelves. As a self-styled pioneer of second-wave feminism and the new women's history, she has some interesting insights to offer into her subject's life as a gender role model. THE BOOK Marilyn's career is recounted thoroughly and with frankness. As a film star she was hardworking, but not exactly professional at the best of times. She frequently turned up late on the set (her car had broken down, she had lost her keys, she was not feeling well - the usual excuses), fluffed her lines, and needed to put everyone through numerous takes before the right result was achieved. That she managed to pursue a film career despite all this, and also when the scandal of a set of widely-circulated nude photographs of her taken in 1949 might easily have killed it stone dead, suggests that she was not totally unlucky throughout her life. Another handicap she was cursed with was a severe stutter, the very last thing an actress needed. And there were numerous psychological problems which constantly dogged her. Some of these probably had their roots in episodes of child abuse which Ms Banner asserts, contrary to the opinion of previous biographers, were not fabricated. When accused of narcissism because she spent so much time looking at herself in the mirror, she defended herself by asserting that she was practising facial expressions or redoing her makeup, as she regarded herself as a perfectionist. She once told the press that she liked to be really dressed up or really undressed, and did not bother with anything in between. Such honesty was not necessarily the best policy in a nation which still had its share of prudery, thought the unclothed female human body was shocking if put on public display, and expected people in the public eye to be good role models. In addition she suffered from endometriosis, and never had the children for which she longed. One cannot help thinking that any family she might have had if things had been different would not have enjoyed a happy childhood. While more sinned against than sinning, she was notoriously unfaithful to her husbands and perfectly frank about her readiness to sleep with any man who would advance her career. She never forgave film companies who laid her off, although they were probably justified in doing so. Admittedly she was a huge box office draw, but there is more than a grain of truth in the adage that a star is someone who maintains professional standards and is a pleasure to work alongside, not a prima donna who feels that everyone is out of step except for him or her. Frequent references are made to her dependency on drink and drugs, although the author does not go into detail on these - perhaps not a bad thing, as blow-by-blow accounts of celebrities' indulgences can rapidly become boring. Yet enough is said to leave us in little doubt that by the end of her short life she had an increasing problem with both. Marilyn saw herself as a Hollywood misfit, one of those who did not follow the rules and was critical of the system. In the McCarthy era of witch-hunts, her left-wing opinions and outspoken support of the communist struggle against capitalist imperialism did her no favours either. It is certainly to her credit that she preferred to be true to herself and did not make any pretence of toeing the political line, although she had to accept the consequences. Angry at being seen as a stereotypical dumb blonde, she devoted a certain amount of time to reading books on art, literature, philosophy and self-improvement, although she 'always read ponderous books - and got them mixed up'. Although everybody knows what became of her, there is still a sad inevitability in the closing chapters. Distraught at the constant downward spiral of her personal and professional life, in 1961 she confided in a photographer that her mother and her family had been 'all destroyed by insanity', that she had been used and abandoned by so many people, and she was confused about who she wanted to be - but she was not merely, as she put it herself, a sex freak with large breasts. In spite of this, a few months later she appeared at Jack Kennedy's birthday celebration, at which she was wearing a gown made from material which left very little to the imagination under stage lighting. She then gave a deliberately provocative, oversexed performance at the microphone which proceeded to shock not only the more staid guests present. The show had been televised, and although Ms Banner is sympathetic to her subject throughout, she admits that it was a tasteless bit of exhibitionism which cost her dearly in terms of support when she needed it most - and what was left of her reputation. Perhaps it was just as well that time was running out for her by then. Was she mentally ill? The question is not really examined in depth, but one cannot help wondering. Anyway, less than three months later, she was dead. As in the case of Beatles' manager Brian Epstein five years later to the month, was it suicide or the result of an accidental overdose? Or was it murder, in which the first family of the United States were said to have had a hand? Conspiracy theories abound, and there is no conclusive answer. There never will be one. SUMMARY This is a very readable account of a tragic figure, admirably sympathetic while not seeking to conceal her faults. The three sections of plates, in colour (including two of the notorious nude shots) and black and white plates are well chosen. My major criticism is the author's preoccupation at times with herself, her insistence on showing us how thoroughly she has done her research, and how she is the only person - or almost the only one - to examine a certain item of evidence, or interview a certain person. Frankly one suspects she could have done with a rather more forceful editor to call her 'me myself I' elements to heel. That apart, this is a very worthwhile book on a fascinating and complex twentieth-century icon. [This is a revised version of a review I originally posted on Bookbag and ciao] Read the complete review |
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Author: Anita Moorjani / Biography / Paperback / 208 Pages / Book is published 2012-03-05 by Hay House UK |
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Author: Victoria Broackes, Geoffrey Marsh / Biography / Edition: Deluxe ed / Hardcover / 288 Pages / Book is published 2013-03-23 by V&A |
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Author: Darcey Bussell / Biography / Hardcover / 244 Pages / Book is published 2012-09-01 by Hardie Grant Books |
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Author: Bradley Wiggins / Biography / Hardcover / 320 Pages / Book is published 2012-11-08 by Yellow Jersey |
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Author: Mollie Moran / Biography / Paperback / 384 Pages / Book is published 2013-03-14 by Penguin |
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Hardcover: 352 pages / Biography / Publisher: HarperOne / Published: 13 Oct 2009 |
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Genre: Biography / Author: Grace Coddington / Hardcover / 416 Pages / Book is published 2012-11-22 by Chatto & Windus |
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Author: Nick Faldo / Biography / Hardcover / 224 Pages / Book is published 2012-11-08 by Simon & Schuster UK |
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Paperback: 196 pages / Biography / Publisher: Forces & Corporate / Published: 21 Nov 2012 |
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Paperback: 304 pages / Biography / Publisher: Yellow Jersey / Published: 25 Oct 2012 |
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