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Gordon Ramsay's Playing with Fire - Gordon Ramsay
by kingseany
I picked up a copy of this 300 odd page paperback a few years ago. I'm not a huge reader, but spending a year on another continent without family around demanded company of some sorts. The kind of books I like to read are travel journals and tales of struggle, persistance and ultimately success.
Gordon Ramsay seems to be ... everywhere these days, from a top restaurant in Cape Town to a terminal building in London. Not Ramsay himself perhaps, but his brand at least, which he has built up from truly humble beginnings. He's not unique of course, there are plenty of success stories out there, but the road to riches was interesting enough to write a book about. This book is a follow up to his original "Humble Pie" - which I never read. This didn't seem to be a huge problem, I got straight into the book and hooked on his story.
His story is full of risks, which I like. Big risks, risks which could have broken him forever but without taking them he'd never be the man he is now. It's full of lessons for any would be entrepreneur - and not just in the chef/restaurant world. Some of these risks he didn't take alone, he got his father in law involved in some big business gambles too.
You don't necessarily have to be a big fan of his food - this isn't a cookbook - to enjoy this book. You don't even need to particularly like the guy, he's not to everyones taste. You will of course have to endure a lot of the 4 letter words which he seems to be famous for these days so if you can't stand swearing, you'd probably not enjoy it. At the end of the day, I enjoyed it as a very informal guide on building an empire, the ups and downs, trials and tribulations and ultimately a huge degree of success.
A great read on a long plane journey, recommended for the casual reader.
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The Life of Senna - Tom Rubython
by jj1977
It is strange that in the 16 years since the untimely death of Ayrton Senna, there have been very few books which have taken a look at his life, and done it well. This book, a 600 page look at his life, death and consequences of both, is an exhaustive one that F1 fanatic Tom Rubython took 18 months to write. Rubython is the author of ... Business F1 and a well respected F1 columnist. In conjunction with Keith Sutton, a 20 year veteran photographer whose career in F1 started at the same time as Senna's, they compose what is regarded as the definitive Senna book.
During his time on the track there was no question of his genius, but Senna had a ruthless streak that polarised the views of fans. In approaching this book, Rubython does not attempt to come down on one side or the other, preferring instead to simply present the story in a respectful manner and allow the reader to judge for themselves. Perhaps the only point at which the author loses his objectivity is in the coverage given to the trial regarding Senna's death, specifically state prosecutor Maurizio Passarini. But then again, given Passarini's action, this can be excused.
But the trial takes up only 41 pages of the book. The remainder using Rubythons' relaxing style of writing goes into detail from Senna's early days, through the success and failures up until the 94 season. The Formula Ford and Formula Three years are given there own chapters.
It is getting on for five years old now and prices of the book have sky rocketed given the surge in interest. This is due to the upcoming Senna Biopic and a great piece during the last series of BBC' Top Gear. Having been written almost a decade after, it could be accused of looking through rose tinted spectacles at a man who has been accused of starting the decline of sportsmanship in the sport. The author does not address this in opinion, allowing us to draw our own conclusions.
For anyone with an interest in motor racing, this would be an ideal Christmas present so my advice would be to start searching now. The prices are only going to get more expensive for a book which will not be bettered.
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Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story - David Richard
by Jake Speed
Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story was written by David Richard and published in 1981. Seberg, who hailed from the sleepy environment of Marshalltown, Iowa, first became famous at the age of seventeen when she beat 18,000 hopefuls to land the lead role in Otto Preminger's 1956 film Saint Joan about the life and trial of Joan of Arc. The ... film bombed and Seberg was panned and Bonjour Tristesse - her second dalliance with Preminger - didn't do much better. Despite the lack of recognition for her acting in America, Seberg became a star (and fashion icon with her elfin looks and short hair) in Europe when she appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 New Wave film Breathless - a success that led to her working with Claude Chabrol, Yves Boisset, Jean Valere and Philippe de Broca. After a critically acclaimed performance in Robert Rossen's 1964 drama Lilith, Seberg's reputation as an actress grew and she began to appear on the mainstream radar, featuring in films like Paint Your Wagon and Airport. However, Seberg's support for some radical political groups, notably the Black Panthers, brought her to the attention of the FBI.
Seberg had donated money to the Panthers (especially their Free Breakfast Program which provided hot food to underprivileged children) but J Edgar Hoover saw the Black Panthers as a threat to America and a plan to discredit Seberg (who was married to French novelist Romain Gary at the time) was formulated. The FBI instigated a fake rumour that the father of her second unborn child was a militant Panther leader and it was reported as fact in hundreds of newspapers across the United States. The publicity and shock sent the actress into labour early and she lost her baby. 'She was traumatized by the falsehood,' writes Richard. Seberg never recovered and - although she continued to work in Europe, even directing a film herself - battled drug and alcohol problems in the seventies. In 1979, at the age of forty, Seberg went missing for ten days and was eventually found dead in her car in Paris with mineral water and barbiturates on the seat beside her.
Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story is a well written and very absorbing biography about a fascinating subject. The book is over 300 pages long and contains some nice photographs of the actress too. I'm not sure how famous Jean Seberg is today but her story is a fairly extraordinary and very sad one. Seberg, who looked like a cross between Mia Farrow and Kate Moss in her heyday, managed to survive the pounding she took for Saint Joan ('She learned to be a star before she became an actress,' Sir John Gielgud is quoted) and make over thirty films, some of which have come to be highly regarded. Although I have Saint Joan, Breathless and others, I was actually reminded reading the book that Seberg was in The Mouse That Roared with Peter Sellers. I tend to struggle at the start of biographies sometimes (especially if the author starts wheeling out elaborate family trees) but the opening chapters are quite interesting here with a vivid atmosphere of small town America and the young Seberg dreaming of becoming an actress.
The book is quite engrossing at times when it touches on one of the most interesting things about Seberg's life - the wholesome girl from Marshalltown somehow becoming a bohemian icon in France of all places. The author tells us that Seberg's family were always slightly bemused by her new European fame and sophistication when she returned to Marshalltown, her father taking to serving wine at dinner whenever she went home. Seberg was less of a famous face in the United States and sometimes signed autographs as 'Doris Day' there to amuse herself. The book is quite strong about the different facets of Seberg's personality and how these sometimes seemed to contradict one another. She could look perfectly serene onscreen and had a streak of puritanism (she refused to do nude scenes in films) but lived a turbulent private life that included drugs and affairs.
It's quite touching to read that Seberg went on chat shows and repeated her Saint Joan audition after beating thousands of actresses to the part. 'I took my acting lessons before the largest audience in the world,' the author quotes Seberg. If I had a quibble about the biography it might be that some of the film details are glossed over a little too quickly. You'd expect Breathless to be a big part of the book but it receives a couple of pages. The book is powerful though at times detailing the production of many of Seberg's films and her intense relationships with directors she was involved with in real life. She was burned for real in the burning-at-the-stake scene making Saint Joan and her former husband Dennis Berry suggests in the book that her performance in Lilith took a terrible toll as she would become the character she was playing - which in this case was a seductive schizophrenic patient in a private mental institution.
Seberg's radical political views and links to the Black Panthers (she had relationships with people from the group) incensed the FBI and so they sent the series of fake letters to gossip columnists. 'I was just thinking about you and remembered I still owe you a favor. So - I was in Paris last week and ran into Jean Seberg, who was heavy with baby. I thought she and Romaine (sic) had gotten together again, but she confided that the child belonged to (position deleted) of the Black Panthers, one (name deleted). The dear girl is getting around!' It's shocking to think this all happened and that the FBI had nothing better to do with their time. The biography becomes (morbidly) engrossing when it moves into this portion of Seberg's life. 'One of the worst things the FBI did was aimed at Jean Seberg,' a former FBI agent is quoted. Seberg became increasingly paranoid and drug-addled afterwards to the extent that she once thought her fridge was spying on her.
The author apparently met with silence from Seberg's family and most of her friends but spins a sensitive and often hauntingly moving story with the sources available to him and the public details of the life and career of the actress. While a faint aura of mystery still lingers around Seberg even after reading the book - as if she was too ephemeral and complex to ever really explain - any fans should find this an interesting and poignant read.
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