Title: Blood of the Wicked
Author: Leighton Gage
Genre: Mystery Category: Police Procedural
ISBN-10: 156944702
ISBN-13: 978-156947709
Review Originally Published: Murder By Type 6/28/2010
Amazon Rating: 4 1/2 stars
Murder By Type Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Beth Crowley for Murderbytype.wordpress.com
BLOOD OF THE WICKED opens with the assassination of a Catholic bishop. Moments after he steps off a helicopter in Cascatas to dedicate a church, Bishop Antunes is killed by a sniper’s shot. His death immediately pits the Landless Workers’ League, the poor, against the land owners, the very rich, who want to it believed that the murder was a plot by the League.
The church in Brazil is divided into those who follow the rules set by the Vatican and those who are still in sympathy with the principles of liberation theology. Gage makes reference to the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot while offering Mass in San Salvador. Romero was becoming increasingly supportive of the liberation theology movement, which interprets the teachings of Christ as calling for liberation from economic, political, and social conditions that deprive the poor of basic necessities and human decency. The military in San Salvador took responsibility for the death of Romero but which side, the landless workers or the land owners, had the most to gain by the clergyman’s death. Bishop Antunes, murdered before he stepped into the church building, was an unknown quantity. Did he support the Landless Workers’ League in violation of the directives from Rome or did he support the land owners who controlled the government?
Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters for the federal police of Brazil, is called upon to bring the matter of the bishop’s murder to a quick and successful close. To the politicians who try to influence Silva, that means finding the killer among the landless workers. But, once in Cascatas, Silva’s case expands to include drug peddling, the emergence of a serial killer, the deaths of those who try to learn the truth, and a population in terror of its police.
There is a great deal of blood in this story and there is a seemingly endless parade of the wicked. There are few heroes either, including Silva, a man with a strong moral code but a code, nonetheless, that recognizes the corrupt and ineffectual justice system in his country. He is a man who has also been motivated by vengeance. There are heroes in unexpected places but even the heroes are bathed in the blood of the wicked.
Leighton Gage has written a story that demands that once started, must be finished without interruption. As flawed as Mario is, he is the image of right against might. When it seems that all the depravity has been revealed, there is still more. The church harbors saints and sinners and sometimes they are the same people. Those sworn to serve and protect the people are the worst perpetrators of violence against the innocent. Gage does what seems impossible and brings the story to an end that is real and just when there isn’t any hope for justice.
BLOOD OF THE WICKED is the first in the Mario Silva series. The reader can only hope that the author has a long and prolific career.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fav Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Comedian Ruth Buzzi Reviews "Dear Austin"
Dear Austin – A Letter To My Son
by David M. Perkins
Non-fiction / Parenting
ISBN-13: 978-1453655399
www.davidmperkins.com
Amazon.com listing
Genre: Nonfiction
5 Stars
Reviewed by Ruth Buzzi for Amazon.com
"Taking parenting to a new level, this book expresses what we all should have heard from our Dads when we first left home.
My Dad encouraged me to follow my dreams and, at the age of 17, put me on a plane to California to attend college at the Pasadena Playhouse for the Performing Arts. Some were skeptical, some laughed at my intentions. But Dad gave me the honor of trusting my judgment and loving me enough to let me go and follow my dreams. I was the first member of my family to have ever flown on an airplane, and had never even been away at summer camp.
Five decades later, I have a wonderful career behind me and not only lots of wonderful memories, a few nice recognitions of my work including the Television Hall of Fame, a Golden Globe award and 5 Emmy nominations. It didn't happen overnight, it took a few years....but the first day I was actually on national television as a comedic actress on the Garry Moore Show was, tragically, the same day we buried my Dad. A wonderful, thoughtful and insightful man, Angelo Buzzi is still with me, to this day, with his words of inspiration and encouragement.
The author of this book shares with the reader a parting letter with his son, who's also going off to college for the first time, and these are words of wisdom, brutal honesty, and encouragement in the stark light of reality. This book took me back to the day at the airport when I hugged my Dad and thanked him for believing in me. His words helped make me what I am today, and I'm sure Austin will set his goals very high and reach a great many of them, based on the way his father empowered him with this letter.
I strongly recommend this – it's a perfect gift for anyone graduating from college or high school, or for any parent you may know who holds the reigns a little too tightly on someone with great potential but who's not blessed with enough freedom to learn to fly."
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
by David M. Perkins
Non-fiction / Parenting
ISBN-13: 978-1453655399
www.davidmperkins.com
Amazon.com listing
Genre: Nonfiction
5 Stars
Reviewed by Ruth Buzzi for Amazon.com
"Taking parenting to a new level, this book expresses what we all should have heard from our Dads when we first left home.
My Dad encouraged me to follow my dreams and, at the age of 17, put me on a plane to California to attend college at the Pasadena Playhouse for the Performing Arts. Some were skeptical, some laughed at my intentions. But Dad gave me the honor of trusting my judgment and loving me enough to let me go and follow my dreams. I was the first member of my family to have ever flown on an airplane, and had never even been away at summer camp.
Five decades later, I have a wonderful career behind me and not only lots of wonderful memories, a few nice recognitions of my work including the Television Hall of Fame, a Golden Globe award and 5 Emmy nominations. It didn't happen overnight, it took a few years....but the first day I was actually on national television as a comedic actress on the Garry Moore Show was, tragically, the same day we buried my Dad. A wonderful, thoughtful and insightful man, Angelo Buzzi is still with me, to this day, with his words of inspiration and encouragement.
The author of this book shares with the reader a parting letter with his son, who's also going off to college for the first time, and these are words of wisdom, brutal honesty, and encouragement in the stark light of reality. This book took me back to the day at the airport when I hugged my Dad and thanked him for believing in me. His words helped make me what I am today, and I'm sure Austin will set his goals very high and reach a great many of them, based on the way his father empowered him with this letter.
I strongly recommend this – it's a perfect gift for anyone graduating from college or high school, or for any parent you may know who holds the reigns a little too tightly on someone with great potential but who's not blessed with enough freedom to learn to fly."
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wesley Britton Compares Beatles Books
The Beatles: The Biography
By Bob Spitz
Little, Brown and Co., 2005
Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America
By Jonathan Gould
Random House, 2007
Review by: Wesley Britton originally posted at Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
One might have thought that by 2005, new biographies of The Beatles would have become major exercises in the redundant. Still, they keep coming, and it seems the history and legend are an apparent bottomless well of fascination for writers and readers alike. From time to time, such titles do warrant attention for their fresh perspectives to the saga, and Bob Spitz and Jonathan Gould both deserve close readings, albeit for very different reasons.
After the admittedly sanitized and truncated authorized bio by Hunter Davies in 1968, the elephant in the room arrived in 1981 with Philip Norman’s Shout!, which purported to be as detailed and researched as any one volume history can be. But Shout! was marred with a clear bias toward the contributions of John Lennon. Over the years, Norman took heed to criticisms of his lack of objectivity, and in 2005 put out an updated version which allegedly cleans up that misstep and includes more recent events in the lives of Paul, George, and Ringo.
For my money, in 1984 Peter Brown and Stephen Gaines’ The Love You Make did Norman a few turns better as Brown was not only an insider to the original events, but maintained an access to participants that gave his book a bit more depth and a more balanced overview. Then, of course, the 2000 Anthology claimed to be the final word on the subject, the story told by the lads themselves. Along the way, we got books on individual Beatles on their own—my favorite remaining Pete Shotton’s 1987 memories of John in In My Life. So, what would be left for a new historian to uncover all these years later?
To Bob Spitz’s credit, he returned to primary sources to more-or-less retell the story from scratch, supplementing the public records with new interviews and documents Albert Goldman didn’t use in his largely discredited bio of John Lennon. Strangely, while Spitz refers to a number of sources throughout the text and notes, he barely mentions Norman. This is most surprising, especially in the notes, leaving the reader to infer reasons why Shout! doesn’t count. Well, it does. While it’s been years since I read the first edition, I did notice matters Norman explored but Spitz didn’t, such as more on the come-and-go drummers in the early days and what the Beatles did in their off hours in Hamburg. I especially remember one chapter on “Apple Scruffs” where Norman talked with the star-struck girls who haunted Beatles HQ. While not essential to the Beatles story, Norman clearly went into corners Spitz didn’t.
The major distinction between these books is mainly that of emphasis and not so much the minutia of who did what and when. Spitz tells the story with detailed economy, revealing little new I noticed, although his conversations with Liverpool contemporaries like Rory Storm do add perspectives about the band’s place in the club scene in the very early ‘60s. I did spot Spitz trimming off tales that couldn’t be confirmed. For example, one tale repeated in many sources is that Stu Sutcliffe’s brain hemorrhage was caused by a beating after a Beatles concert. While Spitz notes the occasional violence the band suffered on the road, he makes no direct connection to Sutcliffe’s later health and the beatings, and rightly so. Without medical records ascribing Sutcliffe’s decline to a specific concussion, there’s no tangible evidence to support the myth that Sutcliffe was the first Beatle martyr. I could be wrong, but Spitz may have more on the private life of Brian Epstein than previous histories. The tragedy and surprising emptiness of his life are sketched in increasingly sad detail, ending with an overdose that was almost a foregone conclusion. Oh, as with most reliable sources, Spitz doesn’t even mention the story of a youthful record buyer coming to NEMS looking for a Beatle record, the first time Epstein supposedly heard of the band. The evidence clearly shows that Epstein sold and advertised in Mersey Beat, a local paper that promoted the group in nearly every issue.
Very unlike Norman, the trail Spitz traces is about a band largely led by Paul McCartney after Beatlemania, John Lennon being the most reluctant Beatle once heroine and Yoko come into play. In fact, without Spitz editorializing any points, Yoko Ono once again takes on her “Dragon Lady” garb, her presence the obvious impetus for the band’s latter day turmoil in the studio. This isn’t to say George’s understandable resentments and Paul’s heavy-handedness aren’t on display—in fact, Bob Spitz should be credited with the most balanced and most human history of a group that soared very high based on its talents and timing before plummeting due to naivety, a lack of business acumen, drugs, leeches, egos, and the loss of the energy and commitment that bonded the Fabs together in the first place.
In short, Bob Spitz’s biography is as good as a blow-by-blow account of John, Paul, George, and Ringo in one book can be. Anyone who knows the story will find few new surprises, but perhaps will have a different take on events, perhaps.
But revelations are aplenty in Jonathan Gould’s occasionally superb Can’t Buy Me Love. Gould isn’t interested in a day-by-day retelling of the saga. Instead, Gould focuses on the music and the cultural and sociological contexts that influenced the group and shaped their destinies while showcasing why they were able to break new ground both intuitively and deliberately. No where else have I read the linguistic background for the Liverpool accents, and how the Beatles emphasized their Northern heritage in their public speaking. Gould makes original observations such as noting “All You Need is Love” did debut on the international “One World” broadcast, but few Americans knew about it or saw it. The special was only sporadically aired on a number of Public Broadcasting stations in the states, the song following apparently boring sequences such as the ins and outs of soybean farms. I didn’t know “And Your Bird Can Sing” had nothing to do with girls but was instead John Lennon’s response to a press release in which Frank Sinatra mocked the Beatles. According to Gould, the partnership of John, Paul, and George in songwriting and playing was unique as it all happened among themselves as an insulated group of teenagers listening to and imitating records , not as musicians who came together later in life mixing and blending their influences.
Gould elaborates on many points long discussed by critics, such as the idea that America responded so deeply to the Beatles because of the emotional grief after the death of President Kennedy. But Gould nails down this speculation by quoting authorities who discovered that teenagers, more so than any other demographic, reacted to the assassination so strongly. Likewise, the idea that Decca executives fouled up badly when they rejected the group and Capitol Records were tone deaf when they drug their feet turned out to be very rational decisions at the time. As Gould states simply, the “Beatles choked” during their Decca auditions. No news there, but if Decca had signed them, then we wouldn’t have had the guiding hand of George Martin in the studio. No “Please Please Me” and likely no Beatlemania. Had Capitol issued “Please Please Me” when it was new, then the timing of the British Invasion would not have coincided so perfectly with an American cultural climate so receptive to the Beatles. Not to mention the fact Meet The Beatles was a far superior debut than Please Please Me.
I suspect most readers will find Gould’s study one to skim as many sections take their time to explore the definitions of terms like “charisma” and “mod” and thus the tome often takes on the tone of a reference volume. Other sections showcase Gould’s considerable musical knowledge, analyzing the anatomy of many of the Beatles most significant numbers. But Gould’s conclusions are more than arguable—he praises “Here, There, and Everywhere” as being a songwriting departure for the group and offers any number of technical and lyrical comments that are either tedious or overblown. For Beatle fans, such observations can serve as a bit of a game—that sounds right, no, don’t buy that at all . . .
Both these volumes demonstrate there are still writers who can offer new twists and insights into the story of the greatest rock band of all time, but I still suspect the well is drying. As those who were there disappear and memories dim, the only new perspectives will be about the Beatles place in the present and future, not the past.
---
Reviewer Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Bob Spitz
Little, Brown and Co., 2005
Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America
By Jonathan Gould
Random House, 2007
Review by: Wesley Britton originally posted at Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
One might have thought that by 2005, new biographies of The Beatles would have become major exercises in the redundant. Still, they keep coming, and it seems the history and legend are an apparent bottomless well of fascination for writers and readers alike. From time to time, such titles do warrant attention for their fresh perspectives to the saga, and Bob Spitz and Jonathan Gould both deserve close readings, albeit for very different reasons.
After the admittedly sanitized and truncated authorized bio by Hunter Davies in 1968, the elephant in the room arrived in 1981 with Philip Norman’s Shout!, which purported to be as detailed and researched as any one volume history can be. But Shout! was marred with a clear bias toward the contributions of John Lennon. Over the years, Norman took heed to criticisms of his lack of objectivity, and in 2005 put out an updated version which allegedly cleans up that misstep and includes more recent events in the lives of Paul, George, and Ringo.
For my money, in 1984 Peter Brown and Stephen Gaines’ The Love You Make did Norman a few turns better as Brown was not only an insider to the original events, but maintained an access to participants that gave his book a bit more depth and a more balanced overview. Then, of course, the 2000 Anthology claimed to be the final word on the subject, the story told by the lads themselves. Along the way, we got books on individual Beatles on their own—my favorite remaining Pete Shotton’s 1987 memories of John in In My Life. So, what would be left for a new historian to uncover all these years later?
To Bob Spitz’s credit, he returned to primary sources to more-or-less retell the story from scratch, supplementing the public records with new interviews and documents Albert Goldman didn’t use in his largely discredited bio of John Lennon. Strangely, while Spitz refers to a number of sources throughout the text and notes, he barely mentions Norman. This is most surprising, especially in the notes, leaving the reader to infer reasons why Shout! doesn’t count. Well, it does. While it’s been years since I read the first edition, I did notice matters Norman explored but Spitz didn’t, such as more on the come-and-go drummers in the early days and what the Beatles did in their off hours in Hamburg. I especially remember one chapter on “Apple Scruffs” where Norman talked with the star-struck girls who haunted Beatles HQ. While not essential to the Beatles story, Norman clearly went into corners Spitz didn’t.
The major distinction between these books is mainly that of emphasis and not so much the minutia of who did what and when. Spitz tells the story with detailed economy, revealing little new I noticed, although his conversations with Liverpool contemporaries like Rory Storm do add perspectives about the band’s place in the club scene in the very early ‘60s. I did spot Spitz trimming off tales that couldn’t be confirmed. For example, one tale repeated in many sources is that Stu Sutcliffe’s brain hemorrhage was caused by a beating after a Beatles concert. While Spitz notes the occasional violence the band suffered on the road, he makes no direct connection to Sutcliffe’s later health and the beatings, and rightly so. Without medical records ascribing Sutcliffe’s decline to a specific concussion, there’s no tangible evidence to support the myth that Sutcliffe was the first Beatle martyr. I could be wrong, but Spitz may have more on the private life of Brian Epstein than previous histories. The tragedy and surprising emptiness of his life are sketched in increasingly sad detail, ending with an overdose that was almost a foregone conclusion. Oh, as with most reliable sources, Spitz doesn’t even mention the story of a youthful record buyer coming to NEMS looking for a Beatle record, the first time Epstein supposedly heard of the band. The evidence clearly shows that Epstein sold and advertised in Mersey Beat, a local paper that promoted the group in nearly every issue.
Very unlike Norman, the trail Spitz traces is about a band largely led by Paul McCartney after Beatlemania, John Lennon being the most reluctant Beatle once heroine and Yoko come into play. In fact, without Spitz editorializing any points, Yoko Ono once again takes on her “Dragon Lady” garb, her presence the obvious impetus for the band’s latter day turmoil in the studio. This isn’t to say George’s understandable resentments and Paul’s heavy-handedness aren’t on display—in fact, Bob Spitz should be credited with the most balanced and most human history of a group that soared very high based on its talents and timing before plummeting due to naivety, a lack of business acumen, drugs, leeches, egos, and the loss of the energy and commitment that bonded the Fabs together in the first place.
In short, Bob Spitz’s biography is as good as a blow-by-blow account of John, Paul, George, and Ringo in one book can be. Anyone who knows the story will find few new surprises, but perhaps will have a different take on events, perhaps.
But revelations are aplenty in Jonathan Gould’s occasionally superb Can’t Buy Me Love. Gould isn’t interested in a day-by-day retelling of the saga. Instead, Gould focuses on the music and the cultural and sociological contexts that influenced the group and shaped their destinies while showcasing why they were able to break new ground both intuitively and deliberately. No where else have I read the linguistic background for the Liverpool accents, and how the Beatles emphasized their Northern heritage in their public speaking. Gould makes original observations such as noting “All You Need is Love” did debut on the international “One World” broadcast, but few Americans knew about it or saw it. The special was only sporadically aired on a number of Public Broadcasting stations in the states, the song following apparently boring sequences such as the ins and outs of soybean farms. I didn’t know “And Your Bird Can Sing” had nothing to do with girls but was instead John Lennon’s response to a press release in which Frank Sinatra mocked the Beatles. According to Gould, the partnership of John, Paul, and George in songwriting and playing was unique as it all happened among themselves as an insulated group of teenagers listening to and imitating records , not as musicians who came together later in life mixing and blending their influences.
Gould elaborates on many points long discussed by critics, such as the idea that America responded so deeply to the Beatles because of the emotional grief after the death of President Kennedy. But Gould nails down this speculation by quoting authorities who discovered that teenagers, more so than any other demographic, reacted to the assassination so strongly. Likewise, the idea that Decca executives fouled up badly when they rejected the group and Capitol Records were tone deaf when they drug their feet turned out to be very rational decisions at the time. As Gould states simply, the “Beatles choked” during their Decca auditions. No news there, but if Decca had signed them, then we wouldn’t have had the guiding hand of George Martin in the studio. No “Please Please Me” and likely no Beatlemania. Had Capitol issued “Please Please Me” when it was new, then the timing of the British Invasion would not have coincided so perfectly with an American cultural climate so receptive to the Beatles. Not to mention the fact Meet The Beatles was a far superior debut than Please Please Me.
I suspect most readers will find Gould’s study one to skim as many sections take their time to explore the definitions of terms like “charisma” and “mod” and thus the tome often takes on the tone of a reference volume. Other sections showcase Gould’s considerable musical knowledge, analyzing the anatomy of many of the Beatles most significant numbers. But Gould’s conclusions are more than arguable—he praises “Here, There, and Everywhere” as being a songwriting departure for the group and offers any number of technical and lyrical comments that are either tedious or overblown. For Beatle fans, such observations can serve as a bit of a game—that sounds right, no, don’t buy that at all . . .
Both these volumes demonstrate there are still writers who can offer new twists and insights into the story of the greatest rock band of all time, but I still suspect the well is drying. As those who were there disappear and memories dim, the only new perspectives will be about the Beatles place in the present and future, not the past.
---
Reviewer Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Mosquito Marketing Recommended for Authors
Mosquito Marketing
By Michelle Dunn
ISBN 1453605304
Self Published
I have a motto: "Reading one book on book promotion is never enough."
Thus, I recommend Michelle Dunn's Mosquito Marketing, a book full of book-marketing essentials. Though I seldom weigh in on this blog myself, here is the heartfelt recommendation I wrote to Michelle, complete with disclaimer:
Dear Michelle:
Congratulations on a job well done! In the writing. In the accumulation of knowledge. And in the production. I shall recommend Mosquito Marketing to my UCLA students and my clients--every single one of them!
Yes, you may use that as an endorsement, though you may not want to because I am in the book. Thus I may appear biased. The thing is, I would have said the same thing even if I had no part in it! (-:
So, it's going up on my Web site (the Resources for Writers section) right now! And into my recommendation list for my students. Soon. (-:
Thank you so much. Mosquito Marketing (ISBN 1453605304) will be a valued part of books I am part of--ones that I keep in a special reference (and brag!) library. Great work!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Michelle Dunn
ISBN 1453605304
Self Published
I have a motto: "Reading one book on book promotion is never enough."
Thus, I recommend Michelle Dunn's Mosquito Marketing, a book full of book-marketing essentials. Though I seldom weigh in on this blog myself, here is the heartfelt recommendation I wrote to Michelle, complete with disclaimer:
Dear Michelle:
Congratulations on a job well done! In the writing. In the accumulation of knowledge. And in the production. I shall recommend Mosquito Marketing to my UCLA students and my clients--every single one of them!
Yes, you may use that as an endorsement, though you may not want to because I am in the book. Thus I may appear biased. The thing is, I would have said the same thing even if I had no part in it! (-:
So, it's going up on my Web site (the Resources for Writers section) right now! And into my recommendation list for my students. Soon. (-:
Thank you so much. Mosquito Marketing (ISBN 1453605304) will be a valued part of books I am part of--ones that I keep in a special reference (and brag!) library. Great work!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Friday, July 16, 2010
Meander Scar
By Lisa Lickel
Inspirational Romance/Contemporary
ISBN: 978-1-934912-23-2
Reviewed by Shawna K. Williams, originally for Amazon
I truly loved and appreciated this book. Every bit of it -- story, plot, writing, setting, and characters! I'll be honest, sometimes I get tired of reading another romance with a formulaic feel. (Boy meets girl, they hate each other for some reason, but they can't stop thinking about each other. They get together and everything is great for a while, but either boy or girl has some dark secret that threatens to tear them apart. It does, but then they work it out and everybody lives happily ever after.)
Okay, it's not that there's anything wrong with that. There are plenty of entertaining stories that are molded around that setup. But since I do read so many, when I come across a well written book, where the story is molded around characters and events on several different levels, I'm hooked. I'm not just hooked, I'm enamored.
And I'm enamored with Meander Scar.
Everything about it was unique. And I don't mean weird. The story had its own individual mold and that's because the pacing and drama was completely controlled by the characters. This gave it a true to life feel with plenty of depth, complexity, and total believability. And it took me on an emotional journey -- which was heart-wrenching in places -- but also moved me on a deep level.
From the very beginning Lisa Lickel gives the reader something to think about by introducing Ann's situation, where her life is in a state of limbo. From there, we get to chew on the controversy of romance and age difference. There are lessons in grief, lessons in letting go, lessons in closure and forgiveness - lessons in faith. I just loved this book!
One of the most touching parts in the story is near the end, when Mark discovers a diary of Ann's. It's a journey of her feelings and insecurities from the moment he came back into her life, and when he read it, I wanted to cry.
If any of you have read Nicholas Sparks', A walk to Remember, you may recall that it ends with a single, powerful line. There's some speculation as to what actually happens, but that line offers the reader tremendous hope. The ending to Meander Scar has a similar feel. I thought it was perfect.
Reviewer Biography:
Shawna K. Williams - Grace-Inspired Fiction
No Other, May, 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
In All Things, Nov., 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
Orphaned Hearts, Dec., 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
http://shawnakwilliams.com/
http://shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com/
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Lisa Lickel
Inspirational Romance/Contemporary
ISBN: 978-1-934912-23-2
Reviewed by Shawna K. Williams, originally for Amazon
I truly loved and appreciated this book. Every bit of it -- story, plot, writing, setting, and characters! I'll be honest, sometimes I get tired of reading another romance with a formulaic feel. (Boy meets girl, they hate each other for some reason, but they can't stop thinking about each other. They get together and everything is great for a while, but either boy or girl has some dark secret that threatens to tear them apart. It does, but then they work it out and everybody lives happily ever after.)
Okay, it's not that there's anything wrong with that. There are plenty of entertaining stories that are molded around that setup. But since I do read so many, when I come across a well written book, where the story is molded around characters and events on several different levels, I'm hooked. I'm not just hooked, I'm enamored.
And I'm enamored with Meander Scar.
Everything about it was unique. And I don't mean weird. The story had its own individual mold and that's because the pacing and drama was completely controlled by the characters. This gave it a true to life feel with plenty of depth, complexity, and total believability. And it took me on an emotional journey -- which was heart-wrenching in places -- but also moved me on a deep level.
From the very beginning Lisa Lickel gives the reader something to think about by introducing Ann's situation, where her life is in a state of limbo. From there, we get to chew on the controversy of romance and age difference. There are lessons in grief, lessons in letting go, lessons in closure and forgiveness - lessons in faith. I just loved this book!
One of the most touching parts in the story is near the end, when Mark discovers a diary of Ann's. It's a journey of her feelings and insecurities from the moment he came back into her life, and when he read it, I wanted to cry.
If any of you have read Nicholas Sparks', A walk to Remember, you may recall that it ends with a single, powerful line. There's some speculation as to what actually happens, but that line offers the reader tremendous hope. The ending to Meander Scar has a similar feel. I thought it was perfect.
Reviewer Biography:
Shawna K. Williams - Grace-Inspired Fiction
No Other, May, 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
In All Things, Nov., 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
Orphaned Hearts, Dec., 2010. Desert Breeze Publishing
http://shawnakwilliams.com/
http://shawnawilliams-oldsmobile.blogspot.com/
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Entertainment Reviewer Talks about Book on Eric Clapton, George Harrison and More
Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me
(Titled Wonderful Today for U.K. edition.)
By Patti Boyd and Penny Junor
Harmony Books, Aug. 2007
Reviewed by: Wesley Britton originally posted at Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
Rock muses are a unique breed of women, at least in terms of those who’ve been immortalized in the words and melodies of those they inspired. Perhaps the best sampling would be the most select of all rock and roll women’s clubs—Beatle wives. After all, they came from a wide range of backgrounds—a Japanese artist, New York photographer, a Liverpool-bred hairdresser . . . there was even Heather Mills, once a seemingly fairy-tale consolation for a grieving songster. Then, in a flash, she publicly devolved into a shrill gold-digger of epic proportions. Mills not only made Nicole Smith seem a rank amateur in the profession, her stint on Dancing With The Stars made it clear, if anyone needed further evidence, that the term “star” now has less meaning than many rocker’s vows of marital fidelity. But I digress.
Going back in time, there were the ballads of John and Yoko, Paul and Linda, and then the apparently mature unions of Ringo and Barbara, George and Olivia. Each of these are stories unto themselves, each as distinct as the couples involved. And before them were the ballads of the first Beatle wives—Cynthia, Maureen, Patti Boyd, and, more or less, Jane Asher. All their stories are as well known as any aspect of the Beatle myth and each shared something in common—being married to big-time rock stars meant dealing with young men enjoying sexual opportunities that were the envy of mere mortals like thee and me. In addition, these women lived with huge chunks of lonely time where their mates were out on the road or lost in their own worlds when they did come home. All this is on record, as it were, in multiple books and histories. So, what can another autobiography offer that pulls back the curtains and shed new light on the old legends?
In terms of who did what and when and with whom, Patti Boyd doesn’t have much new to share. How could she? Even before meeting George Harrison on the set of A Hard Day’s Night, she was becoming a “star” in her own right, a model with a growing list of impressive photographic credentials. As Cynthia Lennon observed in her own memoir, A Twist of Lennon (1978), this was one reason the Liverpool wives—Cyn and Maureen—had misgivings about the new Beatle lass. After all, they had been there from the beginning and George bringing a sexy model into the fold seemed a bit of showing off. No wonder that Patti’s memories don’t focus much on Cynthia, but Maureen turns out to be the picture of betrayal—first a seeming close friend, then the Beatle wife who jumped beds from the drummer to the guitarist, not only under Patti’s nose but in her own house.
Again, nothing new in these stories. They simply remind us that in this circle of friends, women were as disposable as pillowcases, and the male bonds of musicians trumped all else. How else could Ringo, George, and then Eric Clapton remain close collaborators for decades after their best mates stole their girls? Patti’s descriptions of life with George does shed some insight into this mindset largely because of her own perseverance and own repeated forgiveness of her men. After all, life with George did bring with it the highest of highs in every sense of the word. Patti’s travelogue of her adventures in the ‘60s is filled with some of the excitement of those days, especially the physical and spiritual journeys in India. The years of 1966 and 1967 were expansive for both the Harrisons, with Patti joining her husband in vegetarianism, TM, and Eastern mysticism. Well, it was actually Patti who introduced George to the idea of meeting the maharishi mahesh yogi which means she was the one to light the spark that became the “Year of the Guru” which, in turn, opened the doors for all things ultimately called New Age.
Then, as with all Beatle matters, things fell apart on the home front. Here, I did get the sense I was getting new glimpses into the psychology of George. What is clear is his obsessive nature that led him into taking hours to chant and meditate, then party to the hilt, then meditate and chant to the extreme, and so on. Patti understood the withdrawal she felt when George was apparently in a creative state, but saw herself shut out when, even sharing the same house, she didn’t have a husband to communicate with. Later, she blames herself for not putting her foot down and insisting on the pair working on their relationship. But there was this fella named Eric Clapton and a song called “Layla.”
In Patti’s account, and I doubt she intended this, EC comes across as even less sympathetic than he did in his own autobiography, which coincidently was published at the same time. (See my review posted here Nov. 24, 2009.) In Clapton’s own words, the ‘70s onward were all periods of addiction, first heroine, then alcohol. He admits that wooing Patti was torturous, but once he had her, he relegated her to being his domestic housekeeper for whom appreciation just wasn’t in him. Patti was in a position where the house gardener ignored her and her allowance was entirely dependent on Clapton’s management. For me, one moment said it all—when Clapton’s son Connor was born. For Eric, he was consumed with joy. For Patti, it was astonishing her husband would want her to share his feelings considering Connor was born to another woman with whom Eric still wanted to share time. Here was Patti, childless, seeking medical help for the miracle that would make her a mother. Here was Eric, trumpeting a birth that should have prompted Patti to send him packing.
That finally does happen, and here’s where the comparison with Heather Mills comes in. After years of Patti suffering with Eric’s nearly monthly brushes with death, Clapton and his manager, Roger Forrester, hung her out to dry with minimal support. To a degree, this ended up being to Patti’s betterment as she was forced to find a new career, and she found creative fulfillment switching from modeling to photography.
While she didn’t make this comparison herself, one of her final passages struck me. Patti described the difference between illusion and reality, that of being a model posing for pictures and being the woman who had to try to live up to the expectations people had of the faces they saw on magazine covers. In her later years, Patti had found contentment not trying to live the image. For me, this seemed a parallel for the woman called “Layla” created by EC and the woman he finally conquered. The image inside his creative heart inspired him—but the real Patti Boyd was just another needle in his arm. We listeners have a similar relationship with the musicians who gave us the songs that defined our lives. We have the imagery and sounds we treasure juxtaposed against the reality upon which the transcendent was based. For Patti and Eric, the song “Wonderful Tonight” had a power only those two can understand, joyous when things are good, painful when they weren’t. For most of us, the lady who looks wonderful tonight is someone in the here and now, at least hopefully so. For me, all these years “Something” was just one of George’s classic songs—now I hear it wondering how George Harrison could have neglected, ignored, and then lost this wonderful muse. Likewise, in the harsh light of day, do we listeners lose the creative mysteries immortalized in the songs we brought into our hearts?
Well, a survivor named Patti Boyd didn’t. The best thing about her book is that she is now her own muse. Not a bad place to end up.
---
Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
(Titled Wonderful Today for U.K. edition.)
By Patti Boyd and Penny Junor
Harmony Books, Aug. 2007
Reviewed by: Wesley Britton originally posted at Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
Rock muses are a unique breed of women, at least in terms of those who’ve been immortalized in the words and melodies of those they inspired. Perhaps the best sampling would be the most select of all rock and roll women’s clubs—Beatle wives. After all, they came from a wide range of backgrounds—a Japanese artist, New York photographer, a Liverpool-bred hairdresser . . . there was even Heather Mills, once a seemingly fairy-tale consolation for a grieving songster. Then, in a flash, she publicly devolved into a shrill gold-digger of epic proportions. Mills not only made Nicole Smith seem a rank amateur in the profession, her stint on Dancing With The Stars made it clear, if anyone needed further evidence, that the term “star” now has less meaning than many rocker’s vows of marital fidelity. But I digress.
Going back in time, there were the ballads of John and Yoko, Paul and Linda, and then the apparently mature unions of Ringo and Barbara, George and Olivia. Each of these are stories unto themselves, each as distinct as the couples involved. And before them were the ballads of the first Beatle wives—Cynthia, Maureen, Patti Boyd, and, more or less, Jane Asher. All their stories are as well known as any aspect of the Beatle myth and each shared something in common—being married to big-time rock stars meant dealing with young men enjoying sexual opportunities that were the envy of mere mortals like thee and me. In addition, these women lived with huge chunks of lonely time where their mates were out on the road or lost in their own worlds when they did come home. All this is on record, as it were, in multiple books and histories. So, what can another autobiography offer that pulls back the curtains and shed new light on the old legends?
In terms of who did what and when and with whom, Patti Boyd doesn’t have much new to share. How could she? Even before meeting George Harrison on the set of A Hard Day’s Night, she was becoming a “star” in her own right, a model with a growing list of impressive photographic credentials. As Cynthia Lennon observed in her own memoir, A Twist of Lennon (1978), this was one reason the Liverpool wives—Cyn and Maureen—had misgivings about the new Beatle lass. After all, they had been there from the beginning and George bringing a sexy model into the fold seemed a bit of showing off. No wonder that Patti’s memories don’t focus much on Cynthia, but Maureen turns out to be the picture of betrayal—first a seeming close friend, then the Beatle wife who jumped beds from the drummer to the guitarist, not only under Patti’s nose but in her own house.
Again, nothing new in these stories. They simply remind us that in this circle of friends, women were as disposable as pillowcases, and the male bonds of musicians trumped all else. How else could Ringo, George, and then Eric Clapton remain close collaborators for decades after their best mates stole their girls? Patti’s descriptions of life with George does shed some insight into this mindset largely because of her own perseverance and own repeated forgiveness of her men. After all, life with George did bring with it the highest of highs in every sense of the word. Patti’s travelogue of her adventures in the ‘60s is filled with some of the excitement of those days, especially the physical and spiritual journeys in India. The years of 1966 and 1967 were expansive for both the Harrisons, with Patti joining her husband in vegetarianism, TM, and Eastern mysticism. Well, it was actually Patti who introduced George to the idea of meeting the maharishi mahesh yogi which means she was the one to light the spark that became the “Year of the Guru” which, in turn, opened the doors for all things ultimately called New Age.
Then, as with all Beatle matters, things fell apart on the home front. Here, I did get the sense I was getting new glimpses into the psychology of George. What is clear is his obsessive nature that led him into taking hours to chant and meditate, then party to the hilt, then meditate and chant to the extreme, and so on. Patti understood the withdrawal she felt when George was apparently in a creative state, but saw herself shut out when, even sharing the same house, she didn’t have a husband to communicate with. Later, she blames herself for not putting her foot down and insisting on the pair working on their relationship. But there was this fella named Eric Clapton and a song called “Layla.”
In Patti’s account, and I doubt she intended this, EC comes across as even less sympathetic than he did in his own autobiography, which coincidently was published at the same time. (See my review posted here Nov. 24, 2009.) In Clapton’s own words, the ‘70s onward were all periods of addiction, first heroine, then alcohol. He admits that wooing Patti was torturous, but once he had her, he relegated her to being his domestic housekeeper for whom appreciation just wasn’t in him. Patti was in a position where the house gardener ignored her and her allowance was entirely dependent on Clapton’s management. For me, one moment said it all—when Clapton’s son Connor was born. For Eric, he was consumed with joy. For Patti, it was astonishing her husband would want her to share his feelings considering Connor was born to another woman with whom Eric still wanted to share time. Here was Patti, childless, seeking medical help for the miracle that would make her a mother. Here was Eric, trumpeting a birth that should have prompted Patti to send him packing.
That finally does happen, and here’s where the comparison with Heather Mills comes in. After years of Patti suffering with Eric’s nearly monthly brushes with death, Clapton and his manager, Roger Forrester, hung her out to dry with minimal support. To a degree, this ended up being to Patti’s betterment as she was forced to find a new career, and she found creative fulfillment switching from modeling to photography.
While she didn’t make this comparison herself, one of her final passages struck me. Patti described the difference between illusion and reality, that of being a model posing for pictures and being the woman who had to try to live up to the expectations people had of the faces they saw on magazine covers. In her later years, Patti had found contentment not trying to live the image. For me, this seemed a parallel for the woman called “Layla” created by EC and the woman he finally conquered. The image inside his creative heart inspired him—but the real Patti Boyd was just another needle in his arm. We listeners have a similar relationship with the musicians who gave us the songs that defined our lives. We have the imagery and sounds we treasure juxtaposed against the reality upon which the transcendent was based. For Patti and Eric, the song “Wonderful Tonight” had a power only those two can understand, joyous when things are good, painful when they weren’t. For most of us, the lady who looks wonderful tonight is someone in the here and now, at least hopefully so. For me, all these years “Something” was just one of George’s classic songs—now I hear it wondering how George Harrison could have neglected, ignored, and then lost this wonderful muse. Likewise, in the harsh light of day, do we listeners lose the creative mysteries immortalized in the songs we brought into our hearts?
Well, a survivor named Patti Boyd didn’t. The best thing about her book is that she is now her own muse. Not a bad place to end up.
---
Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wesley Britton's Hot-Off-The-Press Review of "Beach Boys"
Endless Summer: My Life with the Beach Boys
By Jack Lloyd
Bear Manor Media
ISBN-10: 1-59393-xxx-x (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 973-1-59393-xxx-x (alk. paper)
(Release scheduled for Late July 2010)
Reviewed by Wesley Britton originally for “Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook"
Of all the rock memoirs I’ve read this year, Jack Lloyd’s slice of the ‘60s is one of my favorites. For one matter, Lloyd knows readers want to know about the subject of his book’s title, so Endless Summer isn’t a full-blown autobiography. Lloyd doesn’t bog the early chapters down with his upbringing and his book ends when his tenure with the Beach Boys was over. So readers will quickly realize Lloyd is acting as a narrator of what he saw during some important years in rock history with a minimum of details about his own personal life. As a result, Lloyd says his account is a “tell some,” not “all” book.
More importantly, Lloyd provides a perspective into the music of the ‘60s very different from the usual memories of musicians or their girlfriends or wives. His role was, depending on what hat he was wearing, as a personal manager/promoter/producer who got into the entertainment business selling programs, watching the box office, arranging concert dates, and sitting in the office writing publicity and paying bills. In his early days, he got to know folks involved with the Smothers Brothers before he began spending considerable time on the road. Lloyd’s duties expanded to keeping a careful eye on the Beach Boys in general and drummer Dennis Wilson in particular, especially in the after-hours bars and speakeasys. It was a life in planes, hotels, getting the boys to the gig on time and finding food when the show was over. It was a life with unusual lessons. For example, Lloyd learned it’s better to hire prostitutes on the road—professionals don’t blackmail or come back with paternity suits. Check ages on driver’s licenses before letting the girls in the room. Be wary of girls who sleep with rock stars or their entourage in hopes of getting a record contract. And be more careful still with the locals who don’t always want to pay their bills.
The Beach Boys weren’t the only band Lloyd worked with, and much of his book is anecdotes about Sonny and Cher, Jim Morrison, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Buffalo Springfield, and others. It’s the story of an era when road managers and producers had a viable role in entertainment. Often using the band’s own funds, they made money from percentages and selling souvenir books. They had to be creative when ticket sales were low and invent publicity on the spot. Lloyd had to put out fires like fighting Canadian tax collectors dogging the band for cuts of concert revenues. Some of all these stories can be skimmed—not every stopover, drunken evening, or sexual encounter is entertaining. As Lloyd was mainly involved with the Beach Boys on tour, he has little to say about Brian Wilson as his time was spent with Bruce Johnson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson and, again, the wild drummer, Dennis Wilson. So there are no studio insights nor discussions of song composition or production. As other books cover this ground, this isn’t a criticism—merely a clarification of Lloyd’s scope. He was the guy who traveled ahead of the band to make sure the gigs ran smoothly and hopefully lucratively and he was the man calling radio stations to fill in where the record label failed. Remember, there was a time when Beach Boys LPs weren’t selling and the late ‘60s was an era when the group seemed out of step with current trends. In short, Lloyd was the guy who looked after the band’s interests while they were engaged in orgies, binges, performing, or preparing for tours. Whether he became a friend of the group remains an open question. When he moved on to greener pastures, no one seemed to notice. That’s rock ‘n roll.
If all this sounds like stories for a select audience, Lloyd has an engaging style and keeps the anecdotes coming at a fast clip. There’s plenty of humor and surprising twists. Whether you’re a Beach Boys fan or not, Endless Summer offers a perspective into rock history new to me, at least. The Stones had fun with their “Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man”—Lloyd demonstrates such bands wouldn’t have gotten very far without him.
Details and ordering information.
~ Dr. Wesley Britton has written four books on espionage in the media and is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents.” Many of his reviews are posted at www.spywise.net and his radio interviews are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Jack Lloyd
Bear Manor Media
ISBN-10: 1-59393-xxx-x (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 973-1-59393-xxx-x (alk. paper)
(Release scheduled for Late July 2010)
Reviewed by Wesley Britton originally for “Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook"
Of all the rock memoirs I’ve read this year, Jack Lloyd’s slice of the ‘60s is one of my favorites. For one matter, Lloyd knows readers want to know about the subject of his book’s title, so Endless Summer isn’t a full-blown autobiography. Lloyd doesn’t bog the early chapters down with his upbringing and his book ends when his tenure with the Beach Boys was over. So readers will quickly realize Lloyd is acting as a narrator of what he saw during some important years in rock history with a minimum of details about his own personal life. As a result, Lloyd says his account is a “tell some,” not “all” book.
More importantly, Lloyd provides a perspective into the music of the ‘60s very different from the usual memories of musicians or their girlfriends or wives. His role was, depending on what hat he was wearing, as a personal manager/promoter/producer who got into the entertainment business selling programs, watching the box office, arranging concert dates, and sitting in the office writing publicity and paying bills. In his early days, he got to know folks involved with the Smothers Brothers before he began spending considerable time on the road. Lloyd’s duties expanded to keeping a careful eye on the Beach Boys in general and drummer Dennis Wilson in particular, especially in the after-hours bars and speakeasys. It was a life in planes, hotels, getting the boys to the gig on time and finding food when the show was over. It was a life with unusual lessons. For example, Lloyd learned it’s better to hire prostitutes on the road—professionals don’t blackmail or come back with paternity suits. Check ages on driver’s licenses before letting the girls in the room. Be wary of girls who sleep with rock stars or their entourage in hopes of getting a record contract. And be more careful still with the locals who don’t always want to pay their bills.
The Beach Boys weren’t the only band Lloyd worked with, and much of his book is anecdotes about Sonny and Cher, Jim Morrison, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Buffalo Springfield, and others. It’s the story of an era when road managers and producers had a viable role in entertainment. Often using the band’s own funds, they made money from percentages and selling souvenir books. They had to be creative when ticket sales were low and invent publicity on the spot. Lloyd had to put out fires like fighting Canadian tax collectors dogging the band for cuts of concert revenues. Some of all these stories can be skimmed—not every stopover, drunken evening, or sexual encounter is entertaining. As Lloyd was mainly involved with the Beach Boys on tour, he has little to say about Brian Wilson as his time was spent with Bruce Johnson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson and, again, the wild drummer, Dennis Wilson. So there are no studio insights nor discussions of song composition or production. As other books cover this ground, this isn’t a criticism—merely a clarification of Lloyd’s scope. He was the guy who traveled ahead of the band to make sure the gigs ran smoothly and hopefully lucratively and he was the man calling radio stations to fill in where the record label failed. Remember, there was a time when Beach Boys LPs weren’t selling and the late ‘60s was an era when the group seemed out of step with current trends. In short, Lloyd was the guy who looked after the band’s interests while they were engaged in orgies, binges, performing, or preparing for tours. Whether he became a friend of the group remains an open question. When he moved on to greener pastures, no one seemed to notice. That’s rock ‘n roll.
If all this sounds like stories for a select audience, Lloyd has an engaging style and keeps the anecdotes coming at a fast clip. There’s plenty of humor and surprising twists. Whether you’re a Beach Boys fan or not, Endless Summer offers a perspective into rock history new to me, at least. The Stones had fun with their “Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man”—Lloyd demonstrates such bands wouldn’t have gotten very far without him.
Details and ordering information.
~ Dr. Wesley Britton has written four books on espionage in the media and is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents.” Many of his reviews are posted at www.spywise.net and his radio interviews are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Great Travel Reading for Women
Title: Serendipity House
Author: Joyce DeBacco
ISBN: 978-1-935013-98-3
Genre: women’s fiction w/romance
Publisher: Wild Child Publishing
Price: List $5.95 e-book only
Reviewed by Meg Kinsella of The Romance Studio
5 hearts out of 5
Sylvie Gardner is running from a controlling mother and a wedding she has discovered she doesn't want when she finds Serendipity House. Alexander Clemenceau is the private investigator hired by her ex-fiance to find her. Serendipity House is a bit rundown and full of unique seniors but Sylvie now has a place to find herself and perhaps the trust to love someone.
Joyce DeBacco has done a wonderful job of dealing with such deep emotional issue as mother-daughter conflicts. She does an excellent job in making you both see and feel with the heroine who feels she has never made her mom happy. We have all had the experiences she describes so accurately in the book. This book deals with all the different interpersonal relationships we have and we see Sylvie grow and become a stronger better person through these relationships. I really enjoyed this book even when I was cringing from reading some of the conversations between mothers and daughters. I felt a bit like I was sitting in the corner listening.
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Author: Joyce DeBacco
ISBN: 978-1-935013-98-3
Genre: women’s fiction w/romance
Publisher: Wild Child Publishing
Price: List $5.95 e-book only
Reviewed by Meg Kinsella of The Romance Studio
5 hearts out of 5
Sylvie Gardner is running from a controlling mother and a wedding she has discovered she doesn't want when she finds Serendipity House. Alexander Clemenceau is the private investigator hired by her ex-fiance to find her. Serendipity House is a bit rundown and full of unique seniors but Sylvie now has a place to find herself and perhaps the trust to love someone.
Joyce DeBacco has done a wonderful job of dealing with such deep emotional issue as mother-daughter conflicts. She does an excellent job in making you both see and feel with the heroine who feels she has never made her mom happy. We have all had the experiences she describes so accurately in the book. This book deals with all the different interpersonal relationships we have and we see Sylvie grow and become a stronger better person through these relationships. I really enjoyed this book even when I was cringing from reading some of the conversations between mothers and daughters. I felt a bit like I was sitting in the corner listening.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing With the Masters
Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing With the Masters
By Joyce White
Reviewed by Molly Martin for Amazon
Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing With the Masters offers first some thoughts regarding Feminist Mythology.
Setting the tone is the first poem entitled Women in which all nuances of women are introduced from the kisses and tears, to rivalry, Caffeine, Nicotine and Prozac to an understanding that women have too many dimensions to simply set down on paper.
Poet White explains in Bird of God how she goes about constructing her rhythmical pieces.
Interspersed among the poetic odes in the work Sculpting the Heart's Poetry is found artwork including pen and ink drawings, photography and artwork created by the Masters. I found one photograph in particular to be... More >be particularly compelling, entitled A Family's Hands we see a grouping of hands including one of a baby and continuing on to the veined and conceivably arthritic hand of perhaps the oldest member of the family.
What daughter, I ponder might not find something with which to agree or to enjoy while reading the words of the four stanzas entitled Turning Into Mom.
Birthdays, Happy Children, and Becoming a Poem are some of the gentle, well crafted odes comprising Chapter 1 Feminist Mythology.
In the second Chapter of the book is found a collection of writer White's conversations with the Masters. From Zeus, Hermes, Dionysus and the First New Year Baby to Saint Raphael, and Madonna and Jesus and angels; poet White talks of love and flowers, and feeling loved, the thousand artists eyes. She tells of Artists who write and paint and create.
White tells of Raphael who comes to heal, and of angels who bless with celestial knowledge and of Jesus and the melodic music of Mozart and how angels fly and, Hermes. Hermes, the keeper of the in between, is chosen to report, record, and transport the dead.
Picasso is discussed in Chapter 3. That Poet White harbors a good bit of interest, caring and perhaps love for this artiste is very evident as the reader undertakes the works included in this series.
Picasso was born in Spain, moved to France and enjoyed a reputation as a renowned theater designer, draftsman, and sculptor, and, he was likely the greatest printmaker of his era and beyond.
White tells how Picasso's paintings fill her head, she relates that the artist's favorite model was Olga, and tells us something of that woman from her 22 inch waist to her dancing to unheard melodies, and while she looks a little odd in her cubic form, HE, no doubt, thought her perfectly constructed.
And one of my favorite paint artists, Van Gogh, is addressed in Chapter 4 which is introduced with a Chagall collage presented in muted magenta and lavender and is created by versifier White herself.
'There is beauty and bravery and achievement in Van Gogh's Starry Night.' I must agree.
Aphrodite and Venus and Marilyn Monroe, and Botticelli all become part of what we females are, we are women.
Chapter 5 leads the reader to Drama, Drama, Drama and tears like polliwogs, I think that is one of my favorite lines in the this section, and maybe even the work as a whole. Tears like polliwogs, what visual portrayals fill the senses. That, and poet White's assertion that if it looks and sounds like a poem, it is cause a smile. There is hope for all of us then, isn't there?
Money, Grammar and Endless love and barking Yorkies and graying hair and lips that taste of chocolate, White weaves visions with words.
Only a bard would recognize so easily that moths live, work and die much as do humans. She watches a spider spinning a web, and plays what if with white on white.
White pigeons hide from white cats and white birds search for white worms, and, she asks the question could we learn if white chalk wrote on a white chalkboard. We CAN live without a good many things we think we just have to have, but, can we actually live without red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and brown?
I have cats, I particularly enjoyed the Ballet of Cats, 'by day they sit and stare in unison. They achieve lift off, twitch tails, and maybe even hiss ad stew. They are, cats by day and tigers by night.'
And Chapter 6 is filled with The Circle of Life. Works include evocative narrative of An Alcoholic, the delicate lilt Blossoms Praying, and mischevious First Dirty Word summing up a youngster's growing up, a Cowboy's Moonlight Ride, Hermit Poets and Ribbons, Bows and Lace present a slice of life across generations, times, places and gender.
Who should live and Who should die is a thought provoking discussion especially for those of us who have had, or may have soldier fathers, brothers, husbands, or today moms and sisters.
Growing Love, and The glass Dancer complete the work.
Rhymster White has crafted an eclectic, balanced work trailing across a myriad of themes. The work is wordsmith in content, wordsmith in beauty. That White has come through sorrow, enjoyed beauty and finds worthwhile in much is evidenced in her odes, stanzas and poems.
Lyricist Joyce White has strengthened herself using spiritual standards directing the core values set down in use of art therapy for sculpting the heart and thus the emotional wellbeing of the self. White employs these values creatively as a way to promote healing and growth and self awareness.
Renewal of verve, optimism, self discovery, moving on following tragedy or even a happy life changing event are all recurrent themes running through her work. White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry thrusts wellness and good heartedness to the forefront. Sharing pain, hurt and happiness is therapeutic, liberating and cathartic White fosters integrity and wellbeing through the curative acts of creativity.
God focused dreams, work and doing embracing a belief of duality, harmonizing radiance and dark through verse and conversing with our spiritual leader fills our essence with the healing, joy and motivation to move forward with renewed vigor and self awareness in the face of the upsets we all face in life.
Filled with a poignant, ethereal quality the written works offered by White are counter balanced nicely with various depictions of art work including sculpture, pictures of various medium and photographs, all in all she has taken an eclectic set of materials and woven them into an affirmation of women in whole and the individual woman who may be reading.
Happy to recommend Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry while conversing with the Masters.
For review I received an ARC from the author.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Joyce White
Reviewed by Molly Martin for Amazon
Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing With the Masters offers first some thoughts regarding Feminist Mythology.
Setting the tone is the first poem entitled Women in which all nuances of women are introduced from the kisses and tears, to rivalry, Caffeine, Nicotine and Prozac to an understanding that women have too many dimensions to simply set down on paper.
Poet White explains in Bird of God how she goes about constructing her rhythmical pieces.
Interspersed among the poetic odes in the work Sculpting the Heart's Poetry is found artwork including pen and ink drawings, photography and artwork created by the Masters. I found one photograph in particular to be... More >be particularly compelling, entitled A Family's Hands we see a grouping of hands including one of a baby and continuing on to the veined and conceivably arthritic hand of perhaps the oldest member of the family.
What daughter, I ponder might not find something with which to agree or to enjoy while reading the words of the four stanzas entitled Turning Into Mom.
Birthdays, Happy Children, and Becoming a Poem are some of the gentle, well crafted odes comprising Chapter 1 Feminist Mythology.
In the second Chapter of the book is found a collection of writer White's conversations with the Masters. From Zeus, Hermes, Dionysus and the First New Year Baby to Saint Raphael, and Madonna and Jesus and angels; poet White talks of love and flowers, and feeling loved, the thousand artists eyes. She tells of Artists who write and paint and create.
White tells of Raphael who comes to heal, and of angels who bless with celestial knowledge and of Jesus and the melodic music of Mozart and how angels fly and, Hermes. Hermes, the keeper of the in between, is chosen to report, record, and transport the dead.
Picasso is discussed in Chapter 3. That Poet White harbors a good bit of interest, caring and perhaps love for this artiste is very evident as the reader undertakes the works included in this series.
Picasso was born in Spain, moved to France and enjoyed a reputation as a renowned theater designer, draftsman, and sculptor, and, he was likely the greatest printmaker of his era and beyond.
White tells how Picasso's paintings fill her head, she relates that the artist's favorite model was Olga, and tells us something of that woman from her 22 inch waist to her dancing to unheard melodies, and while she looks a little odd in her cubic form, HE, no doubt, thought her perfectly constructed.
And one of my favorite paint artists, Van Gogh, is addressed in Chapter 4 which is introduced with a Chagall collage presented in muted magenta and lavender and is created by versifier White herself.
'There is beauty and bravery and achievement in Van Gogh's Starry Night.' I must agree.
Aphrodite and Venus and Marilyn Monroe, and Botticelli all become part of what we females are, we are women.
Chapter 5 leads the reader to Drama, Drama, Drama and tears like polliwogs, I think that is one of my favorite lines in the this section, and maybe even the work as a whole. Tears like polliwogs, what visual portrayals fill the senses. That, and poet White's assertion that if it looks and sounds like a poem, it is cause a smile. There is hope for all of us then, isn't there?
Money, Grammar and Endless love and barking Yorkies and graying hair and lips that taste of chocolate, White weaves visions with words.
Only a bard would recognize so easily that moths live, work and die much as do humans. She watches a spider spinning a web, and plays what if with white on white.
White pigeons hide from white cats and white birds search for white worms, and, she asks the question could we learn if white chalk wrote on a white chalkboard. We CAN live without a good many things we think we just have to have, but, can we actually live without red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and brown?
I have cats, I particularly enjoyed the Ballet of Cats, 'by day they sit and stare in unison. They achieve lift off, twitch tails, and maybe even hiss ad stew. They are, cats by day and tigers by night.'
And Chapter 6 is filled with The Circle of Life. Works include evocative narrative of An Alcoholic, the delicate lilt Blossoms Praying, and mischevious First Dirty Word summing up a youngster's growing up, a Cowboy's Moonlight Ride, Hermit Poets and Ribbons, Bows and Lace present a slice of life across generations, times, places and gender.
Who should live and Who should die is a thought provoking discussion especially for those of us who have had, or may have soldier fathers, brothers, husbands, or today moms and sisters.
Growing Love, and The glass Dancer complete the work.
Rhymster White has crafted an eclectic, balanced work trailing across a myriad of themes. The work is wordsmith in content, wordsmith in beauty. That White has come through sorrow, enjoyed beauty and finds worthwhile in much is evidenced in her odes, stanzas and poems.
Lyricist Joyce White has strengthened herself using spiritual standards directing the core values set down in use of art therapy for sculpting the heart and thus the emotional wellbeing of the self. White employs these values creatively as a way to promote healing and growth and self awareness.
Renewal of verve, optimism, self discovery, moving on following tragedy or even a happy life changing event are all recurrent themes running through her work. White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry thrusts wellness and good heartedness to the forefront. Sharing pain, hurt and happiness is therapeutic, liberating and cathartic White fosters integrity and wellbeing through the curative acts of creativity.
God focused dreams, work and doing embracing a belief of duality, harmonizing radiance and dark through verse and conversing with our spiritual leader fills our essence with the healing, joy and motivation to move forward with renewed vigor and self awareness in the face of the upsets we all face in life.
Filled with a poignant, ethereal quality the written works offered by White are counter balanced nicely with various depictions of art work including sculpture, pictures of various medium and photographs, all in all she has taken an eclectic set of materials and woven them into an affirmation of women in whole and the individual woman who may be reading.
Happy to recommend Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart's Poetry while conversing with the Masters.
For review I received an ARC from the author.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Monday, July 12, 2010
Twenty Short Stories Let You Travel the World
Lost Angel Walkabout: One Traveler’s Tales
By Linda Ballou
ISBN: 978-1449971526
May 2010
Reviewed by Barbara Milbourn, a writer and editor in Nashville, Tennessee
In roughly twenty short stories, travel writer Linda Ballou takes us with her up active volcanoes in Costa Rica, down hundred-mile rivers in the Yukon Territory, over combination jumps and oxers in Ireland, beneath the Sea of Cortez, and along unforgettable jaunts through deserts, woods, peaks, and valleys in both hemispheres. Her tales span years of traveling—sometimes alone, occasionally with her mother or life partner, and often with others in search of soft adventure. Brimming with action, intelligence, regional history, funny mishaps or tight squeezes, each story is set against a backdrop of nature’s jaw-dropping beauty. Ballou aims to share her world view, and through her Eco-alerts make the reader care more deeply about our vanishing resources and places of wild beauty.
Living in greater Los Angeles among millions of other lost angels keeping pace in a hurried world, Linda Ballou makes no bones about her need to seek equilibrium, solitude, and salvation in the sublimity of nature. Forget thousand-thread count sheets at luxury hotels or shopping for the latest bling. Like the great figures liberally noted in her pieces—Robert Frost, Jack London, John Steinbeck, John Muir—Ballou prefers the great outdoors and is intimately acquainted with it. She is a naturalist, a thoughtful traveler, one caring toward the environment and sensitive to local populations both near and far. And, she is a meticulous researcher.
Lost Angel Walkabout is richly detailed and poetic. It gifts the reader with the depth of observation in the clear and careful naming of the world around us—places, peoples, plants, birds, mountain ranges, animals, and sea creatures. More satisfying than naming is storytelling the authentic connection made with the inhabitants of land, sea, and sky; ravens and great spirits, fin whales the size of city buses, or Native Americans forced to flee their land. Because the author has connected deeply, so does the reader. Something is gathered from every place visited, and it seems impossible not to connect with our own highest and best self through Ballou’s experiences—not to mention wanting to get up and go there.
Linda Ballou keeps good company too and includes interviews with renowned travel writer Tim Cahill and endurance rider Lari Shea. Like her travel writing hero Tim Cahill, Ballou sees humor in many of the predicaments she stumbles into, or out of, or overboard after.
Don’t be surprised to find her on the back of a galloping horse yelling “Yee Haw!” and let out a yell yourself.
Autographed copy with free shipping is available.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Linda Ballou
ISBN: 978-1449971526
May 2010
Reviewed by Barbara Milbourn, a writer and editor in Nashville, Tennessee
In roughly twenty short stories, travel writer Linda Ballou takes us with her up active volcanoes in Costa Rica, down hundred-mile rivers in the Yukon Territory, over combination jumps and oxers in Ireland, beneath the Sea of Cortez, and along unforgettable jaunts through deserts, woods, peaks, and valleys in both hemispheres. Her tales span years of traveling—sometimes alone, occasionally with her mother or life partner, and often with others in search of soft adventure. Brimming with action, intelligence, regional history, funny mishaps or tight squeezes, each story is set against a backdrop of nature’s jaw-dropping beauty. Ballou aims to share her world view, and through her Eco-alerts make the reader care more deeply about our vanishing resources and places of wild beauty.
Living in greater Los Angeles among millions of other lost angels keeping pace in a hurried world, Linda Ballou makes no bones about her need to seek equilibrium, solitude, and salvation in the sublimity of nature. Forget thousand-thread count sheets at luxury hotels or shopping for the latest bling. Like the great figures liberally noted in her pieces—Robert Frost, Jack London, John Steinbeck, John Muir—Ballou prefers the great outdoors and is intimately acquainted with it. She is a naturalist, a thoughtful traveler, one caring toward the environment and sensitive to local populations both near and far. And, she is a meticulous researcher.
Lost Angel Walkabout is richly detailed and poetic. It gifts the reader with the depth of observation in the clear and careful naming of the world around us—places, peoples, plants, birds, mountain ranges, animals, and sea creatures. More satisfying than naming is storytelling the authentic connection made with the inhabitants of land, sea, and sky; ravens and great spirits, fin whales the size of city buses, or Native Americans forced to flee their land. Because the author has connected deeply, so does the reader. Something is gathered from every place visited, and it seems impossible not to connect with our own highest and best self through Ballou’s experiences—not to mention wanting to get up and go there.
Linda Ballou keeps good company too and includes interviews with renowned travel writer Tim Cahill and endurance rider Lari Shea. Like her travel writing hero Tim Cahill, Ballou sees humor in many of the predicaments she stumbles into, or out of, or overboard after.
Don’t be surprised to find her on the back of a galloping horse yelling “Yee Haw!” and let out a yell yourself.
Autographed copy with free shipping is available.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Saturday, July 10, 2010
So, What Do YOU Know about Javelinas?
TITLE: Javelina (Have-uh-WHAT?)
AUTHOR: Gene K. Garrison
ISBN: 978-1-4528725-3-7
GENRE: Children's
Synopsis:
This 38-page book about javelinas, wild pig-like animals that roam the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico, is chock-full of of excellent photographs.
The author took 20 of them. Another photographer, Al Brown, is credited with 12. This is the second edition, revised. Six pages have been added and the photographs upgraded.
Keep in mind that the book is nonfiction. There are no talking beasts. They simply live their lives raising families, foraging for food, avoiding enemies, napping wherever they please, and raiding gardens. They are not cuddly, sweet pets. They can be fierce when they need to be, and not everyone is pleased to see them around. There are others, however, who feel privileged to observe this animals in action.
The author, Gene K. Garrison, is one of the latter. She kept a camera on a cabinet beneath a window and very quietly, and without any sudden movements, picked it up whenever she noticed wildlife at a small waterhole outside. That's how the closeups came into being. She said, "I didn't mind being patient because I was having fun." Al Brown, too, enjoyed photographing javelinas in his yard. His were not as skittish as Garrison's, probably because they had been born in a neighborhood where houses were closer together.
Here's an excerpt:
They hear every sound —
footsteps making crunching noises
on gravel, squirrels scurrying,
a turtle plodding across the land.
They smell all of these things,
including us.
There is also a vocabulary list at the back of the book with phonetic pronunciation and definitions that children can understand. In some cases, adults could use a little help in this area. For instance," MESQUITE (mes-KEET) — a desert tree with fern-like leaves."
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
AUTHOR: Gene K. Garrison
ISBN: 978-1-4528725-3-7
GENRE: Children's
Synopsis:
This 38-page book about javelinas, wild pig-like animals that roam the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico, is chock-full of of excellent photographs.
The author took 20 of them. Another photographer, Al Brown, is credited with 12. This is the second edition, revised. Six pages have been added and the photographs upgraded.
Keep in mind that the book is nonfiction. There are no talking beasts. They simply live their lives raising families, foraging for food, avoiding enemies, napping wherever they please, and raiding gardens. They are not cuddly, sweet pets. They can be fierce when they need to be, and not everyone is pleased to see them around. There are others, however, who feel privileged to observe this animals in action.
The author, Gene K. Garrison, is one of the latter. She kept a camera on a cabinet beneath a window and very quietly, and without any sudden movements, picked it up whenever she noticed wildlife at a small waterhole outside. That's how the closeups came into being. She said, "I didn't mind being patient because I was having fun." Al Brown, too, enjoyed photographing javelinas in his yard. His were not as skittish as Garrison's, probably because they had been born in a neighborhood where houses were closer together.
Here's an excerpt:
They hear every sound —
footsteps making crunching noises
on gravel, squirrels scurrying,
a turtle plodding across the land.
They smell all of these things,
including us.
There is also a vocabulary list at the back of the book with phonetic pronunciation and definitions that children can understand. In some cases, adults could use a little help in this area. For instance," MESQUITE (mes-KEET) — a desert tree with fern-like leaves."
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Friday, July 9, 2010
Deb Hockenberry Recommends "Feisty Family Values"
TITLE: Feisty Family Values
AUTHOR: B.D. Tharp
PUBLISHER: Five Star (ME),
February 17, 2010
FORMAT: Hardcover
PRICE: $25.95, £18.39
PAGES: 271
ISBN-10: 159414849X
ISBN-13: 9781594148491
Reviewed by Deborah Hockenberry, Independent Reviewer
A cab stops in front of the Victorian mansion in a well-to-do neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. The passenger fumbles through her wallet for the correct fare. Finding everything but thirty cents, she dives into her cracked vinyl purse in search of it. The passenger walks up the steps of the mansion to see if her cousin, Regina, will take her in. But why is she here?
Regina, a bitter lady, a snob and born with a silver spoon in her mouth, hesitantly lets her poor relation in. After all, Annabelle is family. Regina is sure that her cousin’s stay will only be temporary. It has to be temporary! What will the neighbors think and how did Annabelle get that black eye? Tillie joins Regina at the door and makes up Regina’s mind for her.
Tillie is Regina’s best friend. She also lives in the old Victorian. Tillie is the total opposite of Regina. She’s full of life, accepts people for who they are, never hesitates to tell Regina what she thinks and is also a gourmet cook. In short, she’s one feisty lady!
Annabelle is different from either Regina or Tillie. Life has made her a timid creature so she doesn’t really speak up much. She is so eager to please her cousin that she’s even willing to learn to cook the way Tillie does! Will Annabelle overcome her shyness?
Will these three women be able to live together as a family unit? After all, each lady is in her 60’s and life has made each totally different from the other.
What’s happening to Regina’s perfect life? Now, there’s a cat in the house not to mention the chaos of Annabelle’s three grandchildren that are there periodically. What has made Regina so bitter? We don’t find this out until the end of the book. To complicate matters even more, a hunk of a man moves in right across the street from the ladies. All three ladies fall for their handsome neighbor. Will he fall for one of them?
I highly recommend Feisty Family Values. This is a very compelling and relatable tale that I had trouble putting down. Everyone knows people like Regina, Tillie, and Annabelle.
B.D. Tharp’s book deals with cancer, parental abuse, child abuse, love in your 60’s and more. Not only did she touch on some very real issues in her book but she wrote a very entertaining one. Feisty Family Values keeps you turning the pages!
If you’d like to learn more about the author please visit her website at: http://bdtharp.com.
----
The reviewer is Deb Hockenberry who blogs at http://thebumpyroadtopublishing.blogspot.com. Her reviews also appear at http://debsbookreviews.blogspot.com.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
AUTHOR: B.D. Tharp
PUBLISHER: Five Star (ME),
February 17, 2010
FORMAT: Hardcover
PRICE: $25.95, £18.39
PAGES: 271
ISBN-10: 159414849X
ISBN-13: 9781594148491
Reviewed by Deborah Hockenberry, Independent Reviewer
A cab stops in front of the Victorian mansion in a well-to-do neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. The passenger fumbles through her wallet for the correct fare. Finding everything but thirty cents, she dives into her cracked vinyl purse in search of it. The passenger walks up the steps of the mansion to see if her cousin, Regina, will take her in. But why is she here?
Regina, a bitter lady, a snob and born with a silver spoon in her mouth, hesitantly lets her poor relation in. After all, Annabelle is family. Regina is sure that her cousin’s stay will only be temporary. It has to be temporary! What will the neighbors think and how did Annabelle get that black eye? Tillie joins Regina at the door and makes up Regina’s mind for her.
Tillie is Regina’s best friend. She also lives in the old Victorian. Tillie is the total opposite of Regina. She’s full of life, accepts people for who they are, never hesitates to tell Regina what she thinks and is also a gourmet cook. In short, she’s one feisty lady!
Annabelle is different from either Regina or Tillie. Life has made her a timid creature so she doesn’t really speak up much. She is so eager to please her cousin that she’s even willing to learn to cook the way Tillie does! Will Annabelle overcome her shyness?
Will these three women be able to live together as a family unit? After all, each lady is in her 60’s and life has made each totally different from the other.
What’s happening to Regina’s perfect life? Now, there’s a cat in the house not to mention the chaos of Annabelle’s three grandchildren that are there periodically. What has made Regina so bitter? We don’t find this out until the end of the book. To complicate matters even more, a hunk of a man moves in right across the street from the ladies. All three ladies fall for their handsome neighbor. Will he fall for one of them?
I highly recommend Feisty Family Values. This is a very compelling and relatable tale that I had trouble putting down. Everyone knows people like Regina, Tillie, and Annabelle.
B.D. Tharp’s book deals with cancer, parental abuse, child abuse, love in your 60’s and more. Not only did she touch on some very real issues in her book but she wrote a very entertaining one. Feisty Family Values keeps you turning the pages!
If you’d like to learn more about the author please visit her website at: http://bdtharp.com.
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The reviewer is Deb Hockenberry who blogs at http://thebumpyroadtopublishing.blogspot.com. Her reviews also appear at http://debsbookreviews.blogspot.com.
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Bengal Book Award Winner Historically Accurate
River Passage
by p.m. terrell
Bengal Book Award
River Passage by p.m. Terrell recently won Best Fiction and Drama for 2010 in the Bengal Book Awards. The Nashville Metropolitan Government Archives has determined that River Passage is so historically accurate they have entered Ms. Terrell's original manuscript into the Archives for future researchers and historians.
River Passage is based on the true story of the Donelson journey that left Virginia bound for Fort Nashborough (now Nashville, TN) in the fall of 1779. Their goal was to bring businessmen and community leaders westward to expand America. Terrell's ancestors, the Neely family, were on that expedition. The trip was expected to take four weeks. Instead, more than four months after they left, a ragtag group of survivors limped into Fort Nashborough with a harrowing tale. Their river journey had taken them through hostile Indian Territory at the height of the Chickamauga Indian War. They also faced frostbite, near starvation, disease, deadly rapids --and a mutiny. The Indians attacked them over hundreds of miles, capturing some of the settlers, killing or wounding others, and leaving a few to tell the tale.
For more information about the journey, visit http://maryneely.com/journey.htm and for more information about the author, visit www.pmterrell.com.
Terrell is also the author of the historical suspense Songbirds are Free acclaimed suspense/thrillers Exit 22, Ricochet, Kickback, and The China Conspiracy and four nonfiction how-to books on using computers.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
by p.m. terrell
Bengal Book Award
River Passage by p.m. Terrell recently won Best Fiction and Drama for 2010 in the Bengal Book Awards. The Nashville Metropolitan Government Archives has determined that River Passage is so historically accurate they have entered Ms. Terrell's original manuscript into the Archives for future researchers and historians.
River Passage is based on the true story of the Donelson journey that left Virginia bound for Fort Nashborough (now Nashville, TN) in the fall of 1779. Their goal was to bring businessmen and community leaders westward to expand America. Terrell's ancestors, the Neely family, were on that expedition. The trip was expected to take four weeks. Instead, more than four months after they left, a ragtag group of survivors limped into Fort Nashborough with a harrowing tale. Their river journey had taken them through hostile Indian Territory at the height of the Chickamauga Indian War. They also faced frostbite, near starvation, disease, deadly rapids --and a mutiny. The Indians attacked them over hundreds of miles, capturing some of the settlers, killing or wounding others, and leaving a few to tell the tale.
For more information about the journey, visit http://maryneely.com/journey.htm and for more information about the author, visit www.pmterrell.com.
Terrell is also the author of the historical suspense Songbirds are Free acclaimed suspense/thrillers Exit 22, Ricochet, Kickback, and The China Conspiracy and four nonfiction how-to books on using computers.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Movies, Trivia and an Egyptian God?
Serket's Movies: Commentary and Trivia on 444 Movies
By Cory Hamblin
RoseDog Books
ISBN: 978-1-4349-9605-3
Reviewed by Wesley Britton
It’s difficult to pin down the intended audience for this collection of capsule movie reviews. It’s clearly not researchers. I’m not sure it’s film buffs either. In fact, author Cory Hamblin candidly admits he’s not a film expert, “just a guy from a small town who enjoys watching movies.” Admitting his major source is his aunt’s DVD collection, he adds that he’s not interested in films with political messages. “Most Americans from small towns . . . are just looking to have an enjoyable experience at the movies. What we would like to see are more movies with positive portrayals of America, our military, families, men, and God.” Illustrating the informal nature of his reviews, Hamblin states the title of the book draws from his “online moniker”: “Serket is the name of one of the earliest recorded Egyptian kings . . . it has no direct correlation to the contents of the book.”
Hamblin also stated his choice of movies had much to do with the amount of trivia he could find on them, and trivia is really what his book is all about. The “commentary” is about as long as your average Tweet. A case in point is Hamblin’s overview of A Beautiful Mind which reads, in whole:
This is a noteworthy movie based on a true story. Brilliant mathematician
John Nash (Russell Crowe) is on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. Only his devoted wife (Jennifer Connelly) can help him.
I have a bachelor’s degree in economics, and during my last
Semester I took a class on industrial organization. We learned
about game theory and the Nash equilibrium.
The film was inspired by the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated
1998 book by Sylvia Nasar. The scene in the movie in
which mathematics professors ritualistically present pens to Nash
was completely fabricated. No such custom exists. What it symbolizes
is that Nash was accepted and recognized in the mathematics
community. The scene in the movie when Nash thanks his
wife, Alicia, for her continued support during his illness is also
fictional. At the Nobel Prize award ceremony, His Majesty, the king of
Sweden, hands each laureate a diploma, a medal, and a document
confirming the prize amount. The laureates do not give acceptance
speeches. Laureates are each invited to give an hour-long
lecture; however, the Nobel committee did not ask Nash to do so,
due to concerns over his mental health.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Cory Hamblin
RoseDog Books
ISBN: 978-1-4349-9605-3
Reviewed by Wesley Britton
It’s difficult to pin down the intended audience for this collection of capsule movie reviews. It’s clearly not researchers. I’m not sure it’s film buffs either. In fact, author Cory Hamblin candidly admits he’s not a film expert, “just a guy from a small town who enjoys watching movies.” Admitting his major source is his aunt’s DVD collection, he adds that he’s not interested in films with political messages. “Most Americans from small towns . . . are just looking to have an enjoyable experience at the movies. What we would like to see are more movies with positive portrayals of America, our military, families, men, and God.” Illustrating the informal nature of his reviews, Hamblin states the title of the book draws from his “online moniker”: “Serket is the name of one of the earliest recorded Egyptian kings . . . it has no direct correlation to the contents of the book.”
Hamblin also stated his choice of movies had much to do with the amount of trivia he could find on them, and trivia is really what his book is all about. The “commentary” is about as long as your average Tweet. A case in point is Hamblin’s overview of A Beautiful Mind which reads, in whole:
This is a noteworthy movie based on a true story. Brilliant mathematician
John Nash (Russell Crowe) is on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. Only his devoted wife (Jennifer Connelly) can help him.
I have a bachelor’s degree in economics, and during my last
Semester I took a class on industrial organization. We learned
about game theory and the Nash equilibrium.
The film was inspired by the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated
1998 book by Sylvia Nasar. The scene in the movie in
which mathematics professors ritualistically present pens to Nash
was completely fabricated. No such custom exists. What it symbolizes
is that Nash was accepted and recognized in the mathematics
community. The scene in the movie when Nash thanks his
wife, Alicia, for her continued support during his illness is also
fictional. At the Nobel Prize award ceremony, His Majesty, the king of
Sweden, hands each laureate a diploma, a medal, and a document
confirming the prize amount. The laureates do not give acceptance
speeches. Laureates are each invited to give an hour-long
lecture; however, the Nobel committee did not ask Nash to do so,
due to concerns over his mental health.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Entertainment Host Reviews Eric Clapton's Autobiography
Clapton: The Autobiography
By Eric Clapton
New York: Random House, 2007
Reviewed by Wesley Britton. Originally for Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
Every once in a while, I have time to pick up a book not related to radio interviews or my other projects. As a result, this review is a bit behind the curve. Well, perhaps your own bookshelf is like mine—here is a pile of must-reads, here are titles that just arrived in the mailbox, and over here are books I’m eager to read when I’m caught up with all the obligatory work. Ah, the desk is clear tonight—why not spend a few hours with ole EC who, even if he’s not God, is at least in the pantheon of those who once seemed to be messengers from above?
Of course, the story of Eric Clapton is more than well known—and he’s not alone. Memoirs of rock stars, especially those written by icons of the ‘60s, tend to follow a similar arc. First, we’re often told about the working-class backgrounds of young boys sparked into life when they heard the records of their idols. For British youth, these usually meant blues masters like Robert Johnson or early rockers like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Then, the autobiographies trace how the devotees bought their first instruments, practiced diligently on them, knocked about with friends in various ensembles, and then recount how they came to fame with hit records and life on the road.
Then, too often, fame brings the excesses of sexual, alcoholic, and/or drug addictions. Years, decades go by with music taking a back seat to the pursuit of the highest highs accompanied by the lowest lows. Finally, the addictive cycle is broken and the musician finds peace, stability, self-awareness, and rehabilitation. And gratitude they survived at all.
Such is the tale of Eric Clapton who candidly admits, again and again in his memoirs, that his road was one paved with bad choices. Sharing all but the most graphic of details, “Slowhand” (who gives new meaning to the moniker by revealing he typed out the MS using one finger on his computer) talks about his painful childhood as a virtual orphan raised by his grandparents and how the blues became his lifeblood. From his earliest days, Clapton was a mix of a strong ego—being such a purest he left the Yardbirds when they went commercial—and a man plagued with deep feelings he was unworthy of romantic relationships that could blend sex with friendship. The latter would become a recurring pattern in his life, resulting in a string of liaisons doomed by first heroine and then alcohol.
As a result, the story of Clapton’s life begins with a slow building of energy filled with youthful excitement, idealism, and then stories of playing with the legends of his day, Cream, John Mayall, Jimi Hendrix. The rise in his fortunes hits its top with the Delany and Bonnie-inspired first solo album and the powerful creativity of Derek and the Dominoes. From that point forward, twenty years go by as nearly as painful to read about as they must have been to experience. One wonders how Clapton was able to produce any music at all during these years and it’s not surprising much of his output from the late ‘70s forward was so lean and limp in both the studio and on stage. Clapton himself expresses little pride in much of his work during this period. For example, he spends more time talking about his affair with Yvonne Elliman than the hours he spent in the studio producing 461 Ocean Boulevard. Then again, considering the amount of intoxicants in his system, it’s difficult to see how much he could remember as his abilities declined and his obsession with Patti Boyd Harrison went every which way but right.
Finally, with age comes wisdom and freedom from the old patterns. After kicking his sexual and substance dependencies, Clapton turns his attentions to helping other addicts and investing time and money in genuinely making this world a better place. Once again, Clapton’s writing style takes on an uplifting tone even if the final chapters are filled with descriptions of sailing, beaches, and fly-fishing that read like extended blog entries.
Frankly, this is an autobiography likely to interest Eric Clapton fans and few others. Fortunately, Clapton has legions of admirers and rightly so—but they’d be better rewarded playing the music than delving into the missteps of an obsessed lover who confesses to sleeping with an overweight “witch” because she claimed to have the power to return “Layla” to his bed. Did we really need to know this? Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not interested in the details of sexual dysfunction—it’s the music I want to know about. There are nuggets, as when Clapton shares the humorous origins of “Wonderful Tonight,” his response to Patti taking too long to get ready to go out. But the humor dissipates when we learn Clapton had difficulty playing the song after his break-up because of its associations with “Nell”—the name Clapton gave Patti to distinguish his Pattie from the person once wedded to George Harrison. I was happy to learn Clapton thought as little of “I Shot The Sheriff” as I did, a song I never thought was worthy of the airplay it earned. Of course, it’s impossible not to feel the pain Clapton suffered over the death of his son, Conner. But such anecdotes and revelations are scattered in between lengthy descriptions of revolving bed-mates and drinking binges, making much of the book easier to skim than digest whole. In the end, I was filled with relief—both for Clapton himself and for me, the reader
---
Reviewer Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
By Eric Clapton
New York: Random House, 2007
Reviewed by Wesley Britton. Originally for Wesley Britton’s Entertainment Scrapbook
Every once in a while, I have time to pick up a book not related to radio interviews or my other projects. As a result, this review is a bit behind the curve. Well, perhaps your own bookshelf is like mine—here is a pile of must-reads, here are titles that just arrived in the mailbox, and over here are books I’m eager to read when I’m caught up with all the obligatory work. Ah, the desk is clear tonight—why not spend a few hours with ole EC who, even if he’s not God, is at least in the pantheon of those who once seemed to be messengers from above?
Of course, the story of Eric Clapton is more than well known—and he’s not alone. Memoirs of rock stars, especially those written by icons of the ‘60s, tend to follow a similar arc. First, we’re often told about the working-class backgrounds of young boys sparked into life when they heard the records of their idols. For British youth, these usually meant blues masters like Robert Johnson or early rockers like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Then, the autobiographies trace how the devotees bought their first instruments, practiced diligently on them, knocked about with friends in various ensembles, and then recount how they came to fame with hit records and life on the road.
Then, too often, fame brings the excesses of sexual, alcoholic, and/or drug addictions. Years, decades go by with music taking a back seat to the pursuit of the highest highs accompanied by the lowest lows. Finally, the addictive cycle is broken and the musician finds peace, stability, self-awareness, and rehabilitation. And gratitude they survived at all.
Such is the tale of Eric Clapton who candidly admits, again and again in his memoirs, that his road was one paved with bad choices. Sharing all but the most graphic of details, “Slowhand” (who gives new meaning to the moniker by revealing he typed out the MS using one finger on his computer) talks about his painful childhood as a virtual orphan raised by his grandparents and how the blues became his lifeblood. From his earliest days, Clapton was a mix of a strong ego—being such a purest he left the Yardbirds when they went commercial—and a man plagued with deep feelings he was unworthy of romantic relationships that could blend sex with friendship. The latter would become a recurring pattern in his life, resulting in a string of liaisons doomed by first heroine and then alcohol.
As a result, the story of Clapton’s life begins with a slow building of energy filled with youthful excitement, idealism, and then stories of playing with the legends of his day, Cream, John Mayall, Jimi Hendrix. The rise in his fortunes hits its top with the Delany and Bonnie-inspired first solo album and the powerful creativity of Derek and the Dominoes. From that point forward, twenty years go by as nearly as painful to read about as they must have been to experience. One wonders how Clapton was able to produce any music at all during these years and it’s not surprising much of his output from the late ‘70s forward was so lean and limp in both the studio and on stage. Clapton himself expresses little pride in much of his work during this period. For example, he spends more time talking about his affair with Yvonne Elliman than the hours he spent in the studio producing 461 Ocean Boulevard. Then again, considering the amount of intoxicants in his system, it’s difficult to see how much he could remember as his abilities declined and his obsession with Patti Boyd Harrison went every which way but right.
Finally, with age comes wisdom and freedom from the old patterns. After kicking his sexual and substance dependencies, Clapton turns his attentions to helping other addicts and investing time and money in genuinely making this world a better place. Once again, Clapton’s writing style takes on an uplifting tone even if the final chapters are filled with descriptions of sailing, beaches, and fly-fishing that read like extended blog entries.
Frankly, this is an autobiography likely to interest Eric Clapton fans and few others. Fortunately, Clapton has legions of admirers and rightly so—but they’d be better rewarded playing the music than delving into the missteps of an obsessed lover who confesses to sleeping with an overweight “witch” because she claimed to have the power to return “Layla” to his bed. Did we really need to know this? Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not interested in the details of sexual dysfunction—it’s the music I want to know about. There are nuggets, as when Clapton shares the humorous origins of “Wonderful Tonight,” his response to Patti taking too long to get ready to go out. But the humor dissipates when we learn Clapton had difficulty playing the song after his break-up because of its associations with “Nell”—the name Clapton gave Patti to distinguish his Pattie from the person once wedded to George Harrison. I was happy to learn Clapton thought as little of “I Shot The Sheriff” as I did, a song I never thought was worthy of the airplay it earned. Of course, it’s impossible not to feel the pain Clapton suffered over the death of his son, Conner. But such anecdotes and revelations are scattered in between lengthy descriptions of revolving bed-mates and drinking binges, making much of the book easier to skim than digest whole. In the end, I was filled with relief—both for Clapton himself and for me, the reader
---
Reviewer Dr. Wesley Britton is co-host of online radio’s “Dave White Presents” which features interviews with a wide range of entertainers. Past programs are archived at www.audioentertainment.org/dwp. He is also author of four books on espionage and runs www.spywise.net. Wes teaches English at Harrisburg Area Community College.
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below:
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