Francesca Penchant
Diane Arbus is a fascinating subject. I learned a lot about her from this book.
However, I was annoyed that the author pathologizes Arbus in some instances, but that may be the nature of psychobiography. Also, some conclusions that the author comes up with should be taken with a grain of salt. And the author focuses on single facts or statements of Arbus's and may exaggerate their importance.
The narrator's habit of putting on funny voices for different people is slightly annoying.
I recommend the book if you are an artist, and/or like contemporary/female/artist biographies. Be aware that the book doesn't shy away from disturbing topics such as suicide and incest. Lots of obscure psychology terms that are hard to understand.
Such an eye-opener. So much new info about compulsive behaviors. A must-read for twelve-steppers.
Entertaining, informative, inspiring. Easy listen, despite its length. Many insights, about creativity in general and Beethoven in particular. It has been so satisfying listening to his music with this new knowledge of his work and life.
The best things about this book are that it demystifies genius and that it is really specific about how to improve in your field. I gave it four stars bcs I started listening to it a second time immediately after it finished the first time. I've never done that. However, the book has too much of a business slant for my taste to give it five stars.
Murder among a group of eccentric and silly amateur thespians is exactly like Christopher Guest meets Agatha Christie. Really funny page turner.
Entertaining, light, funny. Quick listen. Isherwood is a fine author capturing a moment in the English film industry of the 1930s.
As a classic film fan, I loved the inside jokes. Example: “...I've seen the Russian film. It is the classic sex triangle between a girl with thick legs, a boy, and a tractor.”
“Who died and made you yeshmani?”
This is an environmental science-fiction novel about people who travel from one place to the next, using up the resources before moving on. Most of the book is on the quest for their new place. I loved Peter Voeller's world-building ability—for example, he has thought through rituals, social customs, and characters' histories. It's interesting to see the concerns and themes that interest him: the environment, eros, spirituality, and Sanskrit. It's also interesting to see his construction of a world that accepts and assumes multiple kinds of sexuality.
I'm a feminist, and I really liked this book. The author dares to say that female and male brains are different, which helps to expand the field of brain research. For decades, scientists tested drugs on male subjects only, assuming that they would have the same reactions in women. This is like having “a jury of your peers” filled with twelve white men. I'm not sure if I would've liked this book in my twenties, but since then, my ideas about feminism aren't as strict. That said, there were some generalizations about women in the book that annoyed me, but I guess I assumed that with a book like this, you have to make some generalizations about the majority of women's brains.
This novel is about an escaped mental patient's search for happiness. I met Ballantine at his reading a couple days ago and picked up this book, so reading it felt like I was reading the novel of a friend. I like how his writing feels honest, like he's ripping off his skin for us. And I love the creativity and surprises in his writing, in the words and phrases he chooses. If you like Kesey, Vonnegut, Updike, Pynchon... mixing pop culture and name-brand consumer products with drugs, surreal experiences, and mental illness.... you'll probably like Whirlaway!
This book would have been better if the author had refrained from inserting his own opinions and judgements—for example, saying that Kafka was “handsome,” and also guessing at the motives behind his behavior.
Also, the narrator mispronounces a lot of words, which is grating: Flaubert, Proust, Octave Mirbeau's Le Jardin des supplices, the german word for mother, “Mutter,” etc.
An understanding though effusive paean to Greta Garbo. This book made me want to watch Garbo's films, most of which I've overlooked because I've always just thought of her as a mediocre actress with a beautiful face. (Many who worked with her thought she was actually brilliant, which was a surprise.)
Garbo's introversion, unconventionality, and humble beginnings turned some people off–particularly the media–which led them to paint her as a cold, narcissistic recluse. But she was so much more complex, warm, passionate, and creative.
(I listened to the audio version of this book.)
This is a great intro to how each Hollywood studio developed its particular expertise, and the moguls connected with each. I was annoyed, though, that the author can't appreciate the campiness of such monstrosities as, say, Crawford's later films, and spends too much time expressing his cynical opinions about the industry. The occasional film theory jargon and use of $10 words were also annoying.
This book is a beautiful tribute to a design genius. I loved learning about Dior's comfortable French childhood designing fanciful carnival costumes, that was to shape his later love of feminine frivolity. This book made me appreciate Dior's influence on 20th- and 21st-century fashion–as well as his business genius that introduced licensing as an important part of all haute couture businesses to come.
The best of what biography can be. Drake takes two artists, Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld, and describes their decadent times by comparing and contrasting them, their rivalry, and their mutual obsession with one man, Jacques de Basher.
This book is like those self-help books written by bossy people touting new diets. The author has become a poly expert only because she has talked about it on TV. In the book, she makes rosy generalities about polyamory and sweeping criticisms about monogamy. I recommend the more informative and balanced book “Polyamory in the Twenty-First Century” by Deborah Anapol.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7773079
Here are some of the generalities Simpère makes:
“Polyamory sees sexuality as ... a joyful means of communication, unlike the guilt-provoking prudishness and constraints of standardized sexuality.... In addition, it creates perfect equality between men and women.”
“...when feelings get complicated, poly men and women don't make a scene, but go with the flow with a smile on their lips.”
“Poly men and women shy away from ... labeling, as life has taught them that relationships evolve in cycles, with high and low points....“
Amazing book about a brilliant artist that humanizes the towering myth. Lots of gossip and humorous details. Highly recommended!
Entertaining, pleasant, easy read. Good introduction to Decadent short stories, themes, authors.
“Many people believe a life well lived is supposed to culminate in material wealth and an expansive family. Not renegades—for them, living on their own terms is both the adventure and the reward, whatever pain or glory results.” —Eddie Muller
Colorful 1940s Hollywood anecdotes. In the same vein as Hedy Lamarr's and Barbara Peyton's autobiographies. Great intro by Eddie Muller.
“I have acquired a taste for murder. I torture the flowers!
“Leaning over them, I pour little drops of violent poisons, which make them die slowly, very slowly; some, like orchids, have petals that flutter, which one might think were flapping wings; and, my eyes bright, my hands clenched, and my respiration halting, I watch and rejoice in their agony. . . .
“What abominable being am I becoming? Two days ago I brutally tore apart, petal by petal, all my red violets. I kneaded them between my fingers and rolled them into little balls, and the juice that ran along my hands resembled a thin and frail ribbon of blood. Yesterday, I burned lilies atrociously, large lilies in all the majesty of their expansion; then I tried to care for their burns. I surrounded them with minute cares. Most of them were dead this morning, but some have survived. Those bear in red stigmata the traces of their suffering. And what other dolors await them tomorrow?”
“I belong to a third, distinct sex, which as yet has no name: higher or lower, more defective or superior; I have the body and soul of a woman, the mind and power of a man, and I have too much or too little of both to be able to pair with either.”
This novel doesn't disappoint the fan of Decadent literature—it has all the beautiful language, sensual detail, subversiveness, and misanthropy one expects from it.