Difference between revisions of "Newest Entertainment Reviews"

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[[Category:Entertainment|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Entertainment]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Entertainment]]__NOTOC__  <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
==Entertainment==
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patti Smith
|author=Larry Stempel
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|title=Year of the Monkey
|title=Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Entertainment
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|genre=Biography
|summary=Stempel is an associate professor of music at an American university so I would imagine that this book is primarily a labour of love.  In the Preface Stempel bemoans the loss of important research material over the years, whether it be musical scores, playbills or similar. It happens. It is a fact of life.  Simply thrown away or discarded as being considered not important.  It's only a musical, after all. A bit light and frothy.  Stempel thinks otherwise - and takes his time telling us exactly why.
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|summary=On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head on, as it the shifting political waters in America.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393067157</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526614758
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Doggett
 
|title=You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=When four young Liverpudlians got together to make music in the early 1960s, they can have had no idea of their future impact on the world around them.  Likewise they would surely not have had an inkling of the extraordinary business minefield which their existence as a group would create, and which would leave the scars long after they had gone their separate ways, even after two of them had died.  As at least one of them ruefully commented, they must have provided several lawyers' children with a very expensive education.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532360</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Walton_Ask
|author=Alan Davies
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|title=Ask For Blues
|title=Teenage Revolution: Growing Up in the 80s
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|author=Malcolm Walton
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in 1966, Alan Davies grew up in Essex, the son of a staunchly Conservative-voting father and a mother who died of cancer when he was only six. It was a childhood dominated at first by 'Citizen Smith' and the other TV sitcoms, 'Starsky and Hutch', 'Grease', Barry Sheene, the Barron Knights, and Debbie HarryThe book begins at 1978, ''the year I started venturing out more'', and finishes at 1988, when he graduated from Kent University to find that stand-up comedy could be an alternative to finding a job where he would have to do what he was told.
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|summary=Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s, but he has chosen to write it in the form of a novel, claiming in his prologue that this would give the book a different approach to the music memoir. His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantle and begins with his first discovery of the Salvation Army band with his grandfatherThis catapults him into a love of music, initially taking piano lessons, and later delving into his true love – the trumpet.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141041803</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Moore Bientot
|author=Clinton Heylin
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|title=A Bientot...
|title=Still on the Road: Songs of Bob Dylan, 1974-2008
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|author=Roger Moore
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Heylin is also obviously a fan, a very knowledgeable and obsessive one to boot.  He has never met or directly interviewed his subject (who is known to guard his privacy quite fiercely most of the time), but his research materials include official recording sessionographies and interviews conducted by others. All this is naturally invaluable information for his analysis and history of all the 600-plus songs the man is known to have written or co-written from 1974 to almost the present day.  In terms of his discography, that spans the albums from ‘Blood on the Tracks’, released in 1975 and commonly regarded as probably his best post-1960s set, to ‘Together Through Life’, which appeared in 2009.
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|summary=The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on forever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, ''À bientôt…'', to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010110</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Maslanka Sherlock
|author=Marina Hyde
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|title=Sherlock: The Puzzle Book
|title=Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy
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|author=Christopher Maslanka and Steve Tribe
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=I have what is perhaps a regular-sized interest in A and B-list celebrities. I can name the off-spring of many an actress, tell you who the spokespeople for certain brands are, write a list of celebs with publicly declared devotions to certain religions, even win the odd pub quiz thanks to knowing the birth names of various performers. I know all sorts of things about this rather small subset of society, but I know the ''what'' more than the ''why'', and that's exactly the problem, according to this book. After all, if more of us sat down to wonder about what it actually ''is'' that the likes of Geri Halliwell and Nicole Kidman bring to the UN, we might seriously question how and why they ever got involved in the first place.
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|summary=Who doesn't love a good puzzle, especially those really fiendish ones that get the brain working extra hard? There really is nothing to compare to that buzz we get from the Aha! moment, when everything falls into place and the solution reveals itself. If puzzles are your thing then you may wish to put your grey cells to the test with ''The Sherlock Puzzle Book'', based on the popular TV series.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532050</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Corcoran_Dylan
|author=Rob Chapman
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|title=Do You Mr Jones?: Bob Dylan with the Poets and Professors
|title=Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head
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|author=Neil Corcoran
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Roger Barrett, who later acquired the moniker 'Syd' (let's make him Syd from now on) was born in Cambridge in 1946.  The fourth of five children, he was the only one to inherit any lasting artistic talent, which came from his father Max. The latter was a senior pathologist, member of the local Philharmonic Society, gifted singer, pianist and watercolour painter.
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|summary=Bob Dylan's award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition' proved highly controversial. It inevitably led some people in the literary world to take stock and look at his work and reputation with a fresh eye. This volume of essays was first published in 2002, and is now reissued with a new foreword by Will Self.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238548</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Kyncl_Stream
|author=Michele Monro
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|title=Stream Punks
|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer
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|author=Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Entertainment
|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way short.  Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened to.
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|summary=I watch quite a lot of YouTube. I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the gym, I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the cross-trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the cast of my favourite shows. And sometimes I'll treat it as if it is Netflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. Having a new smart TV adds an extra, easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a small phone screen. So yes, I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the site it until I read this book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=JVDK_Swing
|author=Don Felder
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|title=We Can Swing Together: The Story of Lindisfarne
|title=Heaven And Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 1974 - 2001
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|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=In terms of record sales and income from live tours, hardly anyone matched the Eagles' rate of success during the 1970sYet the constant search to better themselves with each record, the in-fighting, the drugs and egos, soon got the better of them.  They say it is tough at the top, and nobody is better equipped to tell the often painful story than their former guitarist Don Felder.
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|summary=It all began with a group of youngsters in North ShieldsRod Clements, Simon 'Si' Cowe, Ray 'Jacka' Jackson and Ray Laidlaw formed ''The Downtown Faction'', soon changing the name to ''Brethren'' when they were joined by singer-songwriter Alan HullAs a US-based group had a similar name they opted to change the name again - and ''Lindisfarne'' (with the name taken from an island off the Northumberland coast) was bornMore than forty years on and with numerous changes of personnel the band is still very much aroundThey might not be touring or producing much in the way of new material, but they still perform, with Rod Clements, one of the original members on his fourth stint with the group.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753826771</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Will Birch
 
|title=Ian Dury: The Definitive Biography
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Ian Dury was always one of the most individual, even contrary characters in the musical worldIn a branch of showbiz where people often relied on good looks as a short cut to stardom, he was no oil painting.  During the pub rock era, he and his group, the Blockheads, ploughed a lonely furrow which owed more to jazz-funk than rock'n'roll, and his songs extolled the virtues of characters from Billericay or Plaistow rather than those from Memphis or California.  Alongside the young punk rock upstarts with whom he competed for inches in the rock press, he was comparatively middle-aged.  As if that was not enough, in his own words childhood illness had left him a permanent 'raspberry ripple'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071036</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Simpson
 
|title=Alastair Sim: The Star of Scrooge and the Belles of St Trinian's
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=The mere mention of Alastair Sim conjures up visions of pictures made during the 1950s when a more gentle humour was the order of the dayYet the man hated and did his best to avoid publicity, claiming that the person the public saw on screen revealed all that anybody needed to know about him.  How he would have fared twenty years later in the age of a more intrusive press, one cannot but wonder.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752453726</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Clayton
 
|title=The Richard Beckinsale Story
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=A generation probably knows Richard Beckinsale only from repeats on the UK Gold TV channels, and from occasional mentions in the context of 'how great he would have been if only…'  In 1978 The Sunday Times Magazine tipped the 30-year-old sitcom favourite as a rising major star of the 80s who would blossom into one of the great all-round stage actorsOne year later, he was dead.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752454404</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Val Doonican
 
|title=My Story, My Life: Val Doonican - The Complete Autobiography
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=In the 1960s, if Harold Wilson was the personification of politics and the Beatles the collective icon of youth culture, Val Doonican was similarly at the very apex of light entertainment.  He may no longer have such a high profile – but he's outlasted them both.  Over four decades he has refused to bow to passing fads and fashions, remained true to himself, and in the process he has never really put a foot wrong.  As he says towards the end, 'When you find out what it is you do best, and what the public wants from you, then stick with it, and do it as well as you can.'  With the possible exception of his contemporary and long-time professional and personal friend Rolf Harris, it's difficult to think of another person in showbiz who comes across as more genuinely likeable, and more a genuine case of 'what you see is what you get'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906779619</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=JVDK_ELO
|author=Jo Berry
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|title=Electric Light Orchestra: Song by Song
|title=The Ultimate DVD Easter Egg Guide: How to Access the Hidden Extras on Your DVD
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|author=John Van der Kiste
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Consider the Easter Egg - at least in the way DVD collectors mean.  Sometimes a pointless hidden add-on, that is there for no reason.  Sometimes they can be a priceless bonus, seemingly gifted by the disc producers to those in the know, costing - at least in the case of some animated instances - many thousands of pounds.  Some oik on set with a camcorder, they are not. I've been guilty several times of clicking away in directions the menus don't seem to encourage on the off-chance I find something (or, on a PC, just sweeping the PC mouse over any and every title card in case it highlights something previously invisible).  Forcing several titles and chapters by going straight to them in case they're something secret is not a hobby I like to admit to.
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|summary=My memories of pop music in the early sixties revolve around guitars and drums, sometimes the piano with only occasional excursions into strings and brass. Pop music rarely stands still and it wasn't long before the basic instruments were seen as constraints and The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys began to experiment, with other groups following where they led. Amongst these groups was The Move and their lead guitarist and songwriter, Roy Wood. Wood wanted to develop the group's sound by adding more instruments but was prevented from achieving what he wanted by cost limitations and because the rest of the group didn't really share his enthusiasm.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752875205</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux
 
|title=Jazz
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=At first glance this 700-page volume might look a little daunting.  Do not be daunted.  If you want a small pocket book which merely scratches at the surface and can probably be digested in a sitting or two, look elsewhere.  On the other hand, if you want an extremely readable and comprehensive book on jazz which can not only be read cover to cover, but also retained as a work of reference to use again and again, I doubt if this can be bettered.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068617</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nick Hornby
 
|title=An Education: The Screenplay
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Adroit marketing?  Well, yes. ''An Education'' has been published, of course, to coincide with the film's general release in the UK.  Hardly surprising since our national appetite for nosiness seems insatiable and cosy background details prop up every telly series and film these days. As well as the screenplay, Nick Hornby has provided an introduction and diary of the film's successful premiere at the Sundance Festival in Utah. Beyond trivia, I think this fascinating little book presents an excellent 'how to' guide for wannabes from one of Britain's most respected screen and novel writers.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141044748</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Watkins_Lets
|author=Louis Barfe
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|title=Let's Make Lots of Money: My Life as the Biggest Man in Pop
|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment
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|author=Tom Watkins
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable and much of it is of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.
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|summary=Who on earth would be a manager in the larger than life, here today gone tomorrow world of pop? Anybody with an ego, a ruthless streak, an opportunity to embrace the chances and accept that it's not going to last, evidently. Tom Watkins is just one of several to have walked the fine line and, for part of the time, quite successfully. As his memoirs suggest, part of the time was achievement enough.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Graham McCann
 
|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-Thomas
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film around.  He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft
 
|title=Margrave of the Marshes
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=John Peel was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of all time.  Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home to join Radio London and then become one of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years later.  I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns in the music weeklies and later Radio Times.  Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the end, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), and thought his build-'em-up, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after a while.  So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical one.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Kendrick_Scrappy
|author=Jo Brand
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|title=Scrappy Little Nobody
|title=Look Back in Hunger
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|author=Anna Kendrick
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Born in Hastings in May 1957, after leaving Brunel University with a degree in social sciences, Jo Brand unsuccessfully applied for a research job with Channel 4 on a series about racism, then worked for a time as a psychiatric nurse at the South London Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital. But the lure of showbiz proved too strong, and stardom in stand-up comedy soon beckoned.
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|summary=Celebrity autobiographies. It's a genre long tainted by the examples of people who clearly didn't deserve to be a celebrity, let alone have a ghost-writer create their book, and by those who did so little but managed to churn out five memoirs before they were even thirty. But more recently it's become a way of staking a claim to importance for female comics. They've not all written autobiographies, as Bridget Christie proved, but enough have to provide for a rapidly-filling shelf at the bookstore. 2016 we had Amy Schumer winning a GoodReads award, Lena Dunham's been at it, and we've also got Anna Kendrick. Now she's not a strict comic – not all of her films are designed to make you laugh, and some of them that are just don't – but this has to be in the same bracket.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755355237</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Ropek_Tragic
|author=Jeremy Clarkson
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|title=Tragic Magic: The Life of Traffic's Chris Wood
|title=Driven to Distraction
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|author=Dan Ropek
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Jeremy Clarkson's middle name ought to be ''Marmite''.  You really do either love him or hate him.  I am in the first camp. I think he is brilliantly funny.  He is.  He makes me laugh.  Out loud.  And like many women who watch Top Gear, (well, those that don't watch it because they are strangely – ''bizarrely'' - attracted to James May – I am '''not''' - or because they want to mother The Hamster – I do '''not''') I find Jeremy Clarkson hilarious. And I don't think you have to like cars to see the appeal either!  I mean, the columns within ''Driven To Distraction'' occasionally start ''off'' talking about cars, but not always and they quickly move on to the things that get his dander up before tailing neatly back to the cars again.  Or not.  And what is in between is pure gold dust.
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|summary=Chris Wood was a member of Traffic, the group formed by Steve Winwood in 1967 after he left The Spencer Davis Group. A gifted musician best known for his flute and saxophone work, he also played keyboards, bass guitar and contributed backing vocals as well as having a hand in writing several of the songs and one or two instrumentals. This biography takes its title from the name of one of his compositions for their fifth album.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155548</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Dolby_Sound
|author=Keith Floyd
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|title=The Speed of Sound
|title=Stirred But Not Shaken: The Autobiography
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|author=Thomas Dolby
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=I grew up with television cookery programmes and still have some recipes in my childish handwriting, which begin ''4oz SR fl 2oz marg 2oz C sug…'' as I battled to copy what was on the screen before we retuned to the presenter.  Programmes stagnated as the cook spoke to camera and lectured the viewer on how to make sponge cake or a fish dish.  Then we were shocked awake. There was a man, quite good-looking in a raffish, slightly dangerous sort of way, who cooked on the deck of a trawler or wherever the whim took him, always glass in hand and who was quite capable of berating the cameraman about how he was doing his job.  Like him, or hate him – you could not help but know that he was Keith Floyd, or Floydy to millions.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0283071052</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Hook
 
|title=The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=In the beginning there was Tony Wilson, a Granada TV presenter who came to prominence as compere of the music show ''So It Goes''.  Then there was Factory Records, the Manchester-based alternative record label he helped to found, and their main act, the post-punk band Joy Division.  After their vocalist Ian Curtis killed himself in 1980 the band recruited another member and continued as New Order. Between them and their manager Rob Gretton, they decided to found and run their own club, the Hacienda.  Peter Hook was not only New Order's bassist but also seems to have had the highest profile in hands-on management of the establishment, and despite a generous intake of various substances is well placed to chronicle the sometimes comic, sometimes sad story.
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|summary=From struggling post-punk musician to pop star, from Silicon Valley innovator to university professor, Thomas Dolby has had a remarkable if not unique career, often reinventing himself on the way. This memoir is based on his extensive notes and journals.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847371353</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Morris_Legion
|author=Rick Wakeman
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|title=The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains: Oddball Criminals from Comic Book History
|title=Grumpy Old Rock Star
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|author=Jon Morris
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Rick Wakeman wrote and published a more conventional autobiography, ''Say Yes!'' in 1985, and it has so far never been updated.  This, written with the aid of ghost-writer Martin Roach, takes a totally different approach, being a selection of episodes from his sixty years in more or less random order.  In theory it might seem rather disjointed, but in practice it works brilliantly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090056</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Karl Pilkington
 
|title=Karlology
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=The Radio Five film critic Mark Kermode has a rule when reviewing comedies. If he laughs more than five times then the film deserves its billing as a comedy. If that rule was applied to Karl Pilkington's new book Karlology then it would easily fit into the category for there are laugh aplenty in this strange, amusing and charming little book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140533746X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Linda M James
 
|title=How to Write Great Screenplays: And Get Them into Production
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Over my time at university I've sat on a few scriptwriting modules. I'm currently working on a couple of projects with my scriptwriting partner, with whom I've already completed a pilot TV show. So it was nice to be asked to review this book and get some more insight into this field of writing.
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|summary=As much as I like comics – and I do, whether superhero ones or not – I have to admit one thing, namely that the villains in them are a bit pants. What is The Penguin but the world's worst Mafioso, with a hobby of waddling along like his pet birds? Where else do you win an Oscar of all things by playing a two-bit killer who just fell in a vat of random chemicals and changed colour, and got mardier as a result (although recently he's become a nanotech genius – but let's not go there)? And what is it with the gimp in the see-through plant pot because he is the embodiment of cold? And that's just some of the better-known enemies of ''Batman'', one of the better goodies. You can imagine how awful the baddies related to the bad goodies can be. And if you can't, this is the perfect primer.
 
 
I've probably read most every book on Creative Writing that you've ever heard of and a lot that you're probably not aware of. When it comes to scriptwriting, there really is only one book that's worth comparing anything else in the field with: Robert McKee's ''Story''. It's so heavily touted that I've seen it recommended by experts in novel writing – a quite different craft.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845283074</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Fletcher_Midnight
|author=Barney Hoskyns
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|title=In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett
|title=Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits
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|author=Tony Fletcher
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tom Waits probably enjoys a status comparable to the UK's Richard Thompson.  He has never sold out to a mass pop audience, preferring instead to sustain an engagingly low-key career for over 30 years, feted by critics, fellow artists and a cult following while only achieving modest record sales.  While his 80s albums 'Swordfishtrombones' and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded as among the finest of the decade, most of his royalties have come through cover versions of his songs.  Two, 'Downtown Train' and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits for Rod Stewart, who once said that they paid for the swimming pool in Tom's garden, while in his early days the Eagles gave him a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third album.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235522</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Pritchard
 
|title=Shooting the Cook
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=David Pritchard would have you believe that he was a bumbling TV producer and that he, almost by accident, discovered two men who would go on to become celebrity chefs.  The first, Keith Floyd, was a revelation to viewers as he slurped a glass (or two) of wine, said exactly what you thought he shouldn't have said and cooked amazing food in one exotic location after another.  After the stultifying programmes made by the likes Fanny Craddock he was a breath of fresh air and like or loathe him there was no way that you could be ambivalent.  The second man, Rick Stein, was an entirely different, er, kettle of fish.  Quiet, thoughtful and decidedly more erudite – it was difficult to imagine two more diverse personalities, but he brought out the best of both and made programmes which stay in the mind years later.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007278306</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Reynolds
 
|title=Totally Wired: Post-punk Interviews and Overviews
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Reynolds established himself as one of the leading chroniclers of the British early 1980s music scene with his ''Rip It Up and Start Again''.  In a sense, this book is basically a companion to that volume, though it can be read independently, without having first tried the other – as this present reviewer has done.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571235492</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Hammond
 
|title=As You Do
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Whilst he had already gained some attention by hosting Sky One's ''Brainiac: Science Abuse'' and BBC 2's Top Gear, what really brought Richard Hammond to the public's attention was a serious crash when driving a jet propelled car whilst filming the latter back in 2006. The outpouring of public support, both emotional and financial surprised even him and the [[On The Edge by Richard Hammond|book]] he and his wife Mindy wrote about the accident and his recovery was the best selling non-fiction book of 2007.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297855204</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Wayne Brittenden
 
|title=Celluloid Circus: the Heyday of the New Zealand Picture Theatre
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Going to the movies didn't used to be just about watching a film. Through meticulous research, interviews and photographs, Brittenden captures the spirit of cinema in its heyday: the magnificent architecture, the fascinating characters, and the audiences who became thoroughly involved in voicing their emotions and opinions.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1869621468</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alistair Duncan and Steve Emecz (Editor)
 
|title=Eliminate the Impossible: An Examination of the World of Sherlock Holmes on Page and Screen
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=''Eliminate the Impossible'' is rather a curious book in many ways, as while it goes into considerable detail about inconsistencies and errors in the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it only gives a cursory glance at their literary merit – it won't be a Sparknotes-style primer for a student taking a reading shortcut. Instead, it's more like a case history of the various Holmes stories, providing many interesting details, why mistakes might have been made, speculation about the stories, and so on.
+
|summary=Tamla Motown groups and singers apart, in the mid-sixties there were three major names in the soul music field who mattered above all. James Brown was something of a cult name who rarely bothered about or troubled the singles charts, and Otis Redding was on the verge of shooting into the stratosphere when he died in an aeroplane crash. The other was the man from Alabama, 'the wicked Pickett'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312314</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Paling_Reading
|author=Jules Holland
+
|title=Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library
|title=Barefaced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts
+
|author=Chris Paling
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Jools Holland has always come across, particularly on television, as a thoroughly likeable, down-to-earth chap next door, the kind of person you could chat to over the garden fenceThis memoir of his life, from childhood in a flat in Pimlico to leader of a band invited to play in front of the leaders of the G8 nations at a summit meeting, comes across in very similar fashion.
+
|summary=I once made a comical faux pas in a library when I was younger, but it certainly didn't put me off returning.  I once declared in a self-important way that I would start at the beginning of the books for young children and not stop til the end, then do the same for those for the older children – ''and then do it all over again with them'', I said, pointing at the large-print shelves.  ''I hope not'', was the response – but little me was only aware of a need for large font for my fellow whippersnappers, and not for any other reason.  Since then I've needed libraries, and going to them has been second natureOn the dole I made sure I could use the free Internet they provided to pay me back for my council tax; later I was intent on finding out if a Senior Library Assistant girl was worthy of her title, and of course, it saved a fortune on books for study and fun.  I'm not alone in sharing the warmth of both their heating system and the very thing they were born to provide – books, but there was still a huge step up between my level of use and knowledge of them to actually working in one.  Which is where Chris Paling comes in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141026774</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Springsteen_Born
|author=Ted Gioia
+
|title=Born to Run
|title=Delta Blues
+
|author=Bruce Springsteen
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Without Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry or the Beatles, rock'n'roll and the music industry as we know it today might never have existedBut without the Delta bluesmen who were recording from the 1920s onwards, there would probably have been no Elvis (or else he would have spent the rest of his life driving trucks as he did in his teens).
+
|summary=No, you haven't stumbled into a music review from the 1970s, I'm talking about The Boss's autobiography.  Lots of books have been written about Springsteen by folk who knew him, worked with him and by others who have only read the cuttingsOver the last seven years he has been going about – not putting the record straight, exactly – but telling it from his own perspective.  As he puts it: ''Writing about yourself is a funny business''.  By his own admission, it isn't the whole truth, discretion holds him back but ''in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind.'' ''In these pages, I've tried to do this.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393062589</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=JVDK_Beatles
|author=Dawn French
+
|title=A Beatles Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Beatles but Were Afraid to Ask
|title=Dear Fatty
+
|author=John Van der Kiste
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Showbiz memoirs are often difficult to write, at least without a collaborator who can help the writer to keep a reasonable sense of perspective.  (For a good example of a readable actor's own life story, try Dennis Waterman's ReMinder).  Dawn French has opted for a completely different approach, by telling her tale in the form of letters.  The first is to you and I, the reader, while others are to family, including her mother, brother Gary, her father (who took his own life when she was aged 19), her husband Lenny Henry, old schoolfriends, and other showbiz icons.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846053447</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ben Crystal
 
|title=Shakespeare on Toast
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Home and Family
 
|summary=''Shakespeare on Toast'' claims to be for virtually everyone: those that are ''reading Shakespeare for the first time, occasionally finding him troublesome, think they know him backwards or have never set foot near one of his plays but have always wanted to''.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848310161</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Napier-Bell
 
|title=Black Vinyl, White Powder
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|summary=Simon Napier-Bell is probably as qualified as anyone to write what is in effect a history of the British pop and rock industry over the last half-century.  In the 1960s he managed the Yardbirds and co-wrote Dusty Springfield's only No. 1 hit, in the 1970s he looked after punk band London, and in the 1980s did the same for art-electro group Japan and Wham!  In the process he's travelled most of the world and talked to many of the major players, and seems to know almost everything there is about drugs despite having touched remarkably few of them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091880920</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Angus Cargill (Editor)
 
|title=Hang the DJ: An Alternative Book of Music Lists
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Trivia
 
|summary=Ah, the music list... balm to pop obsessives (see Nick Hornby's ''High Fidelity''), makeweight of copy-starved magazine editors, and staple of self-indulgent writers (see ''31 Songs'', also by Nick Hornby). The contributors to this volume fall mainly into the latter category. No fewer than thirty five of them supply their musical top tens, ranging from the fanatical to the frivolous, via the frankly frightening.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571241727</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Bracewell
 
|title=Roxy: The Band That Invented an Era
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Entertainment
 
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=First, I feel the title is rather misleading.  I came to this book expecting a fully-fledged account of Roxy Music's history, imagining it would tell us about their career at least over the first four years of hits, namely 1972-76,to say nothing of their second coming from 1979 onwards.  What I got was a lengthy account of the art world, cultural influences and student bonhomie which brought Bryan Ferry and the main group members together in the early 1970s.  The story starts logically enough with Ferry's birth and upbringing in post-war Tyneside, but comes to a full stop with the release of their self-titled first album in June 1972.
+
|summary=You might have thought that just about everything which could be said about the Beatles had been said and certainly, there's been no shortage of books about what went wrong, what happened to the money and even what went right. But what I've never seen before is a 'miscellany' - all those little facts which are so hard to track down and this is where historian John Van der Kiste comes into his own: he's a man with an eye for detail and the ability to bring everything together into a very readable whole. It's a wonderful collection of the small facts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571229867</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jim Holt
 
|title=Stop Me If You've Heard This
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=As far as I can remember, my first time in print was when I submitted some jokes to a charity's themed joke collection.  Before then, some of my first actions as a child might have been laughing, and what is cuter in a baby than that?  But why was that infant laughing – he didn't have a joke he could get, surely?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668109X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bill Oddie
 
|title=One Flew Into The Cuckoo's Egg
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Bill Oddie doesn't want to write his autobiography.  He is not near the end of his life, and he doesn't have anything to sign off on, as it were.  Nor can he write it – if these days are anything to go by, you have to be thirty or less and have had a couple of years in the limelight to qualify for one, and not the career-spanning decades of fame Bill has under his substantial belt.  Still, our heroic narrator has managed to produce this book, which is to all intents and purposes an autobiography, but not as you know it, Jim.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340951923</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David N Meyer
 
|title=Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Gram Parsons was in effect rock music's James Dean.  He died too young to have achieved much, but in going to an early grave he seems to have achieved this iconic status of one of the 20th century's legendary might-have-been-greats if only he had lived longer.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747565775</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ben Macintyre
 
|title=For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=This may be one of the hardest books I've had to review so far; I don't think anyone who's been alive and conscious in Britain any time in the past fifty years, can approach anything James Bond related without bringing an extreme amount of prejudice with them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747595275</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
Move on to [[Newest Fantasy Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 16:30, 29 August 2020


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Review of

Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

4star.jpg Biography

On the coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and unexpected moments. In a stranger's words, Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and ageing are faced head on, as it the shifting political waters in America. Full Review

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Review of

Ask For Blues by Malcolm Walton

3.5star.jpg Autobiography

Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s, but he has chosen to write it in the form of a novel, claiming in his prologue that this would give the book a different approach to the music memoir. His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantle and begins with his first discovery of the Salvation Army band with his grandfather. This catapults him into a love of music, initially taking piano lessons, and later delving into his true love – the trumpet. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Moore Bientot/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

A Bientot... by Roger Moore

4star.jpg Entertainment

The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on forever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, À bientôt…, to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Maslanka Sherlock/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

Sherlock: The Puzzle Book by Christopher Maslanka and Steve Tribe

4star.jpg Entertainment

Who doesn't love a good puzzle, especially those really fiendish ones that get the brain working extra hard? There really is nothing to compare to that buzz we get from the Aha! moment, when everything falls into place and the solution reveals itself. If puzzles are your thing then you may wish to put your grey cells to the test with The Sherlock Puzzle Book, based on the popular TV series. Full Review

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Review of

Do You Mr Jones?: Bob Dylan with the Poets and Professors by Neil Corcoran

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

Bob Dylan's award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition' proved highly controversial. It inevitably led some people in the literary world to take stock and look at his work and reputation with a fresh eye. This volume of essays was first published in 2002, and is now reissued with a new foreword by Will Self. Full Review

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Review of

Stream Punks by Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

I watch quite a lot of YouTube. I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the gym, I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the cross-trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the cast of my favourite shows. And sometimes I'll treat it as if it is Netflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. Having a new smart TV adds an extra, easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a small phone screen. So yes, I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the site it until I read this book. Full Review

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Review of

We Can Swing Together: The Story of Lindisfarne by John Van der Kiste

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

It all began with a group of youngsters in North Shields. Rod Clements, Simon 'Si' Cowe, Ray 'Jacka' Jackson and Ray Laidlaw formed The Downtown Faction, soon changing the name to Brethren when they were joined by singer-songwriter Alan Hull. As a US-based group had a similar name they opted to change the name again - and Lindisfarne (with the name taken from an island off the Northumberland coast) was born. More than forty years on and with numerous changes of personnel the band is still very much around. They might not be touring or producing much in the way of new material, but they still perform, with Rod Clements, one of the original members on his fourth stint with the group. Full Review

JVDK ELO.jpg

Review of

Electric Light Orchestra: Song by Song by John Van der Kiste

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

My memories of pop music in the early sixties revolve around guitars and drums, sometimes the piano with only occasional excursions into strings and brass. Pop music rarely stands still and it wasn't long before the basic instruments were seen as constraints and The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys began to experiment, with other groups following where they led. Amongst these groups was The Move and their lead guitarist and songwriter, Roy Wood. Wood wanted to develop the group's sound by adding more instruments but was prevented from achieving what he wanted by cost limitations and because the rest of the group didn't really share his enthusiasm. Full Review

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Review of

Let's Make Lots of Money: My Life as the Biggest Man in Pop by Tom Watkins

4star.jpg Entertainment

Who on earth would be a manager in the larger than life, here today gone tomorrow world of pop? Anybody with an ego, a ruthless streak, an opportunity to embrace the chances and accept that it's not going to last, evidently. Tom Watkins is just one of several to have walked the fine line and, for part of the time, quite successfully. As his memoirs suggest, part of the time was achievement enough. Full Review

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Review of

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

3.5star.jpg Entertainment

Celebrity autobiographies. It's a genre long tainted by the examples of people who clearly didn't deserve to be a celebrity, let alone have a ghost-writer create their book, and by those who did so little but managed to churn out five memoirs before they were even thirty. But more recently it's become a way of staking a claim to importance for female comics. They've not all written autobiographies, as Bridget Christie proved, but enough have to provide for a rapidly-filling shelf at the bookstore. 2016 we had Amy Schumer winning a GoodReads award, Lena Dunham's been at it, and we've also got Anna Kendrick. Now she's not a strict comic – not all of her films are designed to make you laugh, and some of them that are just don't – but this has to be in the same bracket. Full Review

Ropek Tragic.jpg

Review of

Tragic Magic: The Life of Traffic's Chris Wood by Dan Ropek

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

Chris Wood was a member of Traffic, the group formed by Steve Winwood in 1967 after he left The Spencer Davis Group. A gifted musician best known for his flute and saxophone work, he also played keyboards, bass guitar and contributed backing vocals as well as having a hand in writing several of the songs and one or two instrumentals. This biography takes its title from the name of one of his compositions for their fifth album. Full Review

Dolby Sound.jpg

Review of

The Speed of Sound by Thomas Dolby

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

From struggling post-punk musician to pop star, from Silicon Valley innovator to university professor, Thomas Dolby has had a remarkable if not unique career, often reinventing himself on the way. This memoir is based on his extensive notes and journals. Full Review

Morris Legion.jpg

Review of

The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains: Oddball Criminals from Comic Book History by Jon Morris

5star.jpg Entertainment

As much as I like comics – and I do, whether superhero ones or not – I have to admit one thing, namely that the villains in them are a bit pants. What is The Penguin but the world's worst Mafioso, with a hobby of waddling along like his pet birds? Where else do you win an Oscar of all things by playing a two-bit killer who just fell in a vat of random chemicals and changed colour, and got mardier as a result (although recently he's become a nanotech genius – but let's not go there)? And what is it with the gimp in the see-through plant pot because he is the embodiment of cold? And that's just some of the better-known enemies of Batman, one of the better goodies. You can imagine how awful the baddies related to the bad goodies can be. And if you can't, this is the perfect primer. Full Review

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Review of

In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett by Tony Fletcher

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

Tamla Motown groups and singers apart, in the mid-sixties there were three major names in the soul music field who mattered above all. James Brown was something of a cult name who rarely bothered about or troubled the singles charts, and Otis Redding was on the verge of shooting into the stratosphere when he died in an aeroplane crash. The other was the man from Alabama, 'the wicked Pickett'. Full Review

Paling Reading.jpg

Review of

Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

I once made a comical faux pas in a library when I was younger, but it certainly didn't put me off returning. I once declared in a self-important way that I would start at the beginning of the books for young children and not stop til the end, then do the same for those for the older children – and then do it all over again with them, I said, pointing at the large-print shelves. I hope not, was the response – but little me was only aware of a need for large font for my fellow whippersnappers, and not for any other reason. Since then I've needed libraries, and going to them has been second nature. On the dole I made sure I could use the free Internet they provided to pay me back for my council tax; later I was intent on finding out if a Senior Library Assistant girl was worthy of her title, and of course, it saved a fortune on books for study and fun. I'm not alone in sharing the warmth of both their heating system and the very thing they were born to provide – books, but there was still a huge step up between my level of use and knowledge of them to actually working in one. Which is where Chris Paling comes in. Full Review

Springsteen Born.jpg

Review of

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

5star.jpg Entertainment

No, you haven't stumbled into a music review from the 1970s, I'm talking about The Boss's autobiography. Lots of books have been written about Springsteen by folk who knew him, worked with him and by others who have only read the cuttings. Over the last seven years he has been going about – not putting the record straight, exactly – but telling it from his own perspective. As he puts it: Writing about yourself is a funny business. By his own admission, it isn't the whole truth, discretion holds him back but in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I've tried to do this. Full Review

JVDK Beatles.jpg

Review of

A Beatles Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Beatles but Were Afraid to Ask by John Van der Kiste

5star.jpg Entertainment

You might have thought that just about everything which could be said about the Beatles had been said and certainly, there's been no shortage of books about what went wrong, what happened to the money and even what went right. But what I've never seen before is a 'miscellany' - all those little facts which are so hard to track down and this is where historian John Van der Kiste comes into his own: he's a man with an eye for detail and the ability to bring everything together into a very readable whole. It's a wonderful collection of the small facts. Full Review

Move on to Newest Fantasy Reviews