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DAVID HOCKNEY

Name: DAVID HOCKNEY
Author: Christopher Simon Sykes
ISBN: 978-0-385-53144-3

THE BIOGRAPHY

by Christopher Simon Sykes ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2012

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First volume of an intimate, vivid biography of the ever-evolving English artist.

Now in his mid-70s, Hockney is still reinventing himself, most recently with his use of the iPhone. A friend of the artist, photographer Sykes (The Big House, 2004, etc.) provides an excellent sense of what has fed the artist’s fertile, restless imagination. Born in 1937 to an antiwar couple in the Yorkshire industrial city of Bradford, Hockney became a scholarship boy who excelled at art but little else. His attendance at the Royal College of Art in London in 1959 drew out the tremendous talents of this awkward provincial kid, exposing him to modern art for the first time, especially currents from America (e.g., Jackson Pollock), and shaping his sense as a gay artist. Pop art exploded, depicting the everyday objects of modern life, and Hockney dallied briefly, such as in the use of graffiti (Doll Boy). Before even graduating, several events proved decisive to the shaping of his career. His work attracted the attention of hot young London dealer John Kasmin, and he visited New York City and resolved to go blonde after watching a TV commercial. He also won the RCA’s gold medal, started selling paintings, thanks to Kasmin’s relentless promotion, and moved into a large flat in the then-slummy Notting Hill, which would be his base for the next fruitful decade. Considered bright, witty and inventive, Hockney spent the transformative years of 1963-5 in Los Angeles, creating his early iconic work. Teaching at UCLA in 1966, Hockney met Peter Schlesinger, who became an important lover and muse. Experimenting with photography, etching, portraiture and theater and working between London, Paris and L.A., Hockney has never ceased questing. A personal, lively look at this extraordinary artist’s career. Readers will eagerly await the second volume.

Pub Date: April 3, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-385-53144-3

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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STRANGER TO THE GAME

by Bob Gibson & Lonnie Wheeler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1994

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One of the great pitchers in baseball history (and one of the most outspoken and disagreeable), Gibson recalls his storied career with the capable help of Wheeler (I Had a Hammer, not reviewed) and shows he's not done being ``difficult.'' A ferocious competitor who made his living pitching high and tight, Gibson had a reputation throughout his 17 years with the St. Louis Cardinals for being just as uncompromising and angry off the field, especially concerning racial matters. Gibson was raised in an Omaha, Nebr., housing project, where his older brother was hero, mentor, and coach. After college, Gibson, who claims that he was better at basketball than baseball, signed a contract with both the Cardinals and the Harlem Globetrotters, playing one year for the latter. He calls his first professional baseball manager, Johnny Keane, ``the closest thing to a saint that I came across in baseball.'' When Keane replaced Solly Hemus (whom Gibson despised) in 1961, it turned the Cardinals', and Gibson's, fortunes around. Known for his extraordinary performances in the postseason, Gibson had a World Series record of 7-2, with a 1.89 ERA and an incredible 92 strikeouts over 81 innings. He won 20 games in five different seasons and in 1968 posted a 1.12 ERA in 305 innings. Gibson offers some fun and insightful recollections of big games, friends, and teammates such as Tim McCarver, Joe Torre, and Bob Uecker, and legendary matchups with Juan Marichal (``the best pitcher of my generation''), Sandy Koufax, and Don Drysdale. Despite his Hall of Fame credentials, Gibson claims he's been ostracized from the game and hasn't held a baseball job since 1984. Though he grouses a lot about being slighted by major league baseball and rehashes all-too-familiar racial difficulties, it is refreshing to get the fiery Gibson's take on the grand old game. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) (First printing of 75,000; $75,000 ad/promo; author tour)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-670-84794-1

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY

- BOOK REVIEW
PITCH BY PITCH
by Bob Gibson & Lonnie Wheeler

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HELPING ME HELP MYSELF

ONE SKEPTIC, TEN SELF-HELP GURUS, AND A YEAR ON THE BRINK OF THE COMFORT ZONE

by Beth Lisick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 2008

Funny, perceptive and surprisingly open-hearted under the cynicism.

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A delightful, Plimptonesque exercise in immersive journalism exploring the strange world of “self-help.”

Lisick (Everybody into the Pool: True Tales, 2005, etc.) devoted a year to various gurus in an attempt to self-actualize. She endeavored to become a Highly Effective Person under the auspices of Stephen Covey, to fortify her soul with Jack Canfield’s Chicken Soup, to get fit with Richard Simmons on a cruise ship, to straighten out her perilous finances with Suze Orman, to consistently discipline her young son with Thomas Phelan’s 1-2-3 Magic method, to figure out John Gray’s Mars/Venus gender dichotomy, and generally to live a better, happier life. It is to the reader’s great benefit that Lisick is: 1) a mess, 2) cynical and horrified of cheesiness, and C) effortlessly funny. Her visualizations didn’t go right, she didn’t have the right clothes for the ghastly seminars and on Simmons’s cruise she got high and made inappropriate advances to a surly young musician accompanying his mother. Lisick makes keen use of comic detail, as when she charts the deflation of Simmons’s hair over the course of the cruise. She is tough on the well-paid experts, but fair, sincerely laboring to suspend her skepticism and game to put their advice into action. Some of it works: A home-organization expert helps Lisick’s family emerge from their chaotic clutter, and Phelan’s discipline strategy tames her truculent toddler. But of course the book is funniest when things don’t go so well. The author’s revulsion over Gray’s retrograde sexual stereotypes (and disturbingly smooth, buffed appearance) is palpable and highly amusing. Her articulate hatred of the anodyne platitudes in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way provides a tonic for anyone dismayed by fuzzy New Age smugness. None of that from Lisick, who is sharp, irreverent and endearingly screwed-up. Her experiment may not have solved all of her problems, but she got an enjoyable book out of it.

Funny, perceptive and surprisingly open-hearted under the cynicism.