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THE BEATLES

Name: THE BEATLES
Author: Craig Cross
ISBN: 0-595-34663-4

DAY-BY-DAY, SONG-BY-SONG, RECORD-BY-RECORD

by Craig Cross ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2005

Not the only Beatles book you’ll ever need, but entertaining nonetheless.

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A nearly exhaustive chronicle of the Fab Four.

Ostensibly the â€œonly Beatles book that you’ll ever need,” the necessity–not to mention entertainment value–of this massive tome may be questionable. Mercifully, however, only the first third is devoted to a diary of daily events; the remainder is an alphabetized song list and chronological discography. Cross’s hip, lively narrative–â€œAugust 7, 1957: The Quarrymen’s debut at the Cavern Club. Paul couldn’t make it because he was away at scout camp (not very rock â€˜n’ roll!)â€¦The club’s clientele at that time was mainly posh jazz kids come to listen to the shitty bebop”–captures the innocent spirit of the band’s rise to superstardom. Because the narrative avoids pedantic historical contextualization, the reader is just as bewildered as the band at the sudden and abrupt eruption of Beatlemania. (Among other perils of celebrity, the Beatles get pelted by stinging jellybeans at concerts.) The lack of context, however, does make it difficult to understand the circumstances behind the Beatles’s meteoric rise to fame. Was the shift away from sugary pop, and toward more expansive, meditative music, precipitated by John Lennon’s purchase of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience at the Indica bookshop in March 1966? Or perhaps by their first experience with marijuana, smoked with Bob Dylan on August 28, 1964? As for the beginning of the end, signs of strain began well before 1970–Yoko Ono’s conquest of Lennon, McCartney’s bossiness, Lennon’s heroin addiction, business conflicts with manager Allen Klein–but Cross wisely refrains from passing judgment on the definitive cause of the breakup.

Not the only Beatles book you’ll ever need, but entertaining nonetheless.

Pub Date: May 14, 2005

ISBN: 0-595-34663-4

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.