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SOMEBODY TO LOVE?

Name: SOMEBODY TO LOVE?
Author: Grace Slick
ISBN: 0-446-52302-X

A ROCK-AND-ROLL MEMOIR

by Grace Slick with Andrea Cagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 1998

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Jefferson Airplane singer Slick delivers a bouncy, somewhat hectoring account of her 25-year career. Raised by comfortable WASPs in Palo Alto, Calif., Slick married young and moved to San Francisco, where she and her husband saw an early incarnation of the Jefferson Airplane perform in 1965 and figured that starting their own band, the Great Society, would be more fun than their boring day jobs. Slick soon drifted into the Airplane and out of her marriage. Her lively descriptions of the close-knit musical community revolving around Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium successfully evoke both the highs and lows of the Summer of Love. Slick was never one to shrink from the highs, and she gives us a few entertaining psychedelic vignettes. Uniquely, the Airplane played all three of the pivotal rock festivals that, respectively, inaugurated an era (Monterey), defined it for posterity (Woodstock), and ignominiously ended it (Altamont). Slick cheerfully and explicitly details her sexual liaisons with all but one of her bandmates and an encounter with Jim Morrison involving a bed full of smashed strawberries. In the ’70s, Slick had a child, tried to slip acid into President Nixon’s tea, and got drunk often, finally quitting the revamped and renamed Jefferson Starship in 1978. A few years later she reenlisted, at this point the only original member; this version of Starship was a soulless commercial enterprise that commissioned its songs from top Hollywood hacks, but the aging Slick liked the —easy ride.— Since retiring several years ago, she’s been campaigning to end medical testing on animals, but coauthor Cagan (Marianne Williamson’s coauthor for A Return to Love, not reviewed) doesn—t help her explain the cause very coherently. Slick’s swaggering, unapologetic persona gets a little irritating by the end, but her progress from hippie queen to cranky rich liberal makes for a fun and emblematic trip. (4 pages color photos, not seen) (Author tour)

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1998

ISBN: 0-446-52302-X

Page Count: 384

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

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.