Energetic and keen revelations of the life beyond the spotlight of a significant contemporary musician.
The acclaimed singer and songwriter shares her story.
In this passionate and honest autobiography, Keys, who describes herself as “a piano prodigy in cornrows, mixing classical music with hip-hop beats and bass lines alongside a dash of gospel,” opens with a few memories from her childhood, when she was raised by her mother with little involvement from her biological father. She describes how she developed her persona and image and maintained her independence beginning with debut album, Songs in A Minor, which would eventually sell more than 16 million copies. Throughout her career, she has successfully avoided being manipulated by record label executives, many of whom didn’t know how to classify her as an artist. “A record label is a marketing machine,” she notes. “Behind its doors, fledgling artists are crafted into whatever image the label’s execs think they can sell.” Regardless, the reactions by the public quickly pushed Keys to the top of the charts. She chronicles her music-making process and nods to her many collaborators, and she opens a window into her personal life that sheds light on her triumphs, doubts, fears, and the exhausting nature of being thrust into stardom at an early age. She also shares intimate moments with her husband, record producer Swizz Beatz—e.g., the extravagant birthday parties they’ve thrown for each other, the births of her two sons, and the blended family they created with Swizz’s other children—and explains the passions that have led her to start nonprofit organizations and tackle social injustices. In a conversational tone, Keys unveils the woman behind the microphone, giving readers an accessible view of what makes her tick. Since many aspects of her life are apparent in her music, readers may want to listen to an album or two after reading certain sections of the book. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
Energetic and keen revelations of the life beyond the spotlight of a significant contemporary musician.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-15329-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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