A gold mine for avid fans.
A fulsome biography set during a crucial period of the iconic musician’s life.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews, theirs and others, Kozinn and Sinclair create a thorough narrative seeking to show a “deeper sense of how (and why) McCartney…created the music of the period we cover.” Covering five years in more than 700 pages, the book is extremely detail-laden, probably more than some readers will want. The authors begin at the end, with the dissolution of the Beatles in 1969, something McCartney didn’t want but John Lennon did. McCartney said he “really was done in for the first time in my life.” He was also worried about the fate of Apple Records, which put him up against the others and contributed mightily to the band’s breakup. As things fell apart, McCartney was living on his Scottish farm, writing and recording songs with his own equipment. Kozinn and Sinclair include numerous informational callouts—“Recording Sessions”—throughout the book alongside deep dives into the composition of the songs, giving insights into McCartney’s creative process. The authors also explore how Linda Eastman helped McCartney in many ways and how he composed a song about her, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” for a solo, reboot album he was working on, McCartney, which the authors see as a counterpoint to Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Wedding Album. The authors devote a lot of space to record-business machinations and legal matters. They describe how McCartney hand-picked musicians to record with as he released a single and worked on a new album, Ram, which received tepid reviews. They chronicle the formation of Wings with Linda and Wild Life, another album, which George Harrison viciously panned as “crummy.” Volume 1 ends with the highly successful Band on the Run album. To be continued.
A gold mine for avid fans.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-300070-4
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman.
A heartfelt memoir from the pop superstar.
Spears grew up with an alcoholic father, an exacting mother, and a fear of disappointing them both. She also displayed a natural talent for singing and dancing and a strong work ethic. Spears is grateful for the adult professionals who helped her get her start, but the same can’t be said of her peers. When she met Justin Timberlake, also a Mouseketeer on the Disney Channel’s updated Mickey Mouse Club, the two formed an instant bond. Spears describes her teenage feelings for Timberlake as “so in love with him it was pathetic,” and she’s clearly angry about the rumors and breakup that followed. This tumultuous period haunted her for years. Out of many candidates for villains of the book, Timberlake included, perhaps the worst are the careless journalists of the late 1990s and early 2000s, who indulged Timberlake while vilifying Spears. The cycle repeated for years, taking its toll on her mental health. Spears gave birth to sons Sean Preston and Jayden James within two years, and she describes the difficulties they all faced living in the spotlight. The author writes passionately about how custody of her boys and visits with them were held over her head, and she recounts how they were used to coerce her to make decisions that weren’t always in her best interest. As many readers know, conservancy followed, and for 13 years, she toured, held a residency in Las Vegas, and performed—all while supposedly unable to take care of herself, an irony not lost on her. Overall, the book is cathartic, though readers who followed her 2021 trial won’t find many revelations, and many of the other newsworthy items have been widely covered in the run-up to the book’s release.
Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781668009048
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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