A hagiographic bio, of interest mainly to musicologists.
A debut biography of a key figure in the Indian classical-music renaissance.
Indian classical music is still something of a mystery to Western ears. Roy aims to remedy that with this look at a legendary practitioner of the genre. Allauddin Khan, she writes, was not only an “outstanding genius in music” but also a “unique personality in the entire realm of the arts.” From very modest beginnings in rural India, he mastered all the classical Indian instruments and became the teacher of perhaps India’s most famous musician, Ravi Shankar. “For him, each note of a ‘Raga’ [one of the melodic modes of Indian classical music] was a living entity,” Roy writes. “It seemed that when he played each of the notes, it crystallized into its own sublime form.” In a tone of utmost reverence, the author tracks Allauddin’s single-minded pursuit of musical distinction. At 8 years old, he ran away from home to perform with a musical troupe and, at 15, he deserted his new wife after an arranged marriage, taking her valuable ornaments with him as he pursued his musical dream. His dogged persistence finally paid off when a great musical guru, Wazir Khan, took him as a pupil. “He adored music with the fervor of a selfless lover,” Roy writes. The author certainly conveys the rigors of Indian musicianship—performances commonly last four to five hours—and makes a strong case for Allauddin as a key contributor to India’s “musical renaissance.” But the book is unlikely to be of interest to casual readers, largely because Roy doesn’t present Allauddin as anything more than a one-dimensional figure, nor does she place him in the context of his times. For example, Allauddin had a hot temper, but Roy glosses over it, writing that his anger was “child-like. It did not harm anyone.” Although Allauddin lived during India’s struggle for independence from Britain, the reader learns only that he was a “patriot” who “never ceased to look forward to a bright future of prosperity and glory for the motherland and her countless sons and daughters.” In this book, Allauddin’s art exists in a vacuum.
A hagiographic bio, of interest mainly to musicologists.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-1441589767
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
