by Belinda Carlisle ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2010
Despite its psychologically thin veneer, the book is a harrowing cautionary tale of the perilous freedoms that rock stardom...
Go-Go’s singer and popular solo songstress reflects on her struggles with identity, drugs and the pitfalls of pop stardom.
The author was raised by her mother in the Southern California suburbs, where she became the beneficiary of right-place-at-the-right-time serendipity while experimenting with the burgeoning late-’70s L.A. punk scene. She almost inadvertently became the cherubic lead singer for all-girl pop-punk group the Go-Go’s. Their rise to superstardom in the ’80s seemed as unexpected as it was inevitable. One minute Carlisle and her girlfriends were sitting on a curb in Hollywood talking about playing music, and the next they were the first all-female band to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts with songs they wrote and played themselves. The author’s recollections of the years through her late-’80s period of solo success are awhirl with drug binges, drunken escapades, celebrity boyfriends, band infighting and nonstop touring. Despite the transience of her pop-star lifestyle, two constants in her life prevailed: cocaine and insecurity. The book’s familiar double-edged–sword success story takes shape early on. Once large amounts of money were at stake, suddenly egos damaged more easily and personality conflicts flared up among the Go-Go’s, leading to the group’s initial breakup in 1985. Even with her mega-successful solo career, which included hits like “Mad About You,” Carlisle was still short on self-knowledge and spiritual fulfillment. She eventually found herself in a semi-functional marriage to Morgan Mason, the wealthy scion of actor James Mason. Although readers may find it difficult to sympathize with the author’s combination of discontent and moneyed privilege, her memoir is generously confessional enough to give a compelling edge to her battle with substance abuse and her quest for spiritual balance.
Despite its psychologically thin veneer, the book is a harrowing cautionary tale of the perilous freedoms that rock stardom brings.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-46349-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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