Arresting portraits of the Stones in flamboyant youth and slightly mellower maturity.
The Rolling Stones spend 40 years rocking out on stage in this captivating photo album.
Angeledes travelled 153,043 miles, by his reckoning, to attend 132 Stones concerts from 1975 to 2017 and took black-and-white and color photos of the shows. The subjects of these 276 pictures are a constant—singer Mick Jagger, bassist Bill Wyman, and company playing instruments and/or singing on standard-issue stages—so the book’s deeper theme is the effects of time on each of the band members. Some things changed markedly over the decades: The band’s 1970s glam stylings—lamé, bell-bottoms, heavy eyeshadow—gave way to jeans, natural fibers and lighter makeup, and Jagger’s delicate physique became noticeably more muscular in his 60s. Some things didn’t change, including Jagger’s and guitarist Ron Wood’s hair color, which never betrayed any gray, and drummer Charlie Watts’ stony expression and sartorial conservatism. There’s a timelessness to the images in the sense that, even in the ’70s, Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards often looked like old men, creased and haggard as they shrieked into microphones. As the years unspooled, the Stones looked less like raging enfants terribles, and more like relaxed old friends, sneering less and smiling more. Angeledes’ photographs are evocative and atmospheric, and each conveys something of the character of those pictured and the kineticism of their performance antics. There are some indelible images here, including a shot of a youngish Jagger, writhing in a torn, wispy top and print pants, his lips gaping, which is, by itself, worth the price of admission. In between photos, Angeledes relates a few amusing, shaggy dog anecdotes from his Stones-chasing days: getting a snapshot of Richards leaving a court proceeding regarding drug charges; hitchhiking through England after a gig; or getting hassled by security at a Calgary concert (“the guy got really steamed when I tossed that roll of film hoping to ‘lasso’ some portion of his anatomy”). The result is a fine record of the Stones’ stage act and a set of absorbing pictorial studies of the band mates.
Arresting portraits of the Stones in flamboyant youth and slightly mellower maturity.Pub Date: June 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-93-825806-3
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Sea Lion Productions
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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