by Justine Picardie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 2021
A well-informed rendering of dramatic times.
A fashion historian searches for an elusive woman.
Renowned couturier Christian Dior named his signature perfume Miss Dior, honoring his sister Catherine (1917-2008). Although British novelist, fashion historian, and memoirist Picardie, author of a well-received biography of Coco Chanel, tries to maintain the focus on Catherine, her life becomes subsumed within a sweeping history of war, French politics, and fashion. Surely, Catherine experienced a tumultuous few years. Alongside her married lover, she joined the French Resistance, tasked with gathering information on the movements of German troops and warships. She was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned but never revealed the identities of other Resistance members. In August 1944, she was sent to a German concentration camp for women and, a month later, was transported to a labor camp, then another, to work in munitions factories. In April 1945, she escaped from a death march and made her way back to Paris. Despite the privations of war, Paris couture was thriving, with Dior a rising star. The revenue of couture houses rose from 67 million francs in 1941 to more than 463 million in 1943. Malnourished and weak, Catherine was beset by psychological symptoms: “insomnia, nightmares, memory loss, anxiety and depression,” and a need for isolation. For a while, she shared her brother’s luxurious Paris apartment, then moved with her lover to their own home near the flower shop they ran. They spent summers in Provence in a house Catherine had inherited from her family. She did not adopt the extravagant, romantic New Look for which her brother became famous. Described as stoic, quiet, and unemotional by her godson, whom Picardie talked with, Catherine was “invisible to Christian’s acolytes.” The book is generously illustrated with family and historical photographs, Dior’s drawings, and fashion images, and Picardie interweaves a sensitive narrative of her search for Catherine as she follows the “echoing footfall of a disappearing girl.”
A well-informed rendering of dramatic times.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-21035-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
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A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton
by Ozzy Osbourne with Chris Ayres ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2025
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.
The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.
“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538775417
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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