Content tagged with "biography"
I read this book because Kevin Kelly recommended it in his Recommendo newsletter. I had no idea why I wanted to read it – I didn’t even know who Charles Platt was. I think I was just smitten with the subtitle “How I Failed At Almost Everything.” It turns out that Platt is a science fiction writer…
This is a biography of Anna Wintour, who has been the leader of Vogue for 25 years. She’s more than that now, actually – she’s “Artistic Director” for all of Conde Naste. She’s likely the most famous person in the fashion business. Anna simply decided, at a young age, that she wanted to be the…
Meticulously-researched biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who became an outspoken resistor of the Nazis, and an eventual plotter in Hitler’s assassination, for which he was executed just before the Allies would have reached him. The book really doubles as a history of the rise…
Absolutely, one of the best books I’ve read in years. Enraging in places, it’s one of those books where you watch the protagonist suffer, and make choices you don’t really understand because you’re not as deep into the situation as they are. But, in the end, you have some appreciation for how they…
Fascinating story of Huguette Clark, the youngest daughter of mining baron WA Clark. She was fabulously wealthy, but reclusive and eccentric. She maintained “empty mansions” that she never lived in, and even spent the last 20-ish years of her life contentedly living in a hospital room. The early…
A memoir of a broken life. Jack Deere is a world-renowned theologian, but he hasn’t talked much about how his own life often spiraled out of control behind the scenes. His son took his own life, his wife struggled deeply with alcoholism, and Deere himself often alienated other people and made…
Matthew Perry is lucky to be alive. In this book, he recounts his story of addiction, from alcohol as a teenager, through to pills as an adult. As the book starts, he’s in rehab, in great pain. Opiates cause constipation, and he’s so constipated that his bowel ruptures. He almost dies. He spends…
A stunning memoir of a dysfunctional childhood. Jeannette’s parents weren’t actively abusive, but they were passively abusive in the sense that they had no personal responsibility, and they never gave any regard to holding down jobs and providing basic care to their children. In retrospect , it’s…
I very much regret not getting the audiobook. It would have been spectacular to listen to the author read this. This is a memoir. It was made out to be more than that because the cover is funky, and it has a lot of pictures of artifacts of McConaughey’s life, but make no mistake – this is a pretty…
This is the story of the messy end of Sumner Redstone’s life and the struggle for control of his companies: National Amusements, and, by acquisition, Viacom and Paramount. And it really is the story of the end of Redstone’s life. Not even halfway through the book, he turns 60. At about the halfway…
This is a lovely, comprehensive biography of one of the greatest thinkers in history. This is one of the rare biographies I read of someone who lived so long ago that exact records are not available. There is no video footage of Da Vinci’s life. There are no photographs of him. No newspapers quoted…
Certainly a thrilling book and an amazing story. Not particularly well-written, and full of lots of ‘MURICA!, “screw the liberals,” and George Bush worship. The author is an unapologetic solider from Texas, so none of that should be a surprise. Incredible what the guy went through. I admit to get a…
My daughter gave me this book for Christmas. She had seen it at church, apparently. I did not like it. Here’s the thing: this is Dave Pelzer’s third book about his childhood trauma. I did not read the other two . After two prior books, what else is there to say, really? This one covers his childhood…
For the last few years, my brother has gotten in the habit of buying me a biography of an 80s music star for Christmas. First it was Motley Crue, then Billy Idol, then Phil Collins, and now Elton John. Good book. Easy to read. Flows nicely. Lots of neat recollections of famous people you know. Elton…
Lovely biography of Claude Shannon, who gave us information/communication theory. Covers his life from birth to death, in short chapters, each devoted to some aspect or time period. The longest chapter is a discussion of “A Mathematical Basis for Communication,” and is one of the best summaries I’ve…
My brother gave this to me as a gift. I had forgotten how much exposure I had to Phil Collins as a teenager. Looking back, he was seemingly everywhere. Turns out, I missed most of his career in the first incantation of Genesis . I only stumbled on the scene when Genesis was a threesome, and Collins…
This is a compelling auto-biography. It reads fast and stays interesting. Agassi claims to hate tennis. His father groomed him to be a tennis player, and the stories he tells of his childhood border on abuse. He grew up hating the game. But he dropped out of school in the 9th grade, so that’s all he…
You read memoirs for two things: a play-by-play re-telling of history, and some higher truth to it all; some “gestalt” that makes you look at things differently. This book has #1, for sure. Not so much of #2. The book starts with Obama’s childhood , and it ends with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in…
Entertaining history of Nike from its beginning in 1962 through to when it went public in 1980. Those 18 years were run on a shoestring budget, and the company was constantly, hilariously broke. In the last chapter, Knight catches up to everything that’s happened since 1980. That sounds rushed, but…
I liked this book because it’s obvious Dave Grohl wrote it. It clearly wasn’t ghost-written, because the writing can be a little cliched and breathless sometimes, and there’s an authenticity to that. This is not a pure autobiography. It starts off that way, but then drifts into a series of, well,…
This book is…different. I think you have to be a certain place emotionally and mentally to appreciate it, and I just wasn’t there. Cecily Strong is one of my all-time favorite SNL players. She’s hilarious. I bought this book brand-new, specifically because I wanted to support her. You need to forget…
Wonderfully written biography. Makes me want to read more Chernow. JDR was a flawed man, certainly. While an upstanding citizen in his personal life, he was a ruthless business, who destroyed his competitors with glee. Provoked some wonder at the line between the personal and professional. Can…
