Content tagged with "biography"

An Accidental Life: Volume 1, 1944-1964: How I Failed at Almost Everything
Book Review
June 19, 2021
230

“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…”

Alexander Hamilton
Book
7
Anna
Deane’s Library
Book Review
December 11, 2022
362

“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…”

Bo Knows Bo
Deane’s Library
Book
8
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Deane’s Library
Book Review
June 13, 2021
294

“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…”

Dancing With Myself
Deane’s Library
Book Review
December 26, 2016
16
Educated
Deane’s Library
Book Review
February 14, 2019
605

“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…”

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
Deane’s Library
Book Review
June 13, 2021
322

“Fascinating story of Huguette Clark, the youngest daughter of mining baron W.A. 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…”

Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life
Deane’s Library
Book Review
November 24, 2019
94

“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…”

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir
Deane’s Library
Book Review
December 25, 2022
610

“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…”

The Glass Castle
Deane’s Library
Book Review
June 10, 2020
196

“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…”

Greenlights
Deane’s Library
Book Review
October 16, 2021
299

“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…”

The King of Content: Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire
Deane’s Library
Book Review
January 4, 2022
325

“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…”

Leonardo da Vinci
Deane’s Library
Book Review
April 22, 2023
446

“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…”

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Deane’s Library
Book Review
June 1, 2014
86

“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…”

A Man Named Dave
Deane’s Library
Book Review
February 15, 2016
388

“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…”

Me: Elton John Official Autobiography
Deane’s Library
Book Review
June 1, 2020
284

“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…”

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
Deane’s Library
Book Review
October 9, 2017
85

“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 Life, My Fight
Deane’s Library
Book
10
Not Dead Yet: The Memoir
Deane’s Library
Book Review
December 31, 2017
218

“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…”

Open
Deane’s Library
Book Review
March 31, 2022
373

“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…”

Personal History
Deane’s Library
Book
7
A Promised Land
Deane’s Library
Book Review
January 15, 2021
238

“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…”

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Deane’s Library
Book Review
October 22, 2018
114

“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…”

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Deane’s Library
Book Review
March 13, 2022
180

“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 Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir
Deane’s Library
Book Review
September 12, 2021
280

“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…”

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Deane’s Library
Book Review
December 31, 2017
166

“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…”

Warhol
Deane’s Library
Book
6