It’s a thankless task, trying to write a coherent (let alone compelling) biography of a historical figure about whom so little is really, factually known. And while the author is a veteran historical writer focused on the American West, he hasn’t done himself any favors in the peculiar way this account is structured. I’ll expand […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Etta Place"The Heart: Frida Kahlo In Paris by Marc Petitjean; translated by Adriana Hunter (Nonfiction, 2018; English Translation 2020). In 1939, a Second World War was in the offing as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo came to Paris for the first European show of her growing career. Much of the politically active art community, especially those whose […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris"Ian McKellen: A Biography by Garry O’Connor (Biography, November 2019). Garry O’Connor is a writer from the UK, best known for books about the lives of notable theatrical performers, playwrights and authors. He’s been around the theater world for years and, in addition to his personal experiences and contacts, he always does extensive research into […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Ian McKellen: A Biography"This biography of the man who took a mediocre comic book company, previously known as Timely, and transformed it into the multi-media empire that is Marvel is a fun, bouncy and entertaining, yet honest portrait of one of recent pop cultural history’s most fascinating, sometimes contradictory, occasionally controversial and always surprising figures. Rather than the […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee"Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien (Historical Biography, 2018) This excellently researched and beautifully written book was a hardcover Bestseller last year and is now available in all the usual formats. It’s the riveting yet thoughtful account of a mostly forgotten period in early aviation history and of the struggles, triumphs and tragedies of the comparatively […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Fly Girls"Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas by Stephen Budiansky (Historical Biography, 2019). This extensive and fair-minded biography of perhaps history’s single most influential Associate Justice of the American Supreme Court is something special, indeed. It gives us a great, nuanced portrait of a true intellectual, a man of convictions and courage. Yet […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Oliver Wendell Holmes"Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter by Tom Clavin (History/Biography, February 2019). Tom Clavin, a best-selling and multiple award-winning historical writer, ably follows up his history of one of the Wildest of the Wild West’s cow-towns (Dodge City) with this carefully researched and entertainingly written account of James Butler (“Wild Bill”) […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Wild Bill"Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry (Biography, 2018). Taken by cancer in 1965, Lorraine Hansberry crammed a great deal of living and achievement into 34 years. A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry’s best-known creation, was the first work of an African-American author on Broadway. Decades later, it’s still […]
Read more "BOOK REVIEW: Looking for Lorraine"Elizabeth Warren: Her Fight, Her Work, Her Life by Antonia Felix (Biography, 2018). It may seem a bit early for a full biography of Senator Warren, given that she is–in terms of her political career–still in the early prime of life. Much more may be forthcoming from her, but she is one of the leading figures […]
Read more "REVIEWED: Elizabeth Warren: Her fight, Her Work, Her Life"Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills (Socio-Economic History, 2018). This book tells of the only 6 black folks (4 women, 2 men) who were among the 4,047 millionaires in the United States in the first years after Emancipation. In the end, most of them lost much (sometimes all) of what their hard work, sheer nerve and intelligence […]
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