bookpagedev

by David Sinclair

Fifty miles southwest of Houston, along what is now Highway 59, lies the coastal plains town of Wharton, Texas. One of its renowned residents lives today in the house his family first occupied when he was one year old. He is Horton Foote, Academy Award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and author. Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood is his latest work, a memoir of his south Texas childhood, covering the years 1916 through 1933.

Horton Foote, Jr. grew up surrounded by two large extended families, with two sets of grandparents and countless uncles, aunts, and cousins. Farewell, told through a series of anecdotes, tells of his education in the public schools, his talent for dramatic acting and academics, and his large family’s reach throughout the community. Foote sits at the feet of maiden aunts and drunken uncles to hear them recount times starting during the Civil War and continuing through to the Depression. His two uncles keep the family worried about their constant drinking and gambling. Foote’s father struggles to support his family as a shopkeeper. Throughout Foote’s childhood, family is the center of his life, as it is the center of Wharton.

The author presents scenes of the segregated South in the first half of the century, with stories of KKK meetings and a rural lynching. Black professionals of the town are lauded for their meek and polite manners, and are called a credit to their race. Foote recounts a time when black and white children routinely played together until school age, when segregation forced them apart. The everyday poverty of the cotton farmers and small shopkeepers serves as backdrop for Foote’s discussions of the Roosevelt era and the Democratic party so fervently supported by his father.

Foote graduates with honors from Wharton High School in 1932, eager to go off to New York to study acting and make his career on the stage. But his family’s poverty short circuits that dream, and he settles for the Pasadena Playhouse in California.

Foote’s writing is superb, clear, concise, and straightforward, as befits a son of Depression-era Texans. His presentation is almost journalistic in tone, never succumbing to emotion or pity when describing his family and his childhood. Known as the Chekov of the small town, Foote has always chosen home, family, and ordinary men for his subjects. In Farewell he does so again.

David Sinclair is a former English Literature teacher and reviewer in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Biography

Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Pat H. Broeske

Long live the King The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why? Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions ( St. Martin’s, $35, 0312185723), which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ). Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274). This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis (Overlook Press, $23.95, 0879518146). Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii. Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 0312185731), in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force. Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two. Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . . On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more. Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead? Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

Long live the King The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley's death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as…

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Today’s youth can hardly imagine a time when girls could not wear the clothes of their choosing. Early in the 20th century, women and girls wore what society dictated: long, hot dresses held in shape by corsets. Shana Corey’s You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! (ages 5-8) takes the issue of women’s dress reform and gives it a light and fanciful spin, making it accessible to young children.

In this vibrantly illustrated book, children meet Amelia Bloomer, who lived in Seneca Falls, New York, a place associated with the start of the women’s movement. Amelia, the wife of a newspaper editor, started her own newspaper for women, called The Lily. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s cousin came to visit, Amelia saw for the first time the modern costume that was being worn in Europe a shorter skirt worn over full-legged pants. When Amelia herself adopted the new garment and began publishing the pattern in her newspaper, these full-legged pants were called Bloomers. Shana Corey’s book presents feminist ideas in a simple manner, calling the notion of having to wear heavy, hot dresses silly. Her accessible text shows how such large dresses often caused women to become stuck in gates and how the corsets often caused women to faint in public. She asks her reader, What was proper about that? Even more interesting is a thorough author’s note, which puts Amelia Bloomer’s legacy squarely in the context of the struggle for women’s right to vote. This book is a perfect addition to a women’s history collection, and it is a joy to read at any time of the year.

Krista F. Hanson is a writer and English teacher from St. Paul, Minnesota.

Today's youth can hardly imagine a time when girls could not wear the clothes of their choosing. Early in the 20th century, women and girls wore what society dictated: long, hot dresses held in shape by corsets. Shana Corey's You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer!…

Arts & Culture, Music

Music Arts & Culture

Long live the King

Review by bookpagedev

by Pat H. Broeske

The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why?

Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions, which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ).

Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274).

This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis (Overlook Press, $23.95, 0879518146). Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii.

Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 0312185731), in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force.

Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two.

Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . .

On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more.

Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead?

Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley's death, on August 16, 1977,…

Biography

Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by James Grinnell

In Robert Frost: A Life, Jay Parini is a man with a mission, namely to restore the poet’s reputation. His new biography is a corrective to the works of earlier biographers who, Parini feels, unfairly besmirched Frost’s image.

Robert Frost was arguably the last American poet whose name was known to nonliterary people. Prior to his death in January 1963, his poetry had long been included in school textbooks. Many people knew Mending Wall and The Road Not Taken. The stature of the man and the poetry were both enhanced by Frost’s participation in the Kennedy inauguration in 1961 and by JFK’s making it known that he often recited Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening in almost prayer-like fashion after a rough day. While Frost never won a Nobel Prize, being awarded the Pulitzer an unprecedented four times helped institutionalize him and his verse.

Then came the iconoclasts. The public perception of Frost was altered most by his official biographer Lawrance Thompson, who in 1966 published the first volume of what Parini calls his three-volume biography where he never lost an opportunity to discover and underline faults in Frost. Thompson’s view was that Frost was generally a misanthrope in his private life and was an especially captious parent.

Parini tells us Thompson wasted no opportunity to present Frost as a monster . . ., even though Parini does allow that there is no doubt that on occasion [Frost] behaved badly. Luckily, this corrective element detracts only a little from Parini’s excellent scholarly work. He writes well, indeed at times poetically, as when he tells us that Frost pulled a poem together, lacing the rhymes as tightly as a boot. As one would expect from such a major biography, there is a wealth of information how Frost conceived and built upon his public persona, how he created the role of writer-in-residence and the public literary reading. He often drew huge crowds and was handsomely paid even during the depths of the depression.

We remember Frost and read his poetry today in part because he realized the importance of fame. But as Jay Parini’s solid biography reminds us, it is the artistic achievement that the famous reputation relies on most.

In Robert Frost: A Life, Jay Parini is a man with a mission, namely to restore the poet's reputation. His new biography is a corrective to the works of earlier biographers who, Parini feels, unfairly besmirched Frost's image.

Robert Frost was arguably…

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Joanna Brichetto

Arthur Read is an eight-year-old aardvark with a legion of fans. From toddlers to independent readers, kids adore him. Amazingly, parents do, too. Author and illustrator Marc Brown has created a series that miraculously appeals to a wide range of ages (including this 34-year-old reviewer who will, on occasion, plan the afternoon around Arthur’s show on public TV). It is one of the few kid’s television programs parents can endorse without misgivings or even a roll of their eyes. It’s not violent, cloyingly cute, or completely mystifying. It’s Arthur.

Arthur’s appeal is partly due to Brown’s ability to create convincing, multilayered personalities kids identify with. Arthur and his friends seem real there is not one goodie-two-shoes in the bunch and when they screw up, which is often, they deal with the consequences. His characters are types the smart kid, the funny kid, the rich kid, the tomboy, etc. but they are convincing types who grow and evolve as the series expands. They are friends despite, or perhaps because of, their differences. They don’t so much celebrate the differences, as tacitly accept them. Tolerance is status quo.

The Arthur Family Treasury combines three popular Arthur books in one volume: Arthur’s Family Vacation, Arthur’s Baby, and Arthur’s Birthday. Fred Rogers, preschool icon, lends his seal of approval by writing the foreword. (Mr. Rogers, ever the good sport, allowed himself to be animated in a recent Arthur television episode.) Each story is about 30 pages long, with an ideal balance of text and illustration on each page. Witty visual details, likely to be lost on younger listeners, enrich the experience for older ones (and adults). In addition to this popular format, many Arthur stories are available as board books for the very young and chapter books for independent readers. It’s no accident Arthur’s last name is Read. His continuing adventures give kids the simple pleasures of a good story, and encourage a love of books and reading that will hopefully last a lifetime. This makes The Arthur Family Treasury a family treasure, indeed.

Joanna Brichetto writes in Nashville. Her five-year-old daughter is a proud member of the Arthur Fan Club.

Arts & Culture, Music

Music Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Pat H. Broeske

Long live the King The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why? Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions ( St. Martin’s, $35, 0312185723), which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ). Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274). This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis (Overlook Press, $23.95, 0879518146). Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii. Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride, in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force. Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two. Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . . On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more. Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead? Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

Biography

Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The American landscape was never the same after Frederick Law Olmsted. The graceful landscapes he designed, from Central Park to the Stanford University campus, are among the greatest open spaces in the country. Olmsted’s landscape creations alone would place him among the most notable figures of 19th century America. But he hardly confined his limitless energy to designing parks. Witold Rybczynski’s latest book, A Clearing in the Distance, chronicles not just Olmsted’s remarkable designs: to do so would ignore half his achievements. This book unfolds Olmsted’s diverse life, and in doing so tells the story of an entire era. Landscape architecture came late in Olmsted’s life. By the time he started his first design, Central Park, he had accomplished more than many people dream of. Born in 1822, Olmsted grew up restless, unwilling to settle into a routine career. As a young man he traveled to China on a merchant vessel. Unsatisfied, he started a farm on Long Island, experimenting with the latest agricultural technology. Olmsted’s importance as a public figure was soon to follow. Although he never completed a formal education he briefly attended Yale Olmsted was drawn to the world of literature and social change. His first book chronicled his epic journey through Europe at the age of 28, studying the cultural and physical landscape. With this success, Olmsted turned to publishing and co-founded The Nation magazine. Not yet ready to settle down, Olmsted wandered through the American South for five years working as a journalist for the New York Times. Olmsted never studied landscape design. By the time he had designed and supervised the largest urban park in America, he had absorbed more knowledge about the landscape than any education could provide. Over the next 40 years, Olmsted designed more than 60 parks and neighborhoods throughout the country: Cornell University; Morningside Park, New York; Biltmore, North Carolina.

Witold Rybczynski tells Olmsted’s story with the insight one would expect from a great historian of American urbanism.

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

This is a very stylish retelling of the familiar tale of a hat (sometimes a mitten in other stories) which is lost by its owner and inhabited by creatures of the forest. In this version, a branch knocks the hat off the head of an elf as he hurries through the woods. The elf continues on, not noticing that the hat is missing and in turn a frog, mouse, hare, hedgehog, crow, fox, boar, wolf, and bear all come to inhabit the house together! When a flea tries to move in, she squeezes out the larger creatures. The story comes full circle when the elf returns for his hat and finds it, unaware of its previous occupants or the new tenant inside the flea, who has a new home.

The text is lyrical to the young ear. As each animal finds the hat it exclaims, A home-in-a-hat? Imagine that! After making an appropriate growl or squawk, it asks, Hello in there. Do you have room to spare? The creatures ask for entrance and are welcomed into the bright red cap with repetition that children will quickly learn and recite.

John Rowe’s rich, slightly eccentric illustrations can stand alone and tell the story without the need for text. The arrival of each animal encompasses a two-page spread of text and artwork. Each picture is brimming with illustrated discussion-starters: tracks of the animal, the present and future occupants of the hat, and more. Most interesting to this adult eye are the playful insects that also populate the pages: ants who fish, and crickets who play . . . cricket, of course! The Elf’s Hat retells a charming tale that adults will enjoy reading as much as children will enjoy hearing. And stylish? Its classic design is sturdy enough to withstand all the love a child can give. And that’s a good thing, because who can resist the charm of a jaunty red hat? Sarah McMenamin Kim is a teacher and early childhood education consultant in Philadelphia.

Arts & Culture, Film

Film Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Pat H. Broeske

Long live the King The King may be dead, but the books keep coming. In the 21 years since Elvis Presley’s death, on August 16, 1977, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter Harry Brown) of Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley I counted more than 300 titles. And those were just the English-language entries! Why? Chalk up the interest, in part, to Presley’s status in popular culture: he was the pulsating force of a revolution that got a generation all shook up. Then there’s the man himself and the enigma. And of course, there is the music. Music is the heart of one of the latest Elvis entries, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions ( St. Martin’s, $35, 0312185723), which is lavishly detailed and illustrated. Written by the authoritative Ernst Jorgensen, the book’s revelations range from the obscure (the first Elvis song to boast percussion was I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone ) to the heart-breaking (during his last concert, a slurry and sadly bloated Elvis introduced Are You Lonesome Tonight? and then, as if to answer, said, and I am. . . ). Jorgensen, an Elvis fan turned director of RCA’s Elvis catalogue, also underscores an overlooked Elvis talent as a savvy music producer. As a promoter, no one was more savvy than former carnival huckster Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s longtime manager, and subject of My Boy Elvis: The Colonel Tom Parker Story (Barricade, $22, 1569801274). This is the first of a spate of upcoming titles about the colorful Parker, who passed away in 1997, and though some anecdotes related by Sean O’Neal (Elvis Inc: The Fall and Rise of the Presley Empire) are familiar to Presleyphiles, there are new details about the Colonel’s early years. O’Neal also adroitly analyzes the Colonel’s motives for wanting Elvis to do Army time and details how he masterminded the post-Army career comeback. Elvis’s movie career, pre- and post-Army, is the subject of Eric Braun’s The Elvis Film Encyclopedia: An Impartial Guide to the Films of Elvis. Actually, it’s not all that impartial. In grading the songs from Elvis’s films, Braun gives three stars (out of a possible five) to the embarrassing Confidence, from the movie Clambake. And he gives just two stars to Can’t Help Falling in Love, the great Presley ballad from Blue Hawaii. Quibbles with ratings aside, the text is informative, as well as lively. The same can be said for most Elvis movies. Early Elvis is remembered in Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 0312185731), in which Horace Logan (with co-author Bill Sloan), recounts his days as producer and emcee of the show, which was broadcast over CBS radio. After bombing at the Grand Ole Opry, a young Elvis found a home away from home at the Shreveport program, which introduced him to much of the country and also featured music legends including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman. Elvis’s early career is also recalled in That’s Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis’s First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore (Schirmer, $25, 0028645995), as told to James Dickerson. Way back when, Moore, bass player Bill Black, and Elvis were known as the Blue Moon Boys. From those early days on the road, to his latter-day revival, Moore (a Gibson man) has been a pivotal musical force. Moving from music to marriage: Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (Berkley Boulevard Books, $7.50, 0425165442), contradicts the official story delivered by Priscilla in her autobiography. Elvis’s famed ex has long maintained that she was a virgin when she finally married The King. Not so per this account, by Suzanne Finstad which relies heavily on the allegations of a former Presley buddy named Currie Grant (who has since been hit with a lawsuit, over his claims, by Priscilla). It was Grant who introduced the 14-year-old schoolgirl to the world’s most famous G.I., then 25, and stationed in Germany. But first, says Grant, he coerced the virginal Priscilla into sleeping with him as a kind of payment. As Finstad put it, She had entered into a Faustian pact to meet Elvis. It should be noted that Grant, at the time of the alleged tryst with the teenager, was 28, married, and the father of two. Along with sex and drugs, this page-turner includes a good cat fight between Priscilla and an Elvis fan complete with screaming and hair-pulling and a National Enquirer-ish ploy, with the use of a voice stress test to determine who’s telling the truth, in a tape-recorded encounter between Priscilla and Grant. I still don’t know who to believe . . . On the novelty side, Elvis gets the pop-up treatment in Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration (Pop-Up Press, $29.95, 1888443456). See Elvis pop-up at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which marked his landmark return to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. He also cuts quite a 3-D figure in his famous gold lame suit, during his 1968 comeback concert, and during the so-called Jumpsuit Tours. In The Quotable King (Cumberland House, $8.95, 188895244X) Elvis’s words pop-out as categorized by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett in chapters such as Early Elvis, Meet the Press, and Elvis on Elvis. There are Elvis’s observations on movies ( The only thing that’s worse than watching a bad movie is being in one ); his taste in burgers ( I like it done well. I ain’t ordering a pet ); and more. Speaking of more: Due in November is Elvis Presley 1956 (Abrams, $17.95, 0810908999), featuring photos by Marvin Israel. January will see the publication of Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown, $27.95, 0316332224). This is Peter Guralnick’s follow-up to his acclaimed 1994 early Elvis biography, Last Train to Memphis. Also due in January is Colonel Tom Parker: The Carny Who Managed the King, by James Dickerson (Watson-Guptill, $24.95, 0823084213).

Who said Elvis was dead? Biographer Pat H. Broeske is also a Hollywood reporter who regularly contributes to Entertainment Weekly.

Arts & Culture, Pop Culture

Pop Culture Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Bruce Tierney

Porsches have been an integral part of the American carscape since the death of film idol James Dean at the wheel of a silver 550 Spyder in the mid-’50s. New model introductions are few and far between, with none so auspicious as that of the recently introduced affordable ($40K and northward) Boxster. Taking stylistic cues from the revered 550 Spyder, the Boxster has caused a stirring in the souls of the Porsche faithful.

Early in 1997, shortly before the public release of the new model, author James Morgan importuned the powers-that-be at the German automotive giant to subsidize a road trip (and subsequent book); his car of choice was a late ’70s Porsche 911. Intrigued with the idea, Porsche honchos suggested a slight modification: How about doing the journey in a new Porsche . . . say, a Boxster? With remarkable presence of mind, likely in homage to the late Mr. Dean, Morgan asked, Can I have a silver one? Early on in Distance to the Moon, Morgan professes not to be a car nut, proclaiming himself to be of the soccer-dad persuasion: a two-van man. Still, his automotive past includes a ’62 Impala SS, a ’69 Malibu Super Sport and a Fiat Spyder, so he clearly brings some car-guy credentials to the table. Amidst his meandering tale of life on the road, Morgan reminisces about the love affair Americans have carried on with the automobile over the last few decades: I have a vague image in my head: My father and I are standing outside an automobile showroom as the first bite of fall nips the air. It is early evening; the showroom is closed. But the lights inside are on, and in the center of the room, a new car sparkles like a jewel in a case. We stand silently outside. For a minute my nose is pressed against the glass. We say nothing, each of us lost in hopes, dreams, perhaps regrets. Morgan pilots the babe magnet (a 16-year-old admirer notes: You know, you can get any woman in the world in that car! ) through the south, visiting old friends and reminiscing about people and cars of bygone days: the ’60 T-Bird which belonged to his schizophrenic cousin who died in a mental institution; the ’67 Mustang of a close friend who lost control and his life on a rainy Mississippi night; the ’57 Imperial in which he rode in back with a lovely young lass: (She) rested her head on my shoulder and went to sleep. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and never would be. But forty years later I can still smell her hair, a sweet blend of shampoo and dust and cotton candy. And I can remember how alive I felt during that drive. I wanted it to last forever. Bruce Tierney is a reviewer in Nashville.

Porsches have been an integral part of the American carscape since the death of film idol James Dean at the wheel of a silver 550 Spyder in the mid-'50s. New model introductions are few and far between, with none so auspicious as that of the…

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Michael Sims

The Sally of the title, a black Labrador retriever, is a real dog. As notes included with the book tell it, she was originally trained to be a Seeing Eye dog but didn’t find her niche in that role. Eventually the well-known artist Stephen Huneck and his wife Gwen adopted Sally. She is featured in a chapel that Huneck is building for dogs atop Dog Mountain, on his farm in Vermont. And now, with Sally Goes to the Beach, she has her own book. Any preschool age child will find the illustrations striking, beautiful woodcuts charming. So will adults. Sally was lucky in the choice of artist to portray her. Stephen Huneck’s sculptures, paintings, and woodcuts hang in a number of museum collections, including the Smithsonian’s. In the tradition of the graceful and evocative medium of woodcut, which dates back for many centuries, Huneck’s line is elegant and his colors vibrant in this lovely and warm-hearted picture book.

Sally narrates her own story. From her first sight of the suitcase that alerts her to an imminent journey, through the ride in a convertible (whose license plate reads SALLY), to the ferry ride and cab ride, Sally convincingly doggish gets as much fun out of going to the beach as she does in being at the beach.

But then there are the great joys of new smells, playing in the ocean, riding in a boat (named Friendship), and encountering the not always welcoming creatures of the beach. In the beachside hut that evening, Sally lies in bed with her master and ends her story with the motto of most children (and probably of most dogs): I cannot wait for tomorrow!

The Sally of the title, a black Labrador retriever, is a real dog. As notes included with the book tell it, she was originally trained to be a Seeing Eye dog but didn't find her niche in that role. Eventually the well-known artist Stephen Huneck…