bookpagedev

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Although yo-yos have been around since 2500 B.

C., my friends and I have just discovered how much fun they can be! You may wonder how I know yo-yos were invented over 4500 years ago in China I learned this fact from The Yo-Yo Book. This handy little book (complete with a wooden yo-yo) is filled with everything you could ever possibly want to know about yo-yos from their history to how to join the American Yo-Yo Association. Did you know that there are actually two different yo-yo museums in the U.

S. and that the world’s most expensive yo-yo brought $16,000 at an auction? These facts and trivia are included throughout the book. But the best part of the book is Chapter Five, Trick Time. It is filled with nearly 40 different tricks from the basic Sleeper and Walk the Dog to the advanced Criss Cross, a trick using two yo-yos. By following the simple step-by-step instructions and looking at the illustrations, I learned to do the Three Leaf Clover trick in the first fifteen minutes I had the book (with a little practice, of course!). My friends and I also quickly discovered several tricks we had never even heard of like Skyrocket and Lunar Eclipse. My favorite trick is Dragster. When I get it just right, my yo-yo rolls across the floor like a race car with the string humming. You should see my cat jump when my Dragster yo-yo zips by! It’s probably one of the easiest tricks I’ve learned and definitely the most fun. Serious yo-yoers will want to upgrade from the wooden yo-yo that comes in the package, but it will satisfy beginners until they are ready to learn the more advanced tricks like Brain Twister. The box attached to the book is a pain, but overall the book is awesome. Read it and you’ll be ready to yo-yo. So, ready, set, YO! Paul Steele just turned 13 years old and received a new Tiger Shark yo-yo for his birthday.

Although yo-yos have been around since 2500 B.

C., my friends and I have just discovered how much fun they can be! You may wonder how I know yo-yos were invented over 4500 years ago in China I learned this fact from…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Ages 4-8 Review by Tim Hamilton What child hasn’t watched dad shave off his daily whiskers, mustache, or beard and wonder where it went? In David Schiller’s new book, The Runaway Beard, this is exactly how the story begins. Dad has finally decided to shave off his beard. The children (a boy and a girl) are watching as Dad lifts his razor and the beard escapes. The Beard leaps to the nearest chin, which just happens to be the baby’s. Mom screams, and the Beard flees to the outdoors.

That night, the Beard signals the boy through the window. The boy lets the Beard inside, and they become friends. The next morning, they sneak off to school together. The boy, of course, is wearing the Beard. The kids on the bus snicker. (As did the children to whom I read the story!) At school, the principal tells the boy to get rid of it. The Beard then becomes a doll dress, a flower in a vase, a furry toilet seat, and even whiskers on the Mona Lisa’s face.

The Beard just can’t get comfortable. The children find the Beard hiding in the basement and decide to think of a way to solve their new friend’s problem. It just so happens that the children’s Uncle comes for a visit, and of course he’s bald. The children follow their Uncle home and wave good-bye to the Beard. The next morning, Uncle wakes up to a full head of hair. He thinks his Hair Tonic has finally worked! Marc Rosenthal’s comic illustrations add to the zany fun of this book, which comes with a fake beard nestled in the cover. What will happen the next time Dad grows a Beard and decides to shave it off?

Ages 4-8 Review by Tim Hamilton What child hasn't watched dad shave off his daily whiskers, mustache, or beard and wonder where it went? In David Schiller's new book, The Runaway Beard, this is exactly how the story begins. Dad has finally decided to shave…
Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

After an absence of 16 years, John Updike’s most farcical alter ago, Henry Bech, returns for a new series of stunts and adventures in this quasi-novel of the literary life. Introduced in 1970’s Bech: A Book and recaptured 12 years later in Bech Is Back, Henry Bech shares little with his creator except the writing life. He is Jewish, only briefly married, childless (until the end of the current book, when he’s past 70), unprolific, self-loathing, and mean-spirited. Through the trilogy, Bech’s misdemeanors keep piling up, and now in Bech at Bay we have the coup de theatre: he becomes a murderer.

Obviously, the Bech books are high satire, and this new one is particularly Waughian. Always on the defensive, Bech runs up against admirers he has no use for and detractors he’d like to annihilate either in print or in homicide. Bech at Bay packs more delicious caricatures than either of its predecessors. In the chapter Bech Presides, we’re taken into the inner sanctum of an honorary society called The Forty which is supposed to represent the zenith of American artistic achievement. What we find is a gaggle of bickering novelists, composers, painters, and historians who are so vain and myopic they’re unable to elect a single new member to their august company. The critic Isaiah Thornbush, Bech’s elusive nemesis, persuades his rival to take on the presidency of The Forty, only to try to dismantle the group later and leave Bech floundering. The literary backbiting is vintage, and there is the added titillation of guessing what real-life luminary might be the model for this bitching musician or that oversexed poetess.

Updike likes to take Bech out of New York, where he has lived all his life, and put him in an exotic or baffling environment. Here he visits Prague (the year is 1986) and spends some unwelcome time in Los Angeles, where he is sued for libel by a Hollywood agent whom he described in a magazine article as an arch-gouger. The trial that follows shows that Updike was a keen observer of the O. J. Simpson proceedings and its shenanigans. He even gives Bech an ardent crush on a pop singer clearly based on Linda Ronstadt.

Henry Bech’s charm has always been his anti-charm. He is as selfish, petty, and unscrupulous as the character George on Seinfeld. And in the chapter Bech Noir, Updike seems to have taken a Seinfeld plot device the death of George’s fiancee from licking a poisonously gummed envelope as the modus operandi for Bech rubbing out a reviewer who had attacked his novella Brother Pig 40 years earlier. Successfully undetected, Bech goes on to gaslight another critic, via subliminal computer messages, and send him plunging to suicidal death. What just desserts does Updike give Bech? The Nobel Prize for literature and a baby girl named Golda.

Bech at Bay is sometimes precious, as satire often is, and it may be Updike Lite, but it has infectious, malicious vivacity. And unlike Rabbit Angstrom, Henry Bech is yet to be killed off. Maybe in his next book he’ll run for Senate.

Randall Curb is a writer in Greensboro, Alabama.

After an absence of 16 years, John Updike's most farcical alter ago, Henry Bech, returns for a new series of stunts and adventures in this quasi-novel of the literary life. Introduced in 1970's Bech: A Book and recaptured 12 years later in Bech Is Back,…

Children's & YAPicture Book

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Review by Crystal Williams Hope loves going to the country every summer to visit her Aunt Poogee. Hope recounts the events she loves most from these visits, like Aunt Poogee’s stories and the marketplace where they run into old friends like Mr. Stewart (whom Aunt Poogee calls Stew-pot because of his big potbelly ), and Miss Teacup Hill (so-named because when she was born, she was so small her mama used a teacup for a cradle ). It’s stories like these that add to the richness of the book. These characters are realistic and full of life.

Once, while at the market, Miss Violet asks Aunt Poogee if Hope is mixed. Understandably, six-year-old Hope is upset by Miss Violet’s question. Hope even asks Aunt Poogee for an explanation but is told, Baby, don’t you pay Violet no never mind. During the rest of the day, she and Aunt Poogee snap peas, eat dinner, and finally, when it’s bed time, Aunt Poogee tells the story of how Hope got her name a tale about immigrants and slavery, civil rights and freedom. Finally, Hope is told to answer questions like Miss Violet’s with, Yes, I am generations of faith Ômixed’ with lots of love! I am Hope! Hope isn’t only a story about a little girl’s biracial ancestry; it’s also a story about African-American cultural heritage and the power of storytelling. Isabell Monk has written a simple, intimate tale, laying a good foundation for parents and children to discuss the meaning of diversity, history, and family. Janice Lee Porter’s illustrations work seamlessly with the text, creating a powerful statement with colors as bright and vibrant as Aunt Poogee’s pink Cadillac. In a world that is increasingly diverse, Hope offers a great story about America’s growing population of biracial people. Here we find that history and heart merge to provide children with a very clear idea of what makes human beings special our ability to love each other, no matter what color we are.

Crystal Williams is a poet pursuing her MFA at Cornell University.

Review by Crystal Williams Hope loves going to the country every summer to visit her Aunt Poogee. Hope recounts the events she loves most from these visits, like Aunt Poogee's stories and the marketplace where they run into old friends like Mr. Stewart (whom Aunt…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Review by Joanna Brichetto A Passover Seder can be fun, meaningful, and still entirely kosher. But how often does this happen? Starving guests, restless children, and leaders without enough time, energy, and resources all conspire against the success of a Seder. Uncle Eli’s Passover Haggadah can’t help you with the starving guests, but it can help your Seder not be a crashing bore to the kids. A haggadah is the text used during a Passover Seder meal. Thousands of different haggadot exist, but they all must tell the story of God’s liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery. Jews are commanded to tell this story to each generation, and by conducting a Seder with a haggadah, this mitzvah (commandment) is fulfilled.

Uncle Eli’s Passover Haggadah uses silly rhymes and illustrations to enliven the Seder for kids. It follows the traditional order, making it easy to use with other haggadot at the Seder. You should make it clear beforehand which parts of Uncle Eli’s version will be read aloud. The ten plagues would be a good choice, especially if the imaginative artwork is displayed.

One concern is that the names of the real players in this drama might get confused with the invented ones Rabbi Hillel gets equal time with Manny the matzah-dog, for example. One exception is Uncle Eli himself, who is none other than the Prophet Elijah, who, according to tradition, visits every Seder on Passover.

Try to incorporate this haggadah into regular read together times before Passover, one section at a time. This gives children time to taste the full flavor of the story, making the Seder and the holiday far more meaningful. It also allows more time for questions, which can probably be handled by the excellent glossary.

Now that the restless children are taken care of, go do something about those starving guests . . . Joanna Brichetto is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee.

Review by Joanna Brichetto A Passover Seder can be fun, meaningful, and still entirely kosher. But how often does this happen? Starving guests, restless children, and leaders without enough time, energy, and resources all conspire against the success of a Seder. Uncle Eli's Passover Haggadah…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

You may know a little about your brain’s hemispheres. Maybe you’ve heard that a right-brained person is more creative, and a left-brained person is good at math. Or is it the other way around? Leonard Shlain, a surgeon, can tell you about right brain and left brain functions and more. In his new book, he attempts to convince the reader that all human undertaking can be explained by the predominance of either lobe. Right-brain values, typically female, include being, feeling, intuition, images, form, and all-at-once apprehension of reality. Left-brain values, typically male, include doing, speech, abstraction, numeracy, and linear apprehension. With these values for keys, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess aligns major human endeavors and movements with either the left brain or the right brain. Shlain begins with preliterate societies, showing us what life was like before alphabet literacy, and, coincidentally or not, before the demise of Goddess religions, the demotion of images, and the rise of monotheism currency, and Rule by Law. He proposes that the introduction of the alphabet, and later the printing press, caused the overdevelopment of the left brain as alphabet literacy spread, and thus profoundly changed our societies and religions, promoting left-brain values at the expense of right-brain ones. There is nothing modest about the scope of Shlain’s book (from the first members of our species to present day computer users) or his methods (revisionist). Like his first book, Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light, The Alphabet attempts to demonstrate nothing less than the interconnectedness of all human endeavors. The drawback to this type of thesis, which Shlain acknowledges, is that it cannot be proven. It is up to you to decide whether you’re convinced. Regardless, you can’t help but enjoy Shlain’s arguments. Despite the thousands of years he covers, The Alphabet is incredibly detailed. Shlain will astound you with fascinating and unusual facts, evidence of his thorough research in religion, history, anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics, behavioral psychology, and neurology. He will surprise you with his creative (although sometimes contrived) challenges to accepted versions of history. The book’s title aptly describes history under Shlain’s thesis and you do not forget it is a thesis, with its comically academic I submit s and I propose s until the 20th century. History until 1900 and beyond is a protracted battle for primacy between images and words. Shlain does, he admits, favor the right-brain underdog, probably because he attributes cruelty (tortures, wars, and genocides) to left-brain causes like ideology or religion. The 20th century, according to Shlain, brought a new darkness and uncertainty that remind us of how much we don’t know, and of the catastrophic repercussions of our escalating violence. We are striking a balance, Shlain concludes optimistically, aided by the advent of photography, television, movies, and computers. These new media increase the prevalence of images and promote the right-brain values once again. The duality of the brain is perceived to be cooperative, not adversarial. Shlain’s whirlwind tour of history winds down, leaving you rethinking your own values and questioning what you’ve been told about history. Robin Taylor is a freelance writer in Washington D.

C.

You may know a little about your brain's hemispheres. Maybe you've heard that a right-brained person is more creative, and a left-brained person is good at math. Or is it the other way around? Leonard Shlain, a surgeon, can tell you about right brain and…

HistoryBlack History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Africans in America closes with the culmination of the Civil War. That divisive chapter in our nation’s history resulted in a new life for a race bound by slavery a new testament to the Constitution’s pledge that all men are created equal. Africans in America, therefore, is purely old testament, the painful, violent account of people forced into slavery and their nearly 250-year exodus to freedom.

The book, written by Charles Johnson, Patricia Smith, and researchers with Boston Public Television station WGBH, is a companion to the PBS series airing in October. It is written in documentary style, spotlighting major historical events spliced with anecdotes of human struggles with slavery. Johnson is the author of five novels and professor of English at the University of Washington. Smith is a journalist, poet, and playwright. Together, they take material gathered over ten years by the WGBH research team and craft it into a detailed chronicle of slavery.

The book begins in Africa, where the institution of slavery was an element of tribal culture. Still, tribal leaders treated slaves as part of the community and kept family members together. When foreigners arrived to trade for slave labor, they stuffed husband and wife, mother and child, into the hulls of wooden ships for the rough ride to America behavior that set the pattern for the slaves’ mistreatment in the United States. Upon arriving in the states, slaves were sold one by one, without regard to family ties.

The authors note that the nation’s founding fathers had a similar double standard, fighting for their country’s independence even as they used slaves to work their land. Washington was not the only leader who maintained a public silence on the topic, the authors write. Add to the list the Jeffersons, the Madisons. Sadly, even those African Americans who were free men gaining that status through pardon or by fighting in the Revolutionary War were not truly free. They still were limited to living in segregated neighborhoods. Their job opportunities were minimal. They could not vote.

What breaths life into Africans in America are the stories of the individual struggles: the tale of Mum Bett, the Massachusetts slave who successfully sued for her freedom, or the endeavors of Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave who endured physical and psychological punishment as he traveled the country preaching for the equality of his race.

All told, Africans in America is an insightful account of a race’s stormy immigration to, and assimilation into America, an accompaniment that will no doubt enrich the viewing, and deepen the understanding, of the PBS TV series.

John T. Slania is a writer in Chicago.

Africans in America closes with the culmination of the Civil War. That divisive chapter in our nation's history resulted in a new life for a race bound by slavery a new testament to the Constitution's pledge that all men are created equal. Africans in America,…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Review by Jamie Whitfield A book loaded with accurate facts? Not exactly what young readers ask for first. But, in Allyn’s Embarrassing and Mysterious Irish Adventures, Carol McGinley does more than recite historical facts and geographical statistics as she moves readers through modern Ireland. Allyn Gallagher is a typical American teenager who happens to have tomato-red hair, freckles that reproduce, and a little brother, Mitchell the Pain, who has a knack for creating havoc wherever he goes.

Before leaving America, Mitch manages to smoke up a confessional and cause a fist fight among the dancing food at the local pizza place. None of this deters Aunt Georgette from taking the family on a vacation to Ireland. Mitch’s antics continue to embarrass Allyn throughout their trip through Ireland, but Allyn’s real adventures begin when she overhears a conversation in a tourist shop at Shannon Airport. When she inadvertently comes into the possession of the travel itinerary of these mysterious strangers, Allyn notices that it closely matches theirs, and sets off to solve the mystery.

It is through Allyn and Mitch’s travels that the beauty of Ireland unfolds. McGinley introduces young readers to such diverse topics as B-and-B’s (Allyn originally thinks they are barns and bunkhouses ), the part Danes and Celts played in Irish history, Americans’ conception of the violence in Northern Ireland, and the typical Irish breakfast through the casual conversation of these anything-but-typical tourists. Beautiful photographs, maps, and drawings are placed throughout the text to enhance young readers’ understanding and enjoyment of this adventure, and it’s worthy to note that the New York Irish Tourist Board gave this book its official stamp of approval. Definitely an affordable way to visit the Emerald Isle! Jamie Whitfield is a published author and educator living in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Review by Jamie Whitfield A book loaded with accurate facts? Not exactly what young readers ask for first. But, in Allyn's Embarrassing and Mysterious Irish Adventures, Carol McGinley does more than recite historical facts and geographical statistics as she moves readers through modern Ireland. Allyn…
FictionHistorical Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

It can be no accident that Andrew Miller’s beautifully dark novel Casanova in Love evokes both Marcello Mastroianni’s film performance as the famous roue and Joseph Losey’s somber movie of Don Giovanni, the opera about a fictional sex addict. Miller, a writer of haunting originality and diabolic humor, clearly draws upon such images, cultural memories, and the philosophical concerns of our own time to create a character who could exist only in the 18th century.

We first meet his Casanova near death, impoverished, in exile. Perhaps an unknown woman has come to visit as he starts to burn old love letters; perhaps she is only a fantasy in a shabby room. Either way, she is pretext for him to recall his most frustrating attempt at gallantry, a failed seduction that makes the world-famous lover the laughingstock of London society.

This is no insignificant dishonor, at least in the brooding, watery world so memorably and appropriately created for Casanova in Love. Middle-aged, wracked by near-fatal treatment for a sexually-transmitted disease, insufficient in English, and barred from his beloved Venice for various crimes and heresies, Miller’s Casanova arrives in London in a disguise that no one falls for. Automatically, he begins again the familiar games of seduction and gambling. He has enough ill-gotten money for good food, fine wine, and powerful friends. Born poor but skilled at living by his wits, Casanova has cheated as many people out of their money as he has brought to bed, whether woman or boy. An illegitimate daughter, a sensible manservant, and an Italian acquaintance leaven the licentiousness, for they bring out his compassion. But when he begins to tire of sensuality and wonder about the meaning of it all, he falls into a fever of desire for a beautiful young woman, Marie Charpillon, who is his equal at games of deception and acts of unfelt passion. She is, in fact, the only woman who will ever outwit the monstrous faker, and Miller has a wonderful time, as will readers, with her teasing and playacting, her schemes and pinpricks of revenge for her gender. Hollywood actresses must be plotting to cop this role. The Charpillon, as she is called, is irresistibly maddening.

Foggy chill London, crowded and dangerous in a hundred ways, is also a major character in Casanova in Love, as is the 18th century itself. Ingeniously, Miller animates our half-remembered drawings of the period and brings to ground our romantic fantasies from film. We get filth and wit, whores and art. Only in one particular does Miller falter. He probably should not have designed Samuel Johnson as a fairly major character. The great man’s work rests too augustly atop the dialogue here.

Eventually suicidal over his humiliation by Marie, Casanova is brought back to life in a grandly orchestrated climax involving the Great Flood of 1764. The Charpillon is forgotten, the restored city reanimates the myriad stories of humanity, and Casanova goes on to new adventures. By conjuring a credible historical novel from the mysteries of yearning, Miller affirms one of his major themes: the beauty and evanescence of art as both reflection and creating principle of life. Charles Flowers is the author of A Science Odyssey (William Morrow).

It can be no accident that Andrew Miller's beautifully dark novel Casanova in Love evokes both Marcello Mastroianni's film performance as the famous roue and Joseph Losey's somber movie of Don Giovanni, the opera about a fictional sex addict. Miller, a writer of haunting originality…

Sports

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Review by Jamie McAlister The sport (or art) of fly-fishing seems to be experiencing a revival of sorts across the country’s waterways. With movies like A River Runs Through It glamorizing the artform and a proliferation of outfitters and guides offering top-notch gear and guidance, freshly hooked fly-fishing enthusiasts are wetting lines in record numbers. Of course, every artform has its history, and fly-fishing is no exception. An avid fly-fisherman, author of more than 25 books, and self-proclaimed trout bum, Paul Schullery delves into the origins and culture of fly-fishing with a bibliophilic glee, citing a creel-full of written references of the sport from its English roots to its introduction to the New World and its subsequent spread across the continent. In addition to illustrating the actual fly-fishing techniques when the common rod was a whopping 16-feet in length, there are philosophical observations and anecdotes on the shared behavioral qualities of fly-fishing brethren. For instance, there are humorous depictions of the trout bum, someone who lives to fish in isolated streams by day and makes his home in a Volkswagen beetle the rest of the time. There are differences between the New England fly-fisherman and the Montana variety, as well as the kinds of characters one meets along the streams or in the adjacent towns. The difference between wet and dry fly evolution is illustrated with historical accounts written by the sportsmen who invented techniques still popular today. The book also covers environmental characteristics of streams where trout have lived and developed for thousands of years and how they now cope with the expansion of humankind. For the fly-fishing enthusiast who’s fished a variety of streams, creeks, and rivers, or the greenhorn just breaking in his/her new rod, Schuller’s latest work is a clarifying collection of facts and essays that connects the modern fly-fisherman with the very root of his art and sport.

Jamie McAlister is the assistant editor for the Port News and lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Review by Jamie McAlister The sport (or art) of fly-fishing seems to be experiencing a revival of sorts across the country's waterways. With movies like A River Runs Through It glamorizing the artform and a proliferation of outfitters and guides offering top-notch gear and guidance,…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

In Clara, the Early Years Margo Kaufman, a columnist and panelist on NPR’s news-quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, does tell the often hilarious story of her pug Clara and the havoc she wreaks with her owner’s life. A pug owner since the age of 19, Kaufman knew that the small black pug named Clara was different from her previous dogs. She writes that before Clara, I was not a Pet Parent. The pugs were dogs. Cute dogs, willful dogs, lovable to be sure, but I was a Human. I was in charge. Then along came Clara, and all bets were off. Kaufman’s legion and riotous tales illustrate the extent of Clara’s prima donna attitude. Clara shops in Saks, where the shoe salesmen fuss over her and she can visit the pet boutique, attends the Pug Luck Garden Party to benefit homeless pugs, gets a write-up in the New York Post, and upstages her owner on a book tour by wearing a baseball cap adorned with the name of the book to signings and interviews. As Kaufman writes, The pug and I did share a blind spot. For all our combined knowledge, there was one fact neither of us truly understood. Clara was not a person. This reality makes no difference until Kaufman and her husband decide to adopt a human baby who threatens to push Clara out of the spotlight as the couple’s and the book’s attention turns to Russia and Nicholas, their new son.

Pug lessons are sometimes poignant. As Kaufman writes of her pugs when she and her husband finally receive their baby, I had spent 20 years caring for small creatures, nurturing them, attending to their every need. And in exchange, they prepared me well. Kaufman’s narration remains humorous but also tackles the larger issues involved in creating a family and demonstrating love as she describes life with the dogs she adores as well as her husband and son. Fortunately, Clara and Nicholas demonstrate their own bond. As their proud mother writes of her baby, Among his first words,"Clara."

In Clara, the Early Years Margo Kaufman, a columnist and panelist on NPR's news-quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me, does tell the often hilarious story of her pug Clara and the havoc she wreaks with her owner's life. A pug owner…

History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Review by Pat Regel She was almost certainly of the class of the wealthy Egyptian elite, believed to have been petite and slender with brown eyes, light-brown skin, and wavy brown or black hair. But her name, literally a beautiful woman has come, hardly prepares visitors of the Berlin Museum for their first glimpse of her. From the moment her painted bust was first viewed in 1912, those who have seen it have been captivated by her image, acknowledging it as the hallmark of ageless feminine beauty.

The ancients universally regarded Egypt’s 18th Dynastic Period as a focal point of the civilized world. Its royal court was acclaimed as the epitome of sophisticated luxury, and the empire under Amenhotep IV (1353-1336 BC) stretched unchallenged from Nubia to Syria. Even women enjoyed unique legal freedoms, owning property and working outside the home. Into this enlightened climate, Joyce Tyldesley’s Nefertiti retraces the footsteps of the lovely wife of the heretic pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who has come to be known as the world’s first monotheist. Little is known of her parents or early life until she unexpectedly bursts upon the scene and is hailed by her infatuated husband as Fair of Face, Mistress of Joy, Endowed with Charm, Great of Love. Her story, set against the backdrop of privilege, prestige, and power, reads like a detective novel. Taking her place at her husband’s side, Nefertiti aids him in systematically erasing the image and worship of the supreme god of the Egyptians, Amen. In his place, the royal duo install the Aten, the One true god, as the only deity worthy of worship. Then, all too suddenly, she vanishes from Egyptian court records, never to be heard of again. Was she banished by her husband or raised to rule as his equal? Did she reign, in her own right, under another name? Could she have been the real power behind the throne of the young pharaoh Tutankhamen, her son-in-law? Join Tyldesley as she ferrets out clues, illuminates the past, and takes the reader further along in the quest to discover more about the ancient world’s most fascinating queen.

Review by Pat Regel She was almost certainly of the class of the wealthy Egyptian elite, believed to have been petite and slender with brown eyes, light-brown skin, and wavy brown or black hair. But her name, literally a beautiful woman has come, hardly prepares…
Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Heigh-ho, the glamorous life! goes a lyric by Stephen Sondheim, but no American popular composer has ever had a more glamorous life than Cole Porter. He may have been born in the provinces (Peru, Indiana, 1891), but he had money and charm from the start, and after a classy education at Worcester Academy and Yale, where he wrote songs for revues, he was already contributing music to Broadway shows in his early 20s. Along with his admirer Irving Berlin, he was one of only a small handful of composers complete in one package, always writing both music and lyrics. His style was therefore inimitable and unmistakable. A Cole Porter song is still synonymous with urbanity, sophistication, verve, sultry wit.

Porter’s story has been popular with biographers for more than two decades (he died in 1964), and it’s easy to see why. He was the greatest American bon vivant of his day. He traveled the world, knew all manner of nobility, was a fixture of club life in Paris and New York, hobnobbed with all the show business greats, and stayed on top in the musical theatre world for 30 years. Even after a horse-riding accident in 1937 shattered both his legs, crippling him and leaving him in pain for the rest of his life, he kept on taking the revenge of living well. He always knew how and where to have the best possible time.

Like his predecessors, William McBrien is fascinated with the shining surfaces of Cole Porter’s life and doesn’t delve deeply into his subject’s psychology. Today, of course, we can forget the fiction of Night and Day, the movie biography of Cole and Linda Porter’s marriage, and McBrien nonchalantly discusses Porter’s numerous homosexual liaisons. What really gives his book vivacity, however, is his attention to the social personalities of those who buzzed around the Porter hive. We meet such legends as Elsa Maxwell and Ethel Merman as well as the nimble Fred Astaire and the dapper Noel Coward (who, as another recent book showed, was Porter’s soul-mate). From chapter to chapter we are at Broadway openings triumphs and bombs and it is an exhilarating tour. Photographs abound to illustrate these events. Perhaps best of all, McBrien never forgets Porter’s real achievement his songs. Throughout he quotes at delicious length from the best, the cleverest and most affecting lyrics Porter wrote. He even uses lyric lines as chapter titles: Take Me Back to Manhattan, I’m in Love with a Soldier Boy, Down in the Depths. All those who love the standards of American popular song will delight in seeing these great lyrics again, in noting the fine light poetry they are. Readers will want to go out and rent Kiss Me, Kate or High Society, the two ’50s movies that showcased Porter’s last great composing phase. In the latter Porter wrote of what a swell party it was, and most of this biography leaves the same impression.

Heigh-ho, the glamorous life! goes a lyric by Stephen Sondheim, but no American popular composer has ever had a more glamorous life than Cole Porter. He may have been born in the provinces (Peru, Indiana, 1891), but he had money and charm from the start,…

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