Instagram Facebook X-twitter Linkedin

Sign Up

Get the latest ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

All , Coverage

All Arts & Culture Coverage

MusicArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

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.

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…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

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…

FilmArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

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.

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…

MusicArts & Culture

Long live the King

Review by bookpagedev

 

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,…

MusicArts & Culture

Long live the King

Review by bookpagedev

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, a veritable cottage publishing industry has emerged. A year ago, when I was adding to the bulging shelves as co-author (with Peter…

FilmArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Film seems to have succeeded the written word as preferred narrative vehicle of our time; and though it is no small irony that writers have championed the cinema, they have articulated a unique insight into the medium.

However, given the infinite range of periods and tastes that films have defined and created in this century, there are seemingly an infinite number of points of reference. With O.

K. You Mugs, a well-edited collection of articles primarily focused on those iconic stars and character actors from the noir ’40s and ’50s, the writer’s true love of film is given full play in an idiosyncratic gathering of appreciative writing.

The classic era of films from those aforementioned decades is the touchstone on which the writers build their perspectives; the articles often take a mournful, loving tone toward their respective subjects on screen. Editors Luc Sante and Melissa Holbrook Pierson provide a preface that stands out as a fine piece of critical acumen, offering an insightful overview of the book’s theme.

Because movie actors in their many guises are explored, there is a kaleidoscopic effect to much of the book’s stand-out writing. Dave Hickey, for example, uses Robert Mitchum to explore how the male filmic presence affects culture. There is also sharp analysis of other film persona who have added to our fascination with the film experience: actors and actresses such as Dana Andrews, Warren Oates, Dan Duryea, Margaret Dumont, Jean Arthur, the Warner Brothers cast of supporting characters, and even Elmer Fudd.

The book also includes other shared experiences and memories, such as Robert Polito’s sobering remembrance of faded movie star Barbara Payton, and Chris Offutt’s recollections of visits to the movie theater as a young boy.

O.

K. You Mugs offers deep insight into the meaning of film, proving that it is perhaps more significant than we choose to believe. The book also proves that films need the perspective of writers who plumb their symbolic depths, just as writers need film to articulate their own personal dramas. ¦ Thomas Sanfilip is a poet and writer living in Chicago.

Film seems to have succeeded the written word as preferred narrative vehicle of our time; and though it is no small irony that writers have championed the cinema, they have articulated a unique insight into the medium.

However, given the infinite range…

LiteratureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

How many readers of books wish to be writers of them? Some actually go on to do so; others don’t. Regardless, many of them have in common an ardor for all details of writing and publishing that fix them on book signings, writing workshops, lives of authors, etc. (Need we say book reviewing?) There is a world of biblio groupies akin to would-be Babe Ruths immersed in baseball trivia. For those so involved in books, this work of Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books is for them. The tongue-in-cheek style throughout keeps a devotee’s sense of proportion even decorum in these matters of love. The take-offs on book blurbs listed on the back of the book tell the tale, including I laughed my head off! credited to Marie Antoinette, and It was for this? allegedly by Johannes Gutenberg. More conveniently read in snippets rather than straight through, Hamilton’s book displays his considerable literary erudition as lightly as it does entertainingly. He cunningly notes that the bookstore in Universal City, California, actually keeps only a small cache of books. These are stashed off behind an array of movie and non-movie paraphernalia and candy. On politicians who write books ( word filling may more accurately describe the process) he is devastating. For some this book may be too breezy, but you can control the velocity by reducing the volume. Regarding Casanova as a lover, one shouldn’t forget that among his varied occupations he was a librarian (in Bohemia of all places). Who, more than those under the spell of pursuing a life among books, knows better that the best place for love in the afternoon is the library stacks? For true lovers of the book and all its trappings, Hamilton has written an encyclopedia of a valentine.

Dr. Edward Riedinger is on the faculty at Ohio State University.

How many readers of books wish to be writers of them? Some actually go on to do so; others don't. Regardless, many of them have in common an ardor for all details of writing and publishing that fix them on book signings, writing workshops, lives…

LiteratureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex By Nathaniel Philbrick Viking, $24.95 ISBN 0670891576 Viking Penguin Audio, $14.95, 0141802189 So many books these days are like Chinese cooking they’re a great meal, but they don’t stay with you very long. Books that endure tell us about lives we can only dream of. Austen, Dickens, and Twain all lived what they wrote about, and what they lived was radically different from what we know today.

Then there’s Herman Melville. In my humble opinion, Melville’s Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written. As we learned in English class, Moby Dick is really about man’s struggle against death. Well, of course it is. Moby Dick is about death, but first and foremost it is about whaling. We no longer hunt whales; at least most nations don’t. This shouldn’t preclude readers from enjoying two books that are fascinating explorations into Melville’s world.

The first, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, details the little-known incident that provided Melville with the foundation of his masterpiece. In 1820, the whaling ship Essex, out of Nantucket, was deliberately hit and sunk in the south Pacific by an enraged sperm whale. The ship’s stunned crew of 20 was forced to make their way across 3,000 miles of open ocean to the western coast of South America. It took three months, and along the way they faced death, dehydration, starvation, and ultimately, cannibalism.

Philbrick presents this horrifying tale in a direct, deliberate manner, detailing the culture of the New England whalers, how they fit into the wider world of the early 19th century, and why their fate considering what they had to do to survive was not what we in the 21st century would expect. A sailor as well as an historian, Philbrick’s richly detailed account of this tragedy stands on its own merits as a narrative; the fact that the story is the basis for one of the great novels of literature only adds to its attraction.

So, Melville had a historical basis for the sinking of the Pequod. What about Moby Dick himself? Was there a basis for this fish tale? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Tim Severin’s forthcoming book, In Search of Moby Dick, explores the existence of a white whale from both an historical and a modern perspective. As Howard Schliemann searched for the gates of Troy by following Homer’s writings, Severin retraces the voyage of the Pequod as well as Melville’s travels through the south Pacific to get to the roots of the story. Was there a white whale? Does one exist today? He finds some surprising answers. Tropical island gods and legends lead to modern-day whale hunters who search for the great beasts much the same as their ancestors; gasoline motors attached to their outrigger canoes are their only modern innovations. Their physical daring is amazing, and their whispered stories will raise goosebumps. The vividness of Severin’s writing as well as his careless disregard for his own safety make In Search of Moby Dick compelling reading. With a major biography of Melville also on the way for summer, this promises to be a banner year for whaling or at least for the examination of it. If you are a fan of true adventure stories, snap up In Search of Moby Dick and In the Heart of the Sea.

James Neal Webb doesn’t go fishing that often, but when he does, he always throws ’em back.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex By Nathaniel Philbrick Viking, $24.95 ISBN 0670891576 Viking Penguin Audio, $14.95, 0141802189 So many books these days are like Chinese cooking they're a great meal, but they don't stay with you very long.…

Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

There are heroes and rabble-rousers, news mongers and martyrs, media moguls, photographers, and sleuths in this captivating new book, Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists. In all, it’s a rogue’s gallery of purveyors of the day’s news a collection of personalities and characters of current and past centuries.

Of course, identifying a journalist these days is no simple matter.

There’s no argument that Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer sent to Vietnam in the 1960s, is a journalist. Adams immortalized the horror of war with his Newsweek photograph of a Saigon execution. We know Walter Cronkite fits the bill, as did 1950s television reporter Edward R. Murrow.

But what about Jerry Springer, the talk show host whose shows are synonymous with tabloid television brawls? Humorist Erma Bombeck? Or literary giant Edgar Allan Poe? These people, too, fall within the editor’s definition of crusaders, scoundrels, and journalists. Has journalism progressed over the centuries? It depends on your point of view. News is more accurate, fair, and responsible today than before, claims Tim Russert in the book’s foreword. But he notes, too, that the digital age brings us more inaccuracy, bias, and sensationalism.

Joe Urschel, executive director of Newseum, notes in the introduction that each of the several hundred individuals profiled in the book shaped how the news was reported in their day. Even gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson made his mark with his dismissal of objectivity: With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as objective journalism, he once wrote.

Question is, should we take Thompson’s word as gospel? And who qualifies as a newsperson, anyway? In a sense, we are all newspeople from time to time as Crusaders demonstrates.

Loretta Kalb is a business journalist. She writes personal finance and banking news for The Sacramento Bee.

There are heroes and rabble-rousers, news mongers and martyrs, media moguls, photographers, and sleuths in this captivating new book, Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists. In all, it's a rogue's gallery of purveyors of the day's news a collection of personalities and characters of current and past centuries.

MusicArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Now approaching its 74th anniversary, the Grand Ole Opry is more than just America’s longest-running radio show. It is also a cultural force of limitless reverberations, one whose impact far surpasses that of any of its biggest stars whether of Roy Acuff, its first musical titan, or Garth Brooks, its current behemoth.

No scholar is better suited to reveal the Grand Ole Opry’s historic underpinnings than Charles K. Wolfe. He has written extensively on the subject before and has contributed valuable studies of such country music luminaries as Kitty Wells, Grandpa Jones, the Louvin Brothers, and DeFord Bailey, the Opry’s first major black personality. A tireless interviewer of peripheral figures and a rooter-out of obscure archives, Wolfe’s most recent offering was The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling.

In his new book, Wolfe chronicles the Opry from its advent November 28, 1925, on Nashville radio station WSM as a regional barn dance to its development into a cherished national institution by 1940. He explains as well how the Opry cast evolved in its first 15 years from a loose collection of musically talented amateurs into a corps of polished show business professionals. At the center of all this activity stood the Opry’s originator and guiding spirit, station manager George D. Hay, the solemn old judge. Wolfe’s research turns up a number of notable firsts. By his account, the Binkley Brothers and Jack Jackson’s I’ll Rise When the Rooster Crows, recorded in 1928, was the first country hit to come from Nashville. Obed Dad Pickard, who made his Opry debut in 1926, became the show’s first vocal star. And the Vagabonds, who came to the Opry in 1931, are credited with creating its first souvenir songbook and establishing Nashville’s first country music publishing company. A segment of the Opry first began airing regularly on the NBC radio network in October, 1939. Wolfe also points out that in spite of the Opry’s growing importance Nashville did not become a country music recording center until the mid-1940s. Although many of the Opry’s early performers made records, they did so in such faraway places as Atlanta and New York.

This fact-filled text is enriched by 46 photos and a complete annotated listing of the Opry’s cast members from 1925 to 1940. It bears emphasizing that Wolfe is as readable as he is detailed.

Edward Morris is a Nashville-based journalist and former country music editor of Billboard.

Now approaching its 74th anniversary, the Grand Ole Opry is more than just America's longest-running radio show. It is also a cultural force of limitless reverberations, one whose impact far surpasses that of any of its biggest stars whether of Roy Acuff, its first musical…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships (Warner, $13.99, 0446671746), by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships, by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage (Chronicle, $24.95, 0811820521) is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Pop CultureArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio’s current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron’s film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be described only in superlatives. It is the most expensive movie ever made, the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, the first film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide. Its soundtrack is surprise the best-selling ever. And it won more Oscars (11) than any film since, God help us, Ben Hur. The ship itself may have sunk for good, but its story has been resurrected, with a mixture of horror and glee, in books, documentaries, exhibitions, movies, and even a Broadway musical. And still they come. Herewith, marking the September release of Titanic on home video, a harvest of new books and booklike things. We might as well begin with another superlative the two biggest, most impressive, and most expensive books on our list. Even if you barely know the Titanic from the good ship Lollipop, you will enjoy Titanic: An Illustrated History (Hyperion, $39.95, 078686401X), by Don Lynch. Throughout, the lively text is illuminated by photos, drawings, maps, and the beautiful photorealistic paintings of Ken Marschall, who has emerged as the disaster’s visual historian. Marschall gets his own book, with text by Rick Archbold, in a fascinating survey of his three decades of work, Art of Titanic (Hyperion, $40, 0786864559). Sketches, photos, and 80-plus gorgeous paintings illuminate the complicated process of historical illustration. No photograph can match Marschall’s poignant visions of either the gaiety aboard ship or the gloomy depths of the wreckage.

Simon and Schuster is publishing Titanic: Fortune and Fate ($30, 0684857103), the companion volume to the Mariner’s Museum exhibition of the same name. Artifacts include personal mementos, letters, and other moving records of the lives lost that night in 1912, with a text emphasizing less the well-known play-by-play and more the personalities involved. There are all sorts of stories of the shipwreck, but naturally eyewitness accounts are the most impressive. One such survivor, an observant young woman named Violet Jessup, wrote her memoirs in 1934. They are published for the first time in Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessup, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters (Sheridan House, $23.95, 1574090356). She was a steward aboard the Titanic and a wartime nurse aboard the Britannic, and her story is as compelling as any in the disaster’s lore. Surprisingly, it’s also funny.

If you worry you missed the boat and want to catch up, you might try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Titanic (Alpha Books, $18.95, 0028627121), by Jay Stevenson and Sharon Rutman. Like others in this series (which add up to a veritable idiot’s encyclopedia), this book manages to cram an astonishing amount of information into an irresistible browser format. Robert D. Ballard, co-leader of the 1985 expedition that found the sunken ship, first published his story in 1987. Now there is a newly updated trade paperback edition, The Discovery of the Titanic: Exploring the Greatest of All Lost Ships (Warner, $13.99, 0446671746), by Robert D. Ballard. Its many illustrations include paintings and touching sea-bottom photos.

If you really want to get behind the scenes, you should turn to a paperback entitled The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation (Pocket, $7.99, 0671025538), edited by Tom Kuntz. Following its 500 or so pages of compelling (okay, somewhat compelling) transcripts you’ll find an index of witnesses and a digest of their testimony. The most original new contributions to Titaniana are not even books at all. The Titanic Collection: Mementos of the Maiden Voyage (Chronicle, $24.95, 0811820521) is a handsomely packaged collection of facsimile documents. They come in a booklike box designed to resemble a steamer trunk, complete with hinges. A tray sets inside the trunk, and both spaces are filled with extraordinary facsimiles. Items include copies of a first class passenger ticket, the menu for the fateful night, the music repertoire, telegraph flimsies, luggage labels (yes, they’re adhesive), smudged and scribbled postcards, and many other documents. The packaging on Titanic: The Official Story (Random House, $25, 0375501150) is not quite so impressive, but the facsimiles are great fun. These documents are larger, and include stateroom charts, a newspaper page, the ship’s register form, telegrams. Far more evocative than mere photos of artifacts.

As you leave the bookstore with this armload, on your way to buy the video of Cameron’s *Titanic*, rest easy in the knowledge that at least a sequel seems unlikely. Michael Sims is a frequent contributor to BookPage and the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Among the unlikely results of a shipwreck 86 years ago is Leonardo DiCaprio's current starring role in the daydreams of teenage females from Boise to Baghdad. DiCaprio was lucky to be aboard James Cameron's film Titanic. By now, as everyone knows, the film can be…

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Recent Reviews

All Reviews

Author Interviews

More Interviews

Recent Features

All Features