Biography

All posts tagged Biography

SUPER BOYS – Brad Ricca

Posted by Daniel on November 20, 2019
Posted in: GRAPHIC NOVEL, MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Well this was informative!

It’s pretty hard not to know who the character of Superman is, but naming the creators of Superman might be much more challenging to most people.  Fans of comics and graphic novels likely already know of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and even someone like myself – very much on the outer fringe of comic/graphic novel reading – knew about the long battle Siegel and Shuster had to retain (or regain) the rights to the character.

Biographer Brad Ricca has done some exhaustive research and we get a look at these two young men from their early school days, to the high school days when the early characteristics of Superman could be found.

Starting as a fan and writing letters science fiction magazines, it was clear that Jerry was a go-getter and a planner and he thought he’d get rich writing stories. When he Jerry met Joe, he saw someone who could illustrate his stories and together, like many high school boys who dram of making it big doing something they love, the multiple ways that a dream can crash never occurred to them.

Small successes built up and they were producing stories for comics at a fantastic rate, and making good (for them, at the time) money.  But it was a difficult period in publishing (when isn’t it?) and sometimes they worked on hand-shake agreements or with promises for more later.  And through innocence and bad choices, they gave away their rights to what would become one of the most iconic figures in all of pop culture. And once those rights were gone, Jerry and Joe weren’t essential to be part of the story-telling process, and while their creation would make millions of dollars for a publisher, Joe and Jerry were often challenged just to find work.

Joe and Jerry’s story is quite sad, and not all that unusual for those working in this industry. Much of their later lives are spent challenging the rights to Superman and trying to get their due and even now, at the end of this book, their families are trying to get these rights maintained.

The story of the lawsuits goes on a bit too long for me – though I recognize that this is what consumed Jerry for much of his life.  Still, I found his early years – the environment in which he grew to become a writer – the most fascinating.

This is a really well-written biography. It is thorough and doesn’t really manage to take sides (in the debate about rights ownership), which is nice.  Yes…it’s about Joe and Jerry and there is going to be some bias toward their being allowed to cash in on their character, but Ricca himself doesn’t outright say that.  He lets Jerry say it.

Definitely worth reading.

Looking for a good book? Super Boys by Brad Ricca is a solid biography of the creators of Superman, from their early days before Superman, to their decades-long battle for the rights to their greatest creation. It is fascinating and well written.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster–the Creators of Superman

author: Brad Ricca

publisher: St. Martin’s Press

ISBN: 0312643802

hardcover, 423 pages

LITTLE CREATURES – Ana Gerhard

Posted by Daniel on October 17, 2019
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, ENTERTAINMENT, MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

When you can educate a child while you are entertaining her or him, then you’ve succeeded.  Little Creatures, by Ana Gerhard does this with gusto.

Introducing a child to an art form, especially something in the ‘classics’ (i.e. classical music, art, literature) is often a challenge (typically because a child is exposed to so much pop culture in everyday life) but what Gerhard does is select a subject that children can identify with … animals and insects. Fortunately there have been a few composers and compositions that draw inspiration from the animal kingdom from which Gerhard has to choose.

Some of these selections are fairly obvious – “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov and “The Frog” by Hayden and “Two Insect Pieces” by Britten – and some much less so – “Israel in Egypt” by Handel, “Bardic Sounds” by Mertz, and “Sensemayá” by Revueltas.

Each selected piece (there are twenty) gets one brief description and a double page spread of artwork (beautifully and wildly created by Mauricio Gómez Morin). In the description, we typically learn a little about the animal selected, how the composer uses that animal’s sound in the selected audio piece, and maybe a little bit about the composer.

Selected musical terms are highlighted and there is a glossary at the back of the book that is quite helpful.

While targeted to a child, unless the adult reading this to/with the child is quite familiar with the classical music world (I am not) then there is plenty for the adults to learn here as well, and this book seems to cater to we adults almost as much or more than to the youngsters.  There is a section of the book with a mini biography of all the composers included in this volume, as well as a timeline of the composers’ lives and the period of music in which they composed.

The book comes with a CD with sections of the selected works (and a listening guide inside the book). I have to admit that there were a few selections in which I simply could not hear the animal represented, but I recognize that this may not be true for all readers/listeners.  I would have liked longer works on the CD, but I recognize the many challenges with that.  Certainly most of the selected works can be found with a couple of quick online searches or by visiting a library with CD selections.

There is a lot to like about this book and it will be great to have on the bookshelf, but at the same time it feels like it is missing just a little something more.  For me, it’s the lack of story to draw the child in. Non-fiction is okay for children – it can be great! – but I still feel like for a child to sit and listen to someone reading to them they need to be drawn in by more than just the pictures, and the two or three paragraphs about each selected work just isn’t captivating enough for the multiple readings a picture book usually provides.

Looking for a good book? If you are looking to encourage your child to appreciate classical music, or even if you want to learn more yourself, Little Creatures: An Introduction to Classical Music by Ana Gerhard, with art by Mauricio Gómez Morin, is a splendid choice. But the lack of a catchy narrative surrounding each piece may have some youngsters grow bored during the reading. This may be better for the older reader, despite the picture book format.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Little Creatures: An Introduction to Classical Music

author: Ana Gerhard

artist: Mauricio Gómez Morin

publisher: The Secret Mountain

ISBN: 2924774551

hardcover (with CD), 62 pages

PLAYING TO THE GODS – Peter Rader

Posted by Daniel on September 30, 2019
Posted in: ENTERTAINMENT, MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Sarah Bernhardt. Eleonora Duse. Most people are familiar with Sarah’s name, even if they don’t know why she is famous. Only a few dedicated history or theatre buffs probably know the name of Eleonora Duse. But at one time their rivalry was watched and reported internationally and the art of acting, as we know it today, largely came about through this clash of theatre titans.

Biographer Peter Rader has written an excellent account of both actresses, their history, their rise (and fall [and rise again]) in the theatre world, their extremely different approaches to acting, and their rivalry.

Sarah Bernhardt is likely one of the first actors to understand that the press/media could be put to good use and that there really was no such thing as ‘bad press.’ She became bigger than life and made sure that the media, everywhere she went, knew of her ‘oddities’ such as traveling wit a tiger or sleeping in coffins. These things got her attention and attention meant curiosity, and curiosity meant ticket sales to the shows she was performing.  But odd as it seems, Sarah’s art of acting was based on a style that today we would dismiss as wooden with huge gestures and, as was the style of the time, required very specific poses to suggest very specific moods and reactions.

Most of today’s actors are familiar with, and generally study a style of acting known as the Stanislavski Method (or just “The Method” as in “Method” acting).  Stanislavski developed that style from watching Eleonora Duse. Duse, a fair bit younger than Bernhardt, ‘felt’ her characters and became the characters rather than just displaying canned poses.

While it might seem strange to us today, Sarah’s style of acting was considered most appropriate, while Eleonora’s was shocking and disturbing to many. But Eleonora had her supporters (including theatre reviews such as Oscar Wilde) and the two great actresses would clash many times, including a time in France when they would appear in the same role, in the same play, in theatres across the street from one another.

This really was an engrossing, fascinating read. Rader captures a really pivotal time in the theatre world, commanded by two women – one largely forgotten despite the fact that it was her style that we still see today.

Although it might seem like this has a very specific interest (acting) I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in biographies or history as Rader really captures a lot about this time period (mid-to-late 1800’s to the early 1920’s).

This had me wanting to learn more about both women and I’ve watched the very few YouTube videos of their few movies.

Looking for a good book? Playing to the Gods by Peter Rader is a tremendous biography of two actors whose styles clashed as one method of acting was on the way out and another was just coming into fashion. But this is more than a book about acting and two famous actresses, it’s also a book about the struggle and rise of two women in an era when women weren’t allowed to take leadership roles.

The book is nicely illustrated with photos.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry That Changed Acting Forever

author: Peter Rader

publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 1476738378

hardcover, 277 pages

LOCKED IN ICE – Peter Lourie

Posted by Daniel on September 25, 2019
Posted in: MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

How many readers out there know the name, Fridtjof Nansen? If you already know who he is, or what he is remembered for, then color me impressed!

Nansen was, among other things, a scientist and an explorer at a time when mankind was still trying to reach the North Pole. He was the first to cross Greenland using sleds, but his goal was still to get to the North Pole.  He knew that there were ships which had been crushed by ice floes, but he was convinced that there were as-yet-undiscovered ocean currents that a ship could use to get to the North Pole if such a ship could manage to survive the dangerous ice.  With that in mind, Nansen had a special ship built, The Fram, which he would intentionally have frozen in to the ice with the expectation that currents would bring the ice (and hence the ship) closer to the Pole.

Nansen has a long list of men who want to join him on this expedition and so gets to hand-pick his crew. Finding men that he thinks will get along with one another for months, perhaps years, in close quarters, as well as those with the necessary scientific or sailing skills, is his main challenge.

Nansen’s design of the Fram works and despite some rigorous crushing by the ice, the Fram‘s hull holds out. But the ship doesn’t travel northward the way he hopes, and Nansen and one other set out by dogsled to try to reach the North Pole.  It shouldn’t be revealing too much to note that they do not make it.  If they had, the name Nansen would be known by every schoolchild.

But what Nansen does, and manages to survive, for a year in the Arctic with dogs and a fellow explorer is fascinating. Both he and Hjalmar Johansen, the man who accompanied Nansen on the sled trek toward the pole, kept meticulous journals. They almost appear superhuman with some of their efforts (fighting off a polar bear, swimming in frigid polar waters to retrieve a kayak, etc) … it’s precisely the kinds of things that will engage younger readers.

And if the voyage and exploration toward the North Pole weren’t enough, we get a little more information about Nansen after he returns to Norway.  He works with displaced people after World War I and is awarded a Nobel peace Prize for his efforts.

Fridtjof Nansen was a truly amazing man.  Scientist, explorer, inventor, diplomat, humanitarian.  I was really glad to read the book and learn about this early exploration and about the man.  The book is written such that it’s appropriate for young readers (middle school students and up) but anyone who thinks it looks interesting should enjoy the read.  The book is liberally illustrated with photos and copies of sketches made by Nansen and others along the way.

Looking for a good book? Locked in Ice by Peter Lourie is a well-written, well-researched biography of Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen and his attempt to be the first person to reach the North Pole. It is definitely worth reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Locked in Ice: Nansen’s Daring Quest for the North Pole

author: Peter Lourie

publisher: Henry Holt & Company

ISBN: 1250137640

hardcover, 336 pages

WILD LIVES – Lori Robinson and Janie Chodosh

Posted by Daniel on September 18, 2019
Posted in: MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This book is essentially a collection of mini-biographies of people actively working in wildlife conservation.

Wildlife conservation is important to me … it’s a voting point for me … and so this book really had some appeal. The subtitle, “Leading Conservationists on the Animals and Planet They Love” sounded as though I would get some really important information on the conservation efforts.

The delivery of this book, however, is less than exciting.

Each ‘chapter’ is a mini biography on a different person and each chapter reads very much the same. We get background on the individual, what it was that got them started on their career path, the dangers they face, the dangers to the animals they ‘protect’ and the challenges that they face.  Now add a few comments from the individual to make it unique, and we’re off to the next mini biography.

I don’t really mean to make light of the people who are doing really important work, but the presentation here lacks inspiration. This works best as a coffee-table gift book – something that someone can pick up, read a chapter, put down, and pick it up again a few months later to read another chapter.

All of the twenty different people profiled are doing remarkable and important work. This alone makes the book well worth reading. And each chapter also provides information to the reader on how to learn more about the individual or their work efforts.

While all the chapters here are interesting, one stood out for me. The work of Dominique Bikaba, “Gorilla Warrior,” was especially interesting and his efforts noteworthy.

It is truly amazing that there are people in the world putting their very lives on the line to protect animals and it’s great to get this opportunity to ‘meet’ some of them. I do wish the books were a bit more exciting so that it was easier to recommend.

Looking for a good book? Wild Lives, by Lori Robinson and Janie Chodosh is an interesting book about some of the people working in wildlife conservation today.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Wild Lives: Leading Conservationists on the Animals and the Planet They Love

authors: Lori Robinson and Janie Chodosh

publisher: Skyhorse

ISBN: 1510713646

hardcover, 224 pages

THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS – Edward Wilson-Lee

Posted by Daniel on July 29, 2019
Posted in: NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Hernando Colón had a passion for books and a vision for an organized library. Hernando Colón was also Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son.

Author/researcher Edward Wilson-Lee does a tremendous, detailed job of tracking down this story and getting in-depth on Hernando’s story.

While the name Christopher Columbus is known by every American school child, we know so little about him (other than what every fourth-grader learns in our white-washed history books), so just learning about this child sets us up for a number of fascinating insights.

While Hernando is an illegitimate child, Columbus still took him along on his fourth voyage to the New World (Hernando would have been thirteen at the time).  This could well have been the spark that led Colón to a life of pursuing knowledge. He searched for books, in all languages, and he collected maps and art portfolios, searching through small booksellers’ collections on his varied trips.  This led to his organization a catalog of his books – a way for him to determine whether or not a particular volume or work of art was already in his collection.  It was because of this new method of cataloging that when a shipwreck occurred and Colón lost thousands of books at sea, he knew which ones needed to be replaced. And it was because of his vast collection of maps, as well as his familiarity with his father’s travels, that Colón was asked to step in to create a map – the final, authoritative map – of the New World so that Portugal and Spain could once and for all settle on territorial rights.

But it was at this time that Hernando was also quite familiar with his father’s fall from grace and standing – how Spain tried to take his discovery away from him – to honor other explorers, which would also take away the inheritance of Columbus’s legitimate heirs.

This book is amazing.  I think I learned more history and more sociology and more library science through this one book than I have in a very long time.

In many respects, the book has more history/biography about Columbus than I was hoping for. It was definitely a great lesson in history – I’d had no idea that Columbus lost so much favor – but what attracted me to the book was the idea of the development of the early library. These moments in the book … the revelation of Colón’s passion for books and his search to constantly improve his library … were not only the reason I started this, but the best moments of the book.

Looking for a good book? If you like history, if you like learning something very new about something very old, if the history of the printed word fascinates you, then The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books by Edward Wilson-Lee is a book you really ought to read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World’s Greatest Library

author: Edward Wilson-Lee

publisher: Scribner

ISBN: 1982111399

hardcover, 416 pages

FAST INTO THE NIGHT – Debbie Clarke Moderow

Posted by Daniel on July 26, 2019
Posted in: MEMOIR, NON-FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

The Iditarod dog sled race is, I think, quite well-known, though most of us know few (if any) people who’ve run the course. It is certainly not the sort of course one challenges without having some experience with running dog sleds.

Enter Debbie Clarke Moderow – a 40-something mother of two on the Iditarod Trail, 200 miles from the end of the course, with a team of dogs who’ve decided that they don’t want to run any more. In this memoir, Fast into the Night, Moderow writes candidly of her feelings during the journey as well as her observations about her own preparedness.

If, for some reason, we ever thought that guiding a dog sled on a grueling winter course would be fun and easy, Moderow corrects that notion. The two biggest challenges, based on Moderow’s writing, are: 1) the rider’s own doubts and insecurities, and 2) the dogs.  The environmental conditions is a more distant third.

More than once Moderow’s dogs decide that they aren’t going to run/pull.  What do you do?  How hard do you you fight with them to get them to respect and listen to you before they fear you?

Moderow attempts the Iditarod more than once and both accounts are remembered here.

Memoirs are a tricky literary form … what is the purpose of reading someone else’s memoirs?  Often it’s because it is someone we know – a celebrity of popular figure and we want to know more about them and the way they think.  But when it’s someone you don’t know … when it’s a Debbie Clarke Moderow, for instance … there needs to be something else (in this case it’s the Iditarod race) and we hope that we get to know the author more through their memoir.  But I don’t feel that’s the case so much.

I never felt compelled to root for Moderow and never felt the exhaustion or anxiety that she must have felt along the way.  Despite the level of intensity (I imagine) needed to accomplish such a race, I felt that this moved along at a slow, even pace and I never learned anything from it (other than that sled dogs are unpredictable).

This wasn’t a bad read, but I don’t feel as though I can recommend it.

Looking for a good book? Fast into the Night is a memoir of Debbie Clarke Moderow’s journey to start and finish the Iditarod dog sled race. If that means anything to you, you might enjoy this book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Fast into the Night

author: Debbie Clarke Moderow

publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 0544484126

hardcover, 272 pages