‘Driving Over Lemons’ by Chris Stewart

When Chris Stewart flies to Spain and on impulse buys a farm in the Andalucian mountains, he has no idea what he’s taking on.  The farm has no electricity, no running water, no easy access, and to cap it all, the former who sold it to him does not seem prepared to move out any time soon.  However, Chris and his wife Ana set about making the farm their home and their livelihood.  This book tells the true story of Chris and Ana’s move to a different country and lifestyle and how they created their home out of the remote farm.

This book is charming throughout.  Chris is a thoroughly likeable narrator, and I really liked his wife Ana too.  The way of life in the Andalucian mountains is amusingly and affectionately described, and there are a cast of wonderful characters, in the friends and neighbours who become part of Chris and Ana’s lives.

Stewart is very self-effacing and happy to admit to mistakes made in the early part of the rebuilding process, and as hard as some of the tasks they set themselves undoubtedly were, he somehow managed to make the whole process seem extremely inviting.

I wasn’t sure that this would be my kind of book, but I actually found it to be a gentle and sweet story, that was hard to put down.

Author’s website can be found here.)

Read Full Post »

‘My Judy Garland Life’ by Susie Boyt

Susie Boyt has been a fan of the legendary Judy Garland – who died five months after Boyt was born – for as long as she can remember. In this book, she talks about her own life (although this is not an autobiography) and how her love of Garland has affected her.

WARNING: This review is probably going to become a rant!

I expected to like this book. I wanted to like it, I really did. But I couldn’t. Not only did I dislike the book, I actually got annoyed and irritated with it. I had expected an amusing memoir about fan-worship of a star, with a metaphorical rolling of the eyes by the author at the lengths she would go to in the name of that fan-worship. What I actually read was a lot of self-indulgent, over analytical wittering. (Perhaps I should partly blame myself for not realising beforehand what type of book this was.)

Lets make no bones about this – the author is not just a fan of Judy Garland, she is obsessed (something which she herself acknowledges). Baking a pie? She instantly thinks of a speech from a Garland film where Garland likens herself to a pie, and recites the speech over and over in her head, desperately making sure she has the words right. Washing up? Remember that scene where Judy Garland washed up? And it’s not enough to just remember the scene – Boyt analyses the scene and breaks it down – what did it mean? What was Judy conveying? Boyt mentions kind words spoken by characters played by Judy Garland and attributes them to Garland herself, seemingly unable to distinguish between Garland and the character. She also sends out questionnaires to other Judy-fans (the hyphen is important; Boyt mentions her Judy-work, her Judy-friends, etc.) asking such questions as ‘What has Judy taught you?’ ‘What qualities do you share with Judy?’ ‘What would you have done to help Judy if you could?’ ‘What would you say to Judy if you could?’ and so on.

She also divides Garland’s fans into bad fans (apparently those who dare to make a point about Garland’s drug use or other personal problems), good fans (those who only focus on the positive aspects of Judy Garland’s life) and crazy-good fans. She mentions one ‘crazy-good fan’ who wrote to Grace Kelly’s family shortly after Grace died tragically young and unexpectedly, and demanded that Grace’s Oscar which she won for The Country Girl, be sent to the Garland family where it truly belonged (Kelly and Garland were both nominated for the Oscar and Kelly, controversially, won). Is that a good fan? Not to me – crazy maybe; rude, spiteful, downright insensitive, definitely.

The author acknowledges her own obsession with Garland, and also acknowledges that other people may have different obsessions. On which subject she says, “It is possible that the object of your obsession is unequal to your heroic feelings, as mine will never be and that you are a tiny bit (and I whisper this) misguided in your choice, but your feelings are good and true, I see that.” Blimey! Patronising much? I recognise that Boyt was perhaps saying that to the obsessive, nobody else’s obsession can ever match up, but all the same, this was the point where I almost abandoned this book. (Later on, she describes doing ‘Judy-work’ in a library and looking round at the other patrons, who are doing their own work. They are swiftly dismissed with “it’s clear they just don’t love their work as I do….”)

Boyt also met with Garland’s daughter, Liza Minelli, to whom she complained that people were only ever interested in her father (Boyt’s father is the late artist, Lucien Freud). Minelli said that she understood exactly how that felt, in an obvious reference to people only being interested in Judy Garland. “But, but, but….” I thought, “Isn’t that exactly what Susie Boyt is doing? She is only interested in Liza Minelli because of who her mother is, and yet she complains about that behaviour in other people.”

Everything was taken so personally in this book; after Garland’s death, her friend Mickey Rooney said that if people had taken her to their hearts a bit earlier, she might still be alive. Boyt says that she takes this as a personal reproach, although she acknowledges that she was just five months old when Judy Garland died.

Boyt hates it that people exploited Judy Garland, but yet this whole book felt slightly exploitative. Garland is used an excuse for Boyt to wax lyrical about her own thoughts. Garland’s addiction to drugs is the basis for Boyt writing about sympathy, the nature of sympathy, when sympathy should be given and who by, and what form it should take (what is bad sympathy and what is good sympathy). This confused me – doesn’t the giving of sympathy depend on a lot of things? What kind of person the sympathiser is; what kind of person they are sympathising with is, what has happened to elicit sympathy, the relationship between the two people, etc. etc.

This is not the book to read if you want to find out more about Judy Garland – I would recommend you find a good biography instead, if that is your aim. There are aspects of Garland’s life contained within, but it seems to be written for people who are already very familiar with her life.

Sorry for the rant. We all have books we like and don’t like, but it’s rare for a book to actually annoy me to this extent. I never give up on a book once I’ve started it, so I did see this one through to the bitter end, but unfortunately I don’t feel able to recommend it to anyone else.

Read Full Post »

‘An A-Z of Hellraisers: A Comprehensive Compendium of Outrageous Insobriety’ by Robert Sellers

Basically a book of mini-biographies laced with anecdotes about some of the most famous – or infamous drunks.  With entries from as far back as Alexander the Great, most entries are about people from the 19th and 20th centuries – a few of whom are still with us.

The usual suspects are all here – Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, Ozzy Osbourne, Francis Bacon, Tallulah Bankhead, Calamity Jane – the list goes on.

There are tales of harmless drunks, downright nasty drunks (there seemed very little to like about George C Scott, who became frighteningly violent to both men and women when drunk), fighting drunks – Sinatra and Mitchum, and drunks who threw away their career for the bottle – the tale of John Barrymore was ultimately pathetic and sad – and tragic drunks – Edgar Allen Poe, who died young and in mysterious circumstances, and Frances Farmer, a promising actress whose addiction led to horrific treatment in an asylum, are two examples.

And then there are the reformed drunks – Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne to name just a couple.

I enjoyed the book – it’s certainly not taxing, and as each entry is between 3 – 7 pages long, it’s easy to skip through it quite quickly.  I would doubt the veracity of some of the tales contained within the pages – and I never realised just how many slang terms there were for the word ‘drunk’, but I’m sure they’re all in the this book!  Overall, a quick and enjoyable read.

Read Full Post »

‘Dead Man Walking’ by Sister Helen Prejean

Sometimes in life, a book comes along that hits you square between the eyes, and has a real impact.  You know that book, that you can’t stop thinking about once you’ve finished it?  That book that you just didn’t want to put down?  That book which made you immediately want to find out more about the author and the subject?  For me, this was one of those books.

It is Sister Helen Prejean’s true account of her work as a spiritual adviser to death row inmates in Louisiana, in the 1980s.  The book concentrates on her friendship with two very different death row inmates – Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie.  Sister Helen is completely against the death penalty, and in this book, as well as talking about Sonnier and Willie, she lays out her reasons for her feelings, such as how the death penalty is an instituionally racist system, which is biased against black offenders AND black victims.  It is also unfairly biased against the poor, who often simply cannot afford a decent defence counsel.  She describes how the death penalty is completely ineffective as a deterrent against crime, and how the cost of carrying out executions takes money away from other areas, such as putting more police on the streets.  However, this is a review, not a recap of this book, and I do not intend to recount every point Sister Helen makes – although I strongly urge everyone to read it, whatever their views on the death penalty.

I found Sister Helen’s relationships with Sonnier and Willie to be very moving.  She acknowledged the heinous crimes they committed - and although the reader knows from the outset that these men are violent and dangerous criminals, in this book, they are also depicted as human beings.  Their crimes are in no way excused, but I found it impossible not to feel sorrow when she describes their executions – at the futility of their deaths, which accomplished nothing and did not bring their victims back.

Sister Helen understands the need for some people to see these prisoners “get what they deserve,” and she does not condemn those who disagree wtih her stance.  She also was instrumental in setting up support groups for victims of violent crime, and that work is also described in the book.  She also fully agrees that the people who commit such vile acts should pay fully for their crimes, but using such an arbitrary and unfair system, is not helping anyone, including the victims.  At no time does she seek to trivialise the pain of the victims, or in any way suggest that there are needs are any less important than the cause which she believes in – and she actually forms an interesting friendship with the parents of a murder victim, who are in support of the death penalty.

I cried a number of times while reading this book.  Despite the heavy subject matter, Sister Helen’s writing is eloquent and honest – sometimes painfully so – and she is not afraid to acknowledge when she herself has made a mistake in judgement.  I found it a very difficult book to put down, and have no doubt that I will read it again in future.

Needless to say, I strongly recommend this book. 

(Author’s website can be found here.)

****************************************************************************************************

Click here for my review of the 1995 film adaptation.

****************************************************************************************************

Read Full Post »

‘The Groucho Letters: Letters To and From Groucho Marx’

As the title suggests, this book is a collection of letters sent to and from comedian and actor Groucho Marx.  Groucho was a prolific letter writer, and corresponded with friends, colleagues, politicians, other writers, and many more.

I am not going to list the many people who received or sent the letters in this book – it would take too long, for one thing – but the book is a shining example of Groucho’s wit and wisdom, his acerbic sense of humour, and (to a lesser extent) his beliefs.

My favourite exchange was between Groucho and T.S. Eliot.  It was clear that Groucho was much in awe of Eliot’s work, and when the two met for dinner, he hoped for a ‘literary evening’ – only to discover that Eliot was equally in awe of Groucho, and just wanted to discuss Marx Brothers’ films!

I liked this book, and thought that it was great to dip in and out of – there were some extremely funny one-liners, and Groucho was also clearly a very astute man.  My only criticism is really an editorial one – a lot of the correspondents may not be known to people reading the book (I know that I certainly had to look some of them up to see who they were, and how they were connected to Groucho), and therefore, the context of the letters isn’t always entirely clear.

Nonetheless though, this was highly enjoyable read, and one that I would definitely recommend.

(For more information about Groucho Marx/The Marx Brothers, please click here.)

Read Full Post »

84 Charing Cross Road (1987)

This is the film adaptation of New York author Helene Hanff’s book, detailing the correspondence between herself and Frank Doel, the chief buyer at at Marks & Co. Antiquarian Booksellers, situated (naturally) at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. The correspondence started in 1949, when Helene contacted the store about obtaining some books. Although they never met, through their letters the friendship deepened, and Helene ended up writing not only to Frank, but also to his wife, and to other employees at the shop.

I adored the book, and was interested to see how it would be adapted into a film (having already been adapted into a successful stage play). It actually works perfectly on film; this is one of those rare occasions when I would say that my enjoyment of the film matched that of the book. Anne Bancroft plays Helene to perfection – capturing the sassy attitude that comes through so well in her letters. Anthony Hopkins is equally excellent as the mild mannered, gentlemanly Frank.

In some ways, it could be said that nothing much happens in this film, but in another sense, SO much happens. It is a film of deep friendship, affection and warmth – and all without a single profanity or sex scene. It is contemplative, affecting, deeply moving, and at times very very funny. It covers almost 20 years of letters, and shows how life changed for both Helene and Frank; she went from being a poor script-reader, to a successful script-writer, while he saw his two daughters grow up, and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

This is certainly not a film to watch if you want action, car chases and special effects. But if you want to see a lovely, warm story about friendship across the miles, then this is one that you shouldn’t miss.

Year of release: 1987

Director: David Hugh Jones

Producers: Mel Brooks, Randy Auerbach, Jo Lustig, Geoffrey Helman

Writers: Helene Hanff (book), James Roose-Evans, Hugh Whitemore

Main cast: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Jean De Baer, Eleanor David, Mercedes Ruehl, Ian McNeice

********************************************************************************************************

Click here for my review of Helene Hanff’s book.

********************************************************************************************************

Read Full Post »

‘Paul Newman: A Life’ by Shawn Levy

Paul Newman was mainly known to the world as a movie star – an icon, really – with a beautiful face, mesmerising blue eyes, and a air of rascality about him.  His long marriage to Joanne Woodward was revered in a profession where marriages often seem to break up almost as soon as the vows are read.  This book is a journey through Newman’s life, from his happy childhood as the son of the owner of a successful sporting goods business, to the start of his acting career, and of course, his Hollywood stardom.  However, just as interesting are the details of Paul’s passion for motor racing, his political activism, and his philanthropy.  The book also covers darker periods of his life, such as the tragic death of his son Scott, and a period when he and Joanne  briefly separated. 

The book was written in a respectful, but not fawning fashion, and painted a picture of a man who was sometimes uncomfortable with his stardom, who was almost obsessive about details regarding his characters and the settings of films, and whose greatest love in life was his wife.  Shawn Levy has taken a huge number of interviews that Paul Newman gave, and put them into chronological order; in this way, although Newman did not participate in any way with the writing of this book, we are still able to see his thoughts on certain times in his life, certain films that he made, etc.  The book does not portray Newman as a saint, but he is treated with the warmth and respect that such a man would deserve.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book for me was when Newman set up the Hole In The Wall camps – places where sick children could go to simply have fun, play games, forget about their illnesses for a while.  Newman was determined that no child’s family should have to pay for their child to go to the camp, and importantly, as well as giving his money to the project, he also gave his time – he would often pop into the camps on spec, and play games or chat with the children.  I knew that Newman was a generous man, but I was surprised to learn of some of the things that he did, at no benfit to himself.

The book is very readable, and not at all dry – it’s a fascinating read from start to finish.  I actually found myself with a lump in my throat at the end, when reading about the death of this mercurial, precise, rogueish, handsome, kind, intelligent and funny man.  I would urge fans of Paul Newman to read this book.

(Author’s website can be found here.)

Read Full Post »

‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ by Alison Weir

There have been several individual biographies written of the six wives of Henry VIII.  Here, Alison Weir has pulled all of their stories together, and has created a biography of all six women, and their marriages to King Henry.  The events are told in chronological detail, which is a great help, as the timeline for his marriages can sometimes seem confusing!

Alison Weir writes so fluidly and eloquently that despite the huge amount of facts crammed into this story – dates, names, places – it never gets boring.  All the details are here, but the book never feels bogged down in them.  Indeed, it is such an engaging story that it sometimes reads almost like a novel.  As well as the six very different women who he married, the book also gives huge insight into Henry’s reign, and offers a more realistic portrayal of the man, rather than the gluttonous lech that he is often portrayed as.  As cold hearted a man as Henry VIII could undoubtedly be, it is worth remembering the times in which he lived, when such things that seem abominable to us today, were viewed as quite normal.  It is also clear that he could be a very generous and charismatic man, and that certainly, he loved his country and took his role as head of that country very seriously.

The author gives a balanced view of all the wives, as well as Henry himself, and indeed, his children.  I felt that I really got to know the characters, and the distinct personality of each wife was clearly described.  The book has clearly been extensively and exhaustively researched, with sources listed clearly at the back of the book.

I would have no hesitation in recommending this remarkably well written and descriptive biography.

(Author’s website can be found here.)

Read Full Post »

‘Adventures In A TV Nation’ by Michael Moore

In 1994, Michael Moore (subsequently best known for Fahrenheit 911, Bowling for Columbine, and being a general pain in the butt to the Republican Party) produced, with others, a television show called TV Nation.  The idea behind the show was to raise awareness of injustice and corruption in America, and to do so in a humorous style.  Less than 20 episodes were made (although Moore went on to do another similar show called The Awful Truth), but durng its short run, it was highly acclaimed.

This books covers just some of the pieces which the show did -  including Crackers the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken, the CEO challenge (can the highly paid CEO’s of various companies, actually do the lesser paid jobs which their employees do?),  and finding work for former KGB operatives (to name just a few).

The book, like the TV show, is all done in Moore’s familiar irreverent style, and does set out to achieve it’s aim, in that it provides laughs, but also deals with serious subjects.  It also shows the compromises that had to be made in order to get certain segments on air, and the sometimes dangerous situations that Moore and his crew found themselves in.  (There were actually some segments that never made it to air, or were severely edited before they were shown.)

I do tend to agree with Michael Moore on many issues, but don’t always agree with the way he reports them, as his reporting can be heavily biased and edited to make things look the way he wants them to watch.  Nevertheless, he highlights the hypocrisy of the media and the people that run it, as well as certain politicians, and he manages to make serious issues watchable and interesting to read about.

Overall, this is an easy and enjoyable read, and I would recommend it.  It’s also worth mentioning that you do not need to have seen any episodes of TV Nation – or indeed any other of Moore’s work – to fully enjoy this book.

(Michael Moore’s website can be found here.)

Read Full Post »

‘Starmaker: Life As A Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, The Rat Pack and 600 More Stars Who Fired Me’ by Jay Bernstein as told to Larry Cortez Hamm with David Rubini

In 1960, Jay Bernstein came to Hollywood, hoping to make his fortune.  He had no idea what he was going to do, and no idea how he was going to do it.  But he did have determination, confidence and the ability to work as hard as it took.  With guts and grit, he became a publicist to many stars, including Farrah Fawcett and her then husband Lee Majors, and The Rat Pack.  He later branched out into managing stars, and producing, directing and writing for movies and television.  This book is his memoir of his long career in Hollywood, with the highs and lows, triumphs and let-downs, and of course, what life was like with such icons of the day.

I enjoyed the book a lot.  Bernstein is an engaging and very witty narrator; he’s also very frank, not only about the people who he worked with, but also about himself, being more than willing to admit when he made mistakes and bad decisions.  He also pulls no punches when it comes to his opinions on others (Frank Sinatra does NOT come out of this book well!!)

The book concentrates mainly on Bernstein’s work for Farrah Fawcett (the story of her rise to stardom, thanks to the hard work of Bernstein, is fascinating), Suzanne Somers, The Rat Pack, and Stacey Keach on the Mike Hammer television productions (based on Mickey Spillane’s books about Hammer).  Sadly, Jay Bernstein passed away while the book was being written, and a note at the end points out that there were far more stories he wanted to share, but his death meant that they are not in the book.

For anyone who is interested in movies or television, and the truth behind the glamorous facade of the industry, this book is enjoyable, easy to read, eye-opening and funny.  I highly recommend it!

(For more information about Jay Bernstein, please click here.)

Read Full Post »