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92-Year-Old Canadian Art Treasure John Koerner Launches Autobiography *
A Brush with Life will prove a valuable source book for art historians and curators, and of course for the many collectors of Koerner’s art.
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A sister's journey: from darkness to light *
Maggie de Vries's sister went missing on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside five years ago. Writing a book about the loss has been painful, but cathartic
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Ashley McIsaac: Fiddling with Disaster *
Celtic-punk fiddler Ashley McIsaac, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, has put his own stamp on traditional Celtic music for almost two decades. Now, in his autobiography, Ashley recounts his climb from Creignish to New York and beyond, and pulls no punches in the story of his subsequent troubles with fame, drugs and the media.
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Backstage Vancouver: A Century of Entertainment Legends (Keyes review) ****
You don't have to be a Vancouverite to get a kick out of Backstage Vancouver, although certainly most of the book's buyers will be from the Lower Mainland, or else they'll be homesick ex-pat Vancouverites desperate to savour a slice of local history.
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Beatles Book Is Fab! (Keyes review) *****
John Keyes says: "If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas present, I can't think of a reader who wouldn't find The Beatles: The Biography interesting.
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Beijing pulls pages from Clinton memoir *
Former first lady's frank references to repression in China fail to appear in new Mandarin edition.
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Bob Hope: My Life in Jokes *
Reprinted by permission of Hyperion Books
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Brother says Diana feared for her life *
The late Diana, Princess of Wales, believed her phone was bugged and that she was being spied on before her death, her brother said at a press conference Wednesday.
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Canada cool to Hollywood madam *
Another Hollywood celebrity has cancelled a planned visit to Toronto, but this time it has nothing to do with fear of the SARS outbreak.
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Chatty Ashley has lots to say, but is anyone still willing to listen? *
Ashley MacIsaac, the virtuosic and volatile Cape Breton fiddler who made self-destruction a public endeavour, popped up in Halifax to sign his new autobiography, Fiddling With Disaster, the first and last stop on a one-city book tour.
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Gretzky trade bombshell had genesis earlier, McNall says *
Almost fifteen years later, Canadians still recall the trade the way they'd recall a tragedy or assassination -- the day Wayne Gretzky was shipped out of Canada.
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Hipster history surprisingly straight *
However authorized their beginnings, many histories end up as unauthorized. The historian is attacked by grumpy peers and, as the years pass, his work is dismissed as racist, or eurocentric, or naive, and a new authorized version is embraced. The disclaimer here is a reference, presumably, to George Bowering being a novelist and poet rather than a historian.
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Kate Remembered: Parlour games ****
Biographer A. Scott Berg's 20-year relationship with Katharine Hepburn began with a unique set of initiation rites. Once they were passed, Hepburn promised to tell him all, with one stipulation: He could not publish until she had died, GAYLE MacDONALD writes
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Lennon Legend (Keyes book review) **** 1/2
This fab (as in Fab Four) coffeetable book is an absolute must-have for the boomer Beatles fan, especially if your favourite was John Lennon.
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Living History -- Hillary Clinton's book due out *
After laying out a seven-figure advance for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs, her publishers are counting on seven-figure sales.
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Lord Black's art of investing stirs controversy *
The appropriateness of Hollinger buying the Roosevelt papers is being questioned as the press baron pens FDR's biography
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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad: The mouth that roared *
Will Malaysia's Prime Minister be remembered for his obnoxious comments, or for turning his country into an Asian tiger? asks biographer MICHAEL BOCIURKIW.
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My Father Came from Italy ***
ISBN:1551923564
Author:Maria Coletta McLean
Publisher:Raincoast Books
Like an astringent balsamic, Maria Coletta McLean's memoir of buying a house in rural Italy cuts through the oily array of self-indulgent autobiographies by ex-pat Brits and Americans who bought the perfect rundown Tuscan villas and just had to tell the world about their renovation troubles, thanks to the wacky locals.
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My life as a waitress *
At its best, it was like a newspaper at deadline time, when the work builds and builds until all hell breaks loose
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Paper Fan (Keyes review) *****
I approached Paper Fan with genuine interest, considerable respect and some degree of misgiving. The book turns out to be an absolute page-turner...
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So, is Hillary lying or just stupid? *
the face of it, the central revelation in Hillary Rodham Clinton's "tell just enough but not too much" memoir is, simply, incredible. She wants us to believe that everybody in the world knew the truth about Monica but her.
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The Man Who Tried to Save the World: The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Fred Cuny ****
ISBN:0385486650
Author:Scott Anderson
Publisher:Doubleday, $24.95 (USD); $37.95 (CAD); 384 pp
Interest in Scott Anderson’s 1999 investigative biography is bound to be revived now that Harrison Ford has reportedly signed to play the book’s protagonist. John T.D. Keyes reviews this heretofore overlooked book.
Buy this book from Powell's:
The Man Who Tried to Save the World
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The porn queen's sad epiphany *
When Linda Lovelace, a woman best known for carnal abilities that rivalled Saracen the Sword Swallower's, published Ordeal, her third autobiography, in 1980, she triggered the coining of a phrase in porn circles known as "The Linda Syndrome."
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The smell of sour grapes *
Readers may remember with some bemusement the public bun fight last year between Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens over Amis's quasi-memoir, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million.
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Thirty Days: Tony Blair and the Test of History-- This 'poodle' is not for turning *
At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of April 7, 2003, as the newly-captured Baghdad airport was receiving its first U.S. planes and British troops were securing the southern Iraqi city of Basra, Tony Blair was playing with a toy train set.
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Thunderstruck (Keyes review) **
"Disappointed" was the chief word John Keyes had for this promising new volume from Seattle's Eric Larson. Two stars out of five.
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Why the world needs a Mein Kampf sequel *
The translation of a second book by Adolf Hitler, unpublished in his lifetime, may be unpleasant business, writes CHRISTOPHER DREHER. But historians argue that it offers an uncensored look at his rise to power, and how much sooner the world should have recognized the danger.
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Will Saddam spill the beans? *
This man has a strong sense of self-preservation. The captive's current meekness is no surprise -- nor is the likelihood that he will try to rebuild his legend, says biographer ANDREW COCKBURN.
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Iris Murdoch: Her library speaks volumes *
Four years after her death, Iris Murdoch's books are on sale. In their well-thumbed pages are bus tickets, flowers, and touching inscriptions from those she loved
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