On My Radar (Monday Edition)

Shockaholic
by Carrie Fisher

Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

REVIEW FORTHCOMING

From the publisher website:

Bad news . . .
 
. . . for anyone who thought Carrie Fisher had finally stopped talking about herself: Sorry, but after all of her seemingly endless blathering on about her nose-bleedhigh- class problems, it appears she has yet another brand-new problem to overshare about (though don't expect to relate to it). This time, the electro-convulsive shock therapy she's been regularly undergoing is threatening to wipe out (what's left of) her memory.

But get ready for a shock of your own. Not only doesn't she mind paying the second electric bill, but she loves the high-voltage treatments. In fact, she gets a real charge out of them. She can't get enough. In fact, this might even be a brand-new addiction for her. But before she can truly commit herself to it in the long term, she'd better get some of those more nagging memories of hers on paper.

It's been a roller coaster of a few years for Carrie since her Tony- and Emmy-nominated, one-woman Broadway show and New York Times bestselling book Wishful Drinking. She not only lost her beloved father, but also her once-upon-a-very-brief-time stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor. And as if all that weren't enough, she also managed to lose over forty pounds of unwanted flesh—not by sawing off a leg (though that did cross her zapped mind) but by doing what might be termed "wishful shrinking," all the while staying sober and sane-ish. And she wants to tell you, dear reader, all about it . . . and more.

Why? Because she wants you to someday be able to remind her about how Elizabeth Taylor settles a score and the scatological wonders of shoe tycoons. She doesn't want to forget about how she and Michael Jackson became friends or how she ended up sparring with none other than Ted Kennedy on a dinner date. And she especially wants to preserve her memories of Eddie Fisher—what their relationship really was and the beautiful story it turned out to be in the end.

Yes, of course, Shockaholic is laugh-out-loud funny, acerbic, and witty as hell. But it also reveals a new side of Carrie Fisher that may even bring a pleasant shock your way: it is contemplative, vulnerable, and ultimately quite tender.

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy
by Ken Sharp

MTV Books / Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

The murder of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, sent shockwaves around the world. The most acclaimed singer/songwriter of his generation, first a Beatle and then a boundary-pushing solo artist, was senselessly silenced forever at age forty; immediately, his final musical statement, an intimate, pop-infused collection called Double Fantasy, released only weeks before his death, skyrocketed to #1 worldwide, as did its poignantly titled single, "(Just Like) Starting Over."

His first studio recording since 1975's Rock 'n' Roll—and his first musical endeavor of any kind since taking a much-needed hiatus to raise Sean, his son with Yoko Ono—Double Fantasy represents more than a comeback album to Lennon fans and music critics alike. It captures a cultural icon at the pinnacle of his creative success and personal fulfillment; thirty years later it remains a musical touchstone and an affecting reminder of what could have been.

Starting Over is an oral history of the making of Double Fantasy and the definitive account of John Lennon's last days. From early demos to sessions at New York City's The Hit Factory, from the electrifying chemistry of the studio band to keeping the project under wraps to the album's release and critical reception, here is fascinating, insightful commentary from all of the key players involved in its extraordinary creation: Yoko Ono, David Geffen, producer Jack Douglas, engineers, arrangers, session musicians, music journalists, and even Lennon himself via archival interviews.


Featuring never-before-seen photos of John and Yoko in the studio, candid images taken by David M. Spindel and Roger Farrington, Starting Over is the essential portrait for anyone who hears both a beginning and ending in the tracks of Double Fantasy.

Thursday Review: A MISCELLANY OF MURDER by The Monday Murder Club

Do you hold a special place in your heart for the macabre?  Is it your idea of fun to scour lists of scary facts -- the creepier the better? 
 
Just in time for Halloween, Adams Media has A MISCELLANY OF MURDER: From History and Literature to True Crime and Television, A Killer Selection of Trivia....in stores now!


Easily designed to partake in snippets, if you're not careful this book can easily be read in one sitting once you get started.  It's that addictive!


The publicity for the books states:

   * The worst villains of all time -- from Hannibal Lecter to Charles         Manson
   *  The bloody truth about forensics
   *  Weaponry to die for
   *  Private dicks, dangerous dames, and dubious characters
   *  The most puzzling unsolved mysteries
   *  Who's really gotten away with murder


Some of my favorite repeating categories include "first lines,"  delightful opening lines from murder mysteries and "The Quotable P.I.,"  humorous and insightful quips from our favorite detectives.  But the true fun of this little gem is that there are plenty of surprise delights on nearly every page.  I fully expect readers of this collection to discover new and interesting titles to explore.  



You won't believe how much fun information is gathered in the pages of this collection. Separated into convenient chapters like Lust, Greed, Wrath and Envy, this book is perfect for a dark and scary night.  Grab it for yourself and all the mystery fans in your life. 

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A Miscellany of Murder: From History and Literature to True Crime and Television, A Killer Selection of Trivia
Executed by The Monday Murder Club
Adams Media
Trade Paperback

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness -- and a Trove of Letters -- Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression
by Ted Gup
Penguin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

"A wonderful reminder that economic hardship can bring suffering but can also foster compassion and community." -The Boston Globe
 
In hard economic times like these, readers will find bestselling author Ted Gup's unique book uplifting as well as captivating. Inside a suitcase kept in his mother's attic, Gup discovered letters written to his grandfather in response to an ad placed in a Canton, Ohio, newspaper in 1933 that offered cash to seventy-five families facing a devastating Christmas. The author travels coast to coast to unveil the lives behind the letters, describing a range of hardships and recreating in his research the hopes and suffering of Depression-era Americans, even as he uncovers the secret life led by the grandfather he thought he knew.

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution
by Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum

Dutton Adult / Penguin
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson dance with zombies in "Thriller"? Diamond Dave karate kick with Van Halen in "Jump"? Tawny Kitaen turning cartwheels on a Jaguar to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again"? The Beastie Boys spray beer in "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)"? Axl Rose step off the bus in "Welcome to the Jungle"?

Remember When All You Wanted Was Your MTV?

It was a pretty radical idea-a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined.

I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real World in 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business.

Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTV is a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.

On My Radar (Friday Edition)

Weed Man: The Remarkable Journey of Jimmy Divine
by John McCaslin
Thomas Nelson
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Weed Man – The Remarkable Journey of Jimmy Divine - is John McCaslin’s account of the unbelievable exploits of a Jimmy Moree – a law-abiding citizen turned million-dollar drug trafficker, who, amidst sometimes unbelievable, hilarious and escalating circumstances, risked life and limb to both make – and give away - a fortune.

• Shiploads of Colombian weed
• Sack loads of cash
• Island huts made of marijuana bales
• Trafficking drugs while directing the neighborhood crime watch
• Crooked cops and politicians and CIA operatives

Weed Man details exploits of one of the biggest drug traffickers to infiltrate the United States. 

D.C. political columnist John McCaslin’s account of a law-abiding citizen turned swashbuckling Caribbean Robin Hood is an unbelievable, entertaining – and true – story of crime, high jinx on the high seas.

It was on a secluded cay in the Bahamas one otherwise ordinary morning that Jimmy Moree went for his usual jog on the beach—one that changed his life forever. After all, how many people stumble upon several million dollars while exercising? Soon, millions more would fall into his lap. And with every million, Jimmy spins an amazing yarn, each more incredible than the last—like when he tried to poison a mean neighbor with a deadly barracuda; how ungodly deception caused him to steal the holy garments and identity of his Catholic school priest and principal; why several thousand pounds of particularly potent marijuana came to be stored in the crawl space of a church during its Easter services; his extreme generosity shown to the poor farmers and fishermen who helped care for his ailing mother; and his unlikely view as of one of the world's biggest drug smugglers from his pew at the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

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Assholes Finish First
by Tucker Max
Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

What do you do after you write a #1 bestselling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you've got another bestselling book on your hands.

Stuffed full of ridiculous stories of bad decisions, debauchery, and sexual recklessness, Assholes Finish First starts where I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell left off, then proceeds to "some next-level shit."

You already know how women react to confidence, game, and vodka, but what happens when you add money and fame to the mix? You get answers to the hard questions you've never thought of asking:

• What's it like to have sex with a midget? What about two midgets?

• What does it do to a man to watch a 19-year-old do wind sprints to sober up, so that she can have sex with you before her twin sister does?

• At what number of virgins does deflowering them stop being fun and start feeling like a job?

• When a girl you met three hours ago decides to tattoo your name on her body, what is the appropriate reaction?

The answers are inside, they are absurd and hilarious, and they are the product of one man's experiences:

His name is Tucker Max, and he is still an asshole.

On My Radar (Thursday Edition)

The Ponds of Kalambayi: A Peace Corps Memoir
by Mike Tidwell
Lyons Press

Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

Lovers of fine travel- and adventure-writing will savor Mike Tidwell’s richly acclaimed narrative of his days as a Peace Corps volunteer. His task was to help people in the remote corners of Zaire raise tilapia in ponds they would dig themselves, with muscle-power alone. By turns hilarious and gut-wrenching, this book—whose new edition includes a new introduction by the author—is a masterful account of culture clash, generosity of spirit, and true grit. It is a must-read for anyone with aspirations to “change the world.”

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life
by Jerry West & Jonathan Coleman
Little, Brown & Company
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

He is one of basketball's towering figures: "Mr. Clutch," who mesmerized his opponents and fans. The coach who began the Lakers' resurgence in the 1970s. The general manager who helped bring "Showtime" to Los Angeles, creating a championship-winning force that continues to this day.

Now, for the first time, the legendary Jerry West tells his story-from his tough childhood in West Virginia, to his unbelievable college success at West Virginia University, his 40-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, and his relationships with NBA legends like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kobe Bryant. Unsparing in its self-assessment and honesty, WEST BY WEST is far more than a sports memoir: it is a profound confession and a magnificent inspiration.

Please note this video is over 30 minutes long:

On My Radar (Tuesday Edition)

My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir
by Mark Whitaker
Simon & Schuster

Hardcover

From the publisher website:

In a dramatic, moving work of historical reporting and personal discovery, Mark Whitaker, award-winning journalist, sets out to trace the story of what happened to his parents, a fascinating but star-crossed interracial couple, and arrives at a new understanding of the family dramas that shaped their lives—and his own.
 
His father, "Syl" Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a groundbreaking scholar of Africa. His mother, Jeanne Theis, was a shy World War II refugee from France whose father, a Huguenot pastor, helped hide thousands of Jews from the Nazis and Vichy police. They met in the mid-1950s, when he was a college student and she was his professor, and they carried on a secret romance for more than a year before marrying and having two boys. Eventually they split in a bitter divorce that was followed by decades of unhappiness as his mother coped with self-recrimination and depression while trying to raise her sons by herself, and his father spiraled into an alcoholic descent that destroyed his once meteoric career. 

Based on extensive interviews and documentary research as well as his own personal recollections and insights, My Long Trip Home is a reporter's search for the factual and emotional truth about a complicated and compelling family, a successful adult's exploration of how he rose from a turbulent childhood to a groundbreaking career, and, ultimately, a son's haunting meditation on the nature of love, loss, identity, and forgiveness.

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

[sic]: A Memoir
by Joshua Cody
W.W. Norton & Company
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

A searing memoir about devastating illness, creativity, sex and drugs, and thirty-something life in New York.

Joshua Cody, a brilliant young composer, was about to receive his PhD when he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Facing a bone-marrow transplant and full radiation, he charts his struggle: the fury, the tendency to self-destruction, and the ruthless grasping for life and sensation; the encounter with a strange woman on Canal Street that leads to sex at his apartment; the detailed morphine fantasy complete with a bride called Valentina while, in reality, hospital staff are pinning him to his bed. Moving effortlessly between references to Don Giovanni and the Rolling Stones, Ezra Pound and Buffalo Bill, and facsimiles of his own diaries and hospital notebooks, [sic] is a cross between Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and Jay McInerny's Bright Lights, Big City: a mesmerizing, hallucinatory glimpse into a young man's battle against disease and a celebration of art, language, music, and life.

Southern Festival of Books

The book I had originally planned to preview today has been delayed by the publisher, so no book news today :(

However, I am attending the Southern Festival of Books this weekend here in Nashville.

Nothing makes me happier than to be surrounded by a bunch of book people.

Book Review: DRAMA by John Lithgow

Drama: An Actor's Education
by John Lithgow
Harper Books

Hardcover


A lot of people assume acting is easy.  All you do is pretend to be someone else and recite some words written by someone else, right?  I mean, it's not usually backbreaking work.  Simple.

Wrong.  If you've ever watched a really bad actor, you know just how good you have to be to even be average at the craft.

Someone who is not average is John Lithgow.  I have always enjoyed his performances, whether on television or in movies.  Also equally adept on the stage, he is a Tony Award winning actor.  Raised by a nomadic actor/producer father and supportive mother, Lithgow never intended to be an actor.  His vague goal for himself was to be an artist, even while spending most of his time being a thespian, set builder, curtain puller, etc.

But life has a way of making decisions for us and, after a fairly disastrous attempt at forming a vagabond actor's troupe of his own, Lithgow decided to act while still planning his bigger goal of an art career.

Along the way, he was Harvard-educated and spent time in England studying Shakespeare at the source.  Returning from England, he got work on and off Broadway, before starting to get work in Hollywood. 

This memoir is full of fantastic anecdotes from an actor's life.  He artfully spins a tale of how he got to be the respected, beloved actor he is today.    He tells with candor about his shortcomings in his first marriage and with complete devotion about his current one. 

If you like John Lithgow or are interested in how an actor is developed, this book is for you.  It is a good, smooth read, filled with humor and honesty.  An excellent gift for the actor in your family.

On My Radar (Wednesday Edition)

Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion
by James Marcus Bach
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

This unique and insightful book challenges our prevailing and often fallacious attitudes about schooling. In today's volatile job market, ideas are more important than training, innovation is more important than credentials; traditional schooling may no longer be necessary or even useful. The ability to educate oneself—to learn how to learn—is crucial. In Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, James Bach demonstrates how to nurture one's natural curiosities and passions through the whimsical learning process he calls "buccaneering"—demonstrating that those who understand this fundamental principle will come to dominate this new world.