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Any Port in a Storm :: On the Plaza :: The Library :: Biographies
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AuthorTopic: Biographies (Read 3,626 times)
bixaorellana
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #30 on Mar 13, 2009, 6:58pm »		[Quote]
Look! ~ We don't have to wait until this evening: Marianne Faithfull On Music, Mick And Survival.

Hmmm ~ thanks for reminding me about NPR. I'll post its regular link in Change the Station.
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casimira
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #31 on Mar 20, 2009, 9:41pm »		[Quote]
I just finished Paul Bowles,A Life by Virginia Spencer Carr. A very good read. I have read just about everything Bowles has written,much of it autobiographical in nature. This covers a much more detailed ,heavily footnoted chronicle of him and his buddies including wife Jane. I somehow had thought that despite how much time he spent in Tangier, he also travelled the East quite a bit and at one point owned an exquisite (in an eccentric bohemian style) home in Taprobane,a tiny island off the coast of Ceylon. It boasted an eighteenth century folly garden.
I was also struck by how many writers (Tennesse Williams,Gore Vidal among them) thought Jane Bowles to be the greater writer of the two.
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jazz
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #32 on Apr 7, 2009, 6:13am »		[Quote]
True Pleasures: a memoir of women in Paris, by Lucinda Holdforth, 2005. This is my third reading of this book. I like it very much..."If you can't have a French lover, this is the next best thing." I agree. Paris is the most welcoming city to the single female that I have ever visited in my life. Read through this book and the day to day stories of the author herself and.... Mme. de Sevigne, (whose series of letters to her daughter began a whole new literary form)..... the fabulous courtesans...Mme. de Pompadour, Ninon de Lanclos (who spurned Voltaire), and Mme. de Deffand. Read about the lives of Georges Sand and Colette---a truly remarkable writer. And, in the relative 'present', Edith Wharton, Nancy Mitford, Gertrude Stein and Simone de Beauvoir.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #33 on Apr 11, 2009, 6:36am »		[Quote]
I read this book several years ago, and was quite impressed by it. I wanted to learn more about Daisy Bates, but she had fibbed about & reinvented her life so much, the truth is hard to discern.

DaisyBates in the Desert
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BigIain
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #34 on Apr 24, 2009, 10:12pm »		[Quote]
I finally got around to starting Peter Wright's Spycatcher, his autobiography of his lifelong carreer in the British Intilligence Service MI5 where he rose to be the Assistant Director. It caused a huge fuss when released (in the 1980s?) because it was thought to be giving away secrets etc, of how these guys did their stuff. Well I have done the first 70 pages and it is a great read, lots of James Bond type stuff and secrets in it. I am looking forward to getting stuck in to it tomorrow morning.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #35 on Jul 11, 2009, 4:36am »		[Quote]
I rarely read biographies. I prefer to let an artist's/politician's/whatever works and deeds stand on their own merits; whether or not they beat their wife is anecdotal.

Exceptions abound, however, and I am currently twenty-odd pages into Norman Sherry's three-volume biography of the indelible Graham Greene. I am also halfway into Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City. Part autobiography and part history, it's quit riveting.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #36 on Jul 11, 2009, 11:34am »		[Quote]
I liked Pamuk's book about Istanbul too. It's the only book of his that I managed to read. All the others that I looked at in the library didn't even make it to the checkout desk.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #37 on Jul 11, 2009, 12:41pm »		[Quote]
The Bette Davis biographies are always an interesting read. That woman was amazing, so ahead of the times.

I also found 'A million little pieces', by James Fry, to be good.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #38 on Jul 11, 2009, 4:05pm »		[Quote]
Wasn't James Fry the guy who was discredited publicly -- on the Oprah Show, I think? Was any part of his book true?

Everyone said it was worth reading, but after it was announced that it was a fabrication, I didn't bother.
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cigalechanta
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #39 on Jul 11, 2009, 5:09pm »		[Quote]
All the Colette biographies
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deyana
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #40 on Jul 11, 2009, 7:15pm »		[Quote]
bixa, yes, after appearing on Oprah, it was discovered that he had partly made up the part about his dentist visit, which he wrote about in his book. Have other decrepanices come to light too? I'm not sure. It was suggested that he should rename is book as a 'memoir' instead of a biography, because he stated in an interveew that he was only reconunting what he could remember.

I do believe that most of it was true, it was quite a book. Although, for me anyway, it was not an unusual tale, not shocking at all. I've come across such people in real life from a very young age, so maybe that's why. I still remember, as small kid, watching certain people taking drugs, hooked on heroin, violence, guns, you name it...
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jazz
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #41 on Jul 11, 2009, 7:18pm »		[Quote]
Yes, James Fry was discredited publically. I had read the book prior and thought it was good. It was disappointing to know that he had misrepresented his work, but I still thought it was a relatively good representation of the subject. Why not just originally release it as fiction? (I wondered). A few people I know who had been in treatment thought it was fairly realistic.

Moral of this story: Never embarrass Oprah publically and don't lie.

Colette fascinates me Cigalechanta, do you have a favorite biography?
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cigalechanta
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #42 on Jul 12, 2009, 12:39am »		[Quote]
the last one was the best but I like her own tales in her book,
The Pure and The Impure.
I have two autograghs I bought, now trying to sell since my
financial problems are really at a low. I visited her home town in Burgundy where the local chateau is now a museum for her.
happy to meet another fan :)
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lola
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #43 on Jul 12, 2009, 3:56pm »		[Quote]
The hard thing about biographies is they tend to get depressing toward the end.

Basic trajectory:
-- youth
-- interesting things happening, challenges overcome, fun had
-- oldness sets in
-- the really bad part.

So, what to do. Stop reading at the end of the chapter when things are still going well? Why don't publishers indicate that point in some way?
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casimira
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #44 on Jul 12, 2009, 5:09pm »		[Quote]
During a recent stint working in a used book store I was astounded at the vast number of recent memoirs and biographies of fairly irrelevant and uninspiring people. The section was overrun with them.They were so uninspiring I can't remember who they were. I do remember though, that they were not flying off the shelves and I was forever rearranging the shelves to try to accommodate them all.
It seems there was some point in the last twenty years or so where it became almost compulsory for self important persons to have their biography written(many of them not having reached the "prime" of their life).
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #45 on Jul 12, 2009, 9:12pm »		[Quote]
One of the best biographies I have read was by Marianne Faithfull. She wrote some really interesting details about her relationship with Mick Jagger and the rolling stones. I couldn't put it down.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #46 on Jul 12, 2009, 9:15pm »		[Quote]
I read that, too. Commented on it way back at the beginning of this thread. It was good.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #47 on Jul 12, 2009, 10:51pm »		[Quote]
I read all of the posts on this thread. Julia Child was the one person who inspired me to start really learning to cook. Her Mastering the Art of French Cooking has been reissued and I bought it immediately. I am sure that you all know that there is a movie coming out called Julie and Julia and the premise is a young woman now, decides to cook her way thru the book and then there are flashbacks of Julia Child's life when she starts to cook. Meryl Streep is cast as Julia Child.

Although she was a great cook, I was taken with her life before and how she met her husband. Also, what she did during WWII. Truly an amazing woman.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #48 on Jul 12, 2009, 11:40pm »		[Quote]
Although I never think in French (seeing as how it's a language I don't know), every time I see a photo of Julia Child or read something she wrote, I inevitably think "joie de vivre". She was such a vital person. I know very little about her, and nothing about her in WWII. Guess I'll have to read her biography!
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #49 on Jul 12, 2009, 11:55pm »		[Quote]
I'm anxious to see that movie too T63. Nora Ephron is the director. In a very recent New Yorker magazine there is a profile of Ephron and she speaks to the whole topic of Child and her profound influence on French cuisine in America.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #50 on Jul 13, 2009, 3:12am »		[Quote]
The last one I read was a couple of years ago.

Paul Theroux' treatment of V.S. Naipaul, 'Sir Vidia's Shadow'. Quite funny!
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #51 on Jul 13, 2009, 3:30am »		[Quote]
Had no idea Theroux wrote on Naipaul. What a brilliant pairing. Will check out,thanks hw.

I am currently engrossed in a book called Nine Lives, Death and Life in New Orleans,by Dan Baum.Baum wrote for the New Yorker after Hurricane Katrina and very soon after moving here he realized that Katrina's aftermath was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans. So,he set out to explore why New Orleanians are so devoted to a place that was,even before the storm,the most corrupt,impoverished, and violent corner of America.
Nine Lives is a multivoiced biography of the dazzling,surreal imperiled city,told through the lives of nine characters over forty years and bracketed by two storms(Betsy and Katrina).
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #52 on Jul 13, 2009, 3:39am »		[Quote]
I truly admired Theroux's book on Naipaul. It was written well after the the falling apart of their friendship and I was reluctant to read it. That's because, whereas I'm a huge fan of Paul Theroux, I was afraid that his well-known acerbic side might have mutated into bitter viciousness on the subject of Naipaul. To the contratry, I came out of it admiring Theroux even more for his graceful and sensitive handling of a subject that had to have been difficult for him.

Can't wait to read the Dan Baum book. I started following him in The New Yorker right after Katrina and eagerly awaited each new dispatch. He cut past all the "lush, steamy, tropical" stereotypical crap about New Orleans and just seemed to really get it.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #53 on Jul 13, 2009, 3:45am »		[Quote]

Jul 13, 2009, 3:30am, casimira wrote:
Had no idea Theroux wrote on Naipaul. What a brilliant pairing. Will check out,thanks hw.



Naipaul and Theroux were friends -- sort of. It depends on who you speak to these days, but the two are definitely on the outs. I caught Mr. Theroux on his most recent tour promoting Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, and he was none to kind to Naipaul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/books/....0Naipaul&st=cse

You can also check out Mr. Theroux's article on the new biography The World Is What It Is here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/t....icle3688422.ece
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #54 on Jul 13, 2009, 4:09am »		[Quote]
Thanks for the links, Nic. Haven't been able to get hold of Theroux' newest books yet.

Wow! Just read through those articles.
Another book I should try and get.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #55 on Jul 13, 2009, 8:37pm »		[Quote]
I recommend Martha Gellhorn: A Life by Caroline Moorehead. I hadn't heard of her until Baz lent me a book when I was staying in his house. It was called Travels by Myself with Another by Martha Gellhorn. This was a fantastic read and had me in stitches of laughter. In this book she recounts the various horrendously uncomfortable journeys she made during her life. She was a war journalist during World War 2, went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War and even ventured into China (with Ernest Hemmigway shortly after she married him).

Martha was very friendly with Caroline Moorehead's mother . Caroline, as a child, knew her and she had access to Martha's many letters from which she eventually wrote this biography. She presents Martha to us the way she was - both good and not so good.

I have to say that I vastly admire the courageous Martha.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #56 on Jul 13, 2009, 10:50pm »		[Quote]
I have read Bio's by David Coulthard and also Marcus Trescothick in the last few weeks. Both are pretty good reads, Tres examines his deep pdychological issues which led to his leaving the Ashes Tour a couple of years ago on the eve of the first game.
Dcs book is exactly as you would expect from a racer... a collection of anecdotes and behind the scenes insights of F1 from during his career.
I think you have to have more than just a passing interest in the person to enjoy a Bio. In the last 2 years I have given away books by Lewis Hamilton and Daren Gough because I just have no interest in them as people or sports people.
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #57 on Jul 16, 2009, 4:42pm »		[Quote]
I am also a great admirer of Paul Theroux. I very much enjoyed reading Hotel Honolulu
which seemed to be semi-autobiographical. Can anyone comment on this?

Is Mr Theroux still living in Hawaii?
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #58 on Jul 16, 2009, 4:54pm »		[Quote]
This might interest you, Spindrift. It's sort of old, but addresses the autobiography vs. fiction question. (even though it says p.2, that's where the interview starts): http://www.salon.com/weekly/interview2960902.html

I really enjoyed reading this, as it's Theroux on the subject of the Ghost Train book, which I'm dying to read.
"Dark Star Safari" is mentioned in this interview. If you haven't read it yet, do so immediately!
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Re: Biographies
« Reply #59 on Jul 16, 2009, 5:09pm »		[Quote]
Bixa - I have read that interview which took place when Theroux was in his fifties. He's much older than that now. I'm pretty sure he married a beautiful Hawaiin girl when he was living in Honolulu after his divorce. He had a child, a girl, by her.

A friend of mine spent several weeks in Hawaii fairly recently, catching up with people he knew when he was living on the island and flying aircraft there - that would have been in the 1960s I suppose. I asked him to ask about Theroux.....but when he returned to the UK and I said 'What about Paul Theroux' he was recitent and said that no-one would say much about him. Since then I'm intrigued as to why not and where is Theroux!
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