Hippy, Hippy Shake - The Beatles

Baby's in Black:
Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliff and The Beatles

Author: Arne Bellstorf
Pages: 199
ARC Acquired from: First Second via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
A fascinating, exhilarating portrait of the Beatles in their early years. 

Meet the Beatles . . . right at the beginning of their careers. This gorgeous, high-energy graphic novel is an intimate peek into the early years of the world’s greatest rock band. The heart of Baby’s In Black is a love story. The “fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, falls in love with the beautiful Astrid Kirchherr when she recruits the Beatles for a sensational (and famous) photography session during their time in Hamburg. When the band returns to the UK, Sutcliffe quits, becomes engaged to Kirchherr, and stays in Hamburg. A year later, his meteoric career as a modern artist is cut short when he dies unexpectedly. The book ends as it begins, with Astrid, alone and adrift; but with a note of hope: her life is incomparably richer and more directed thanks to her friendship with the Beatles and her love affair with Sutcliffe. This tender story is rendered in lush, romantic black-and-white artwork. 

Baby’s In Black is based on a true story.

Review:
You can probably tell that I am a huge music fan. Well, what you may not know is that I grew up a child of the 60s/70s so far as musical taste goes. Until sixth grade, I didn't really have a conception of 'modern music,' because I listened to what my parents listened to: oldies CDs and the oldies radio station, which tragically went out of business some time in high school. Although my tastes have diversified, I will always have a soft spot for music of that time period, and some of it will always be a favorite. Primary among my favorite bands, oldies or not, are The Beatles. Thus, upon spying this graphic novel about The Beatles in NetGalley, I just had to have it, and First Second was kind enough to approve me.

The cover is a bit misleading, though. The marketing makes this appear to be more about The Beatles than it actually is. The real story that the graphic novel is telling is that of the romance between Stuart Sutcliffe, bassist for The Beatles during the time when they were playing in Germany, and Astrid Kirchherr, a photographer. Reading real life love stories is always so charming, although they are not as neat and happy as fictional ones.

Now, I know I said that this isn't ABOUT The Beatles, but there is still so much to be learned about their early days in here. As a fan who doesn't research music history much, I found those details fascinating. The Beatles were implicated in a fire in Hamburg! Weird, right? One thing I learned, which I should have known, was that The Beatles smoked constantly. I mean, obviously I knew that, but, in my mind, no one smokes, so that reminded me why I would not want to go back in time and hang with The Beatles.

The one thing that I did not, personally care for was the artwork. It's very crude and simplistic, and just did not jive with me at all. However, I do imagine that Kirchherr would approve. Art is a very personal taste, so you should really take a look for yourself. It's just like what you see on the cover.

I wanted to know more and to test the accuracy, so I consulted my good friend Google and found this awesome article from the Daily Record, which pretty much sums up this period in the history of The Beatles, who thankfully changed their name from The Quarrymen. So cool! Also, I would recommend doing a search for Astrid and The Beatles, because you can see a bunch of pictures of her and pictures she took, which is just amazing.

A graphic novel weighing in at just 200 pages, this is a really easy read. Beatles fans, you should definitely check this out!

Rating: 4/5

Dawn of a New Day (Song of the World's Fair) - Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights

Love, Fiercely:
A Gilded Age Romance

Author: Jean Zimmerman
Pages: 289
ARC Acquired from: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley
 
Description from NetGalley:
For readers who savored The American Heiress, Jean Zimmerman recreates the glittering world of Edith Minturn and I. N. Phelps Stokes. Contemporaries of the Astors and Vanderbilts, they grew up together along the shores of bucolic Staten Island, linked by privilege—her grandparents built the world's fastest clipper ship, his family owned most of Murray Hill. Theirs was a world filled with mansions, balls, summer homes, and extended European vacations.

Newton became a passionate preserver of New York history and published the finest collection of Manhattan maps and views in a six-volume series. Edith became the face of the age when Daniel Chester French sculpted her for Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 as The Republic, a colossus intended to match the Statue of Liberty's grandeur.

Together they battled on behalf of New York's poor and powerless, as reformers who could never themselves want for anything. Through it all, they lived what might be the greatest love story never told.

From the splendid cottages of the Berkshires to the salons of 1890s Paris, Love, Fiercely is the real story of a world long relegated to fiction.

Review:
Love, Fiercely began with the painting that appears on the cover. Zimmerman started out researching I. N. Phelps Stokes because of her interest in his ponderous history of New York City he wrote. When she viewed John Singer Sargent's painting of the two, though, she became captivated by his wife, Edie (nicknamed Fiercely). Thus, her studies shifted, encapsulating their romance along with the gilded age of New York.

I do not often venture into nonfiction, despite the fact that I was a history major in school. While history itself is more often fascinating than not, historians are not necessarily good writers. Many nonfiction titles read like a catalog of facts, putting the reader to sleep immediately. Zimmerman, on the other hand, has a fanciful, very fiction-oriented style. Even those who ordinarily avoid nonfiction will probably enjoy Love, Fiercely.

Women end up wearing a lot of stupid things for fashion in the gilded age. Zimmerman outlines many that the Minturn girls suffered through, like corsets, absurdly large hats, leg of mutton sleeves (if you google those, the wikipedia result for 1890s fashion actually includes the famous picture of Edith and Newton), and droopy 'pouter pigeon' bosoms. What on earth does that last one mean, you might wonder. Well, I certainly did, since I don't know about any kind of pigeon except the regular ones that are everywhere, and they sure don't seem to look remotely bosom-y. I had to know, especially because I was shocked by the description of the bosoms as 'drooped at the perfect angle.' Here's what I found:

Style is for the birds.

Okay, so that is a pouter pigeon. Yikes, right? So, you're probably wondering now how this translates to clothing, and, no, it's not because the bosoms are so large that they look like birdie goiters. End result:

Bosoms: the new bellies.

Okay, that was fun, but I should probably review more than just two words of this book, huh?

What makes Edith so interesting is that she is such a strong woman. Before marriage, she posed for a sculpture, a big one, representing the public; this was rather scandalous, but she did not let it stop her. Unlike most women of her time, she felt no shame in waiting to marry until the age of 28. She even turned Nelson down the first time he proposed, unsure whether she wanted to give herself in marriage. Once married, she did take his name, but she maintained her control over her own money. Their relationship was a love match and based on equality and mutual respect.

The one thing that really bothered me about Zimmerman's account was her constant focus on the fact that their union was childless. She mentions that Edith must have wanted children, because that's what women were supposed to do back in the day. What I find odd is that she has no quotes from anyone at the time mentioning this desire for children. Also, the phrasing of it ("it would be natural for Edith to wish for children") seems to suggest that there is actually know way of knowing. If she is just making an assumption, why keep bringing it up like fact? And, if she truly believes Edith Stokes to be the new American woman, why is it so hard to believe that she might not want to be like every other woman and have children?

The Stokeses were instrumental in the evolution of New York. Newton was an architect, aside from his hobby of gathering historical views of Manhattan, and spent a lot of his career designing improved tenements. Edith was part of radical efforts too, like teaching unskilled immigrant women sewing or starting kindergartens.

Love, Fiercely is a fascinating look at turn of the century New York, although I might have been happier with a little less focus on Newton Stokes' book, especially given the fact that the title stresses the romance.

Rating: 3/5

"It's the dawn of a new day
Here we come young and old
Come to watch all the wonders unfold"

It's a Hard Life - Queen

David Copperfield

Author: Charles Dickens
Narrator: Charlton Griffin
Duration: 38 hrs, 55 mins
Publisher: Audio Connoisseur

Once again, I listened to the audiobook of this classic. Thank goodness for that, as I do not know whether I would have made it through the novel had I been reading it, or, if I did, it would have taken a matter of months. It's funny how though listening to audiobooks is slower than reading it can, at times, be much faster.

The reason this would have been a really slow novel for me to read was the complete lack of plot. It is the autobiographical fictional biography of the title character. He begins with his childhood and goes into his old age. There is no narrative to speak of. What I expected was that it would be about how David Copperfield overcame the incredibly evil Uriah Heep, since the only thing I knew about the novel was that he was the bad guy, but that's not really how it was.

While the story wasn't bad, and I am glad that I managed to get through it just because of its fame, I definitely was never anywhere close to loving it. I never connected with the characters and saw a lot of the plot twists coming from a ways away. If interested in Dickens, I would recommend instead the rather less well-known Bleak House (and watching the miniseries...so good!).

There are a number of audiobook versions of this novel, I do believe. I would certainly recommend this one, although I have not listened to the others, for one determined to get through the classic novel David Copperfield. For one thing, you get to listen to fancy classical music at the beginning and conclusion of each of the 60 chapters. I love that, although I do regret that an already incredibly long book is made longer. The production seems to have been fairly good, although they did miss editing quite a bit of Griffin's breathing.

Griffin does a really good job as a narrator, as his pompous voice fits quite well to the lofty air of Dickens' writing. He also is remarkable at doing voices, not to Robin Williams' level, but his various characters were generally quite distinct. In fact, many of the voices did not much resemble his his regular voice, so much so that it was sometimes difficult to believe that the whole thing was recorded by this one man.

Unfortunately, some of the voices were rather creepy or annoying. Uriah Heep, of course, is intentionally given an irritating, writhing voice, but creepiest by far is the voice he uses for young Davy Copperfield. I will be haunted by this voice for a while.

"Yes it's a hard life
In a world that's filled with sorrow
There are people searching for love in ev'ry way
It's a long hard fight
But I'll always live for tomorrow"

Kreutzer Sonata - Beethoven

Tolstoy:
A Russian Life

Author: Rosamund Bartlett
Pages: 454 (plus a hundred or so more in notes/bibliography)
ARC Acquired from:

As a history major in undergrad, I have some familiarity with history books such as this one. Many of them are painfully dry and dishearteningly long. Thankfully, since I was reading this for fun and not with the threat of a test to push me through, Bartlett's tome, while long (which is to be expected given the subject matter), proved to be pretty readable.

That is not to say, of course, that it was a speedy read. It was not, at least not for me. However, Bartlett is a good writer and she conveyed information in a logical order, something one does not always find in such books. Plus, Tolstoy's a pretty interesting guy to read about, even if he was a bit of a jerk (ex. his treatment of his wife, who was pregnant all the time from their marriage until she pretty much couldn't have kids anymore). Did you know his belief in nonviolent resistance was an inspiration to Gandhi? And that he was a huge proponent of vegetarianism?

Looking at this in terms of how useful it would be for a paper, I would give it pretty high marks, since, as previously mentioned, it is both well-written and a wealth of information. The one drawback I see is the construction of the chapters, many of which cover a couple different aspects of his life. For example, one chapter is entitled "Student, Teacher, Father" and another is "Landowner, Gambler, Officer, Writer." Honestly, I think it would have been better to break these up into their own chapters, since there tended to be a pretty obvious switch from one of the subjects to the next. This would serve two purposes: shortening the chapters and making it easier to locate what you're looking for in the text. Really long chapters are both depressing to a student and make it really hard to go back and locate that one quote that is crucial to proving your thesis.

Despite that, I would consider this a pretty awesome choice for your learning-about-Tolstoy needs, be they self-motivated or required for class.

Hit That - The Offspring

A Man of Parts

Author: David Lodge
Pages: 432
Review Copy Acquired from: Penguin

A Man of Parts is a fictional biography of author H.G. Wells. I did not go into this book knowing anything about H.G. Wells, except for his having written quite a few novels and his being one of the founders of the genre of science fiction. Given that, I cannot assert with complete assurance that the events related in Lodge's book are all faithful representations of the author's life, but I suspect they are. The extensive acknowledgements certainly suggest that Lodge did his research before writing the book, not that I would expect less.

Why, then, is this written as a novel, rather than a biography? My suspicion is that it is simply much more fun to write historical fiction than a strictly correct biography. Why? Because, had he written this as nonfiction, he would have been unable to put words into the mouths of the characters, and would have had to rely solely on, instead, the literature, letters and speeches of Wells. While that does a lot, it does not give the same freedom that the label of fiction does.

His Novels Were as Plentiful as His Mustache

This is my second experience with David Lodge, although my only successful one, as I gave up on the first book of The Campus Trilogy quite swiftly. I found the opening pages not at all to my liking and decided to move on. Lured by the interesting subject matter here, I could not resist requesting a copy of A Man of Parts. Thankfully, I found myself much more drawn to the book than I ever expected. The writing is excellent and what I learned completely shocking. Impressed by this one, I will definitely be giving The Campus Trilogy another go, especially since Penguin was kind enough to give me the new, completely gorgeous edition containing the whole of the trilogy with this book.

You may wonder why I found the contents of the novel so entirely shocking. That's because it turns out that H.G. Wells was one heck of a horndog. Seriously. He spent all of his time that was not devoted to writing pursuing sexual intercourse with various ladies, most of whom were many years his junior. Many of these sexual partners were authors like himself.

This Is the Face of a Man That Makes B*tches Crazy

Honestly, the descriptions of Wells' social life and his completely nutty (and hypocritical) opinions on sexual relations were the most intriguing part of the book. Wells espoused a belief in free love, although he did (mostly) attempt to only sleep with women he cared for, although, given the opportunity, any relatively good looking woman would do. (On one occasion, he even slept with a woman with a shriveled hand.)

Author Elizabeth Von Arnim - He Tapped That

At the same time, Wells fervently believed in the institution of marriage. He married twice (the first, which was to his cousin by the way, ended in divorce, since he wanted to marry his second wife, Jane). Both marriages were passionless, which increased his straying. Jane seems to have been okay with it, although certainly not thrilled. I imagine she was not as pleased with the arrangement as Wells seems to have believed. Despite his constant straying, Wells was remarkably constant to Jane, and never really wanted to leave her. Of course, his affairs also had other consequences, like babies and scandal. It's funny how this is never the part of history that you get to learn about in school.

Amber Reeves and Wells' Love Child #1

Lodge largely uses a pretty straightforward narrative style (third person, mostly following Wells' viewpoint). However, he occasionally switches to a very strange style, wherein H.G. Wells responds to some sort of interviewer. I'm not entirely sure what to make of these sections, but they did tend to be fascinating, since the voice really liked to probe Wells about the subjects he least wished to discuss. I suspect that this was either employed solely as a narrative device or, perhaps more likely, was used to depict Wells' dementia at the end of his life, as he tried to account for his behavior.

Author Rebecca West - That Too

While I did enjoy the novel, I will warn that it is not an especially quick read, or, at least, it was not for me. Nonetheless, I found it to be well worth the time, and, if you ever want to have your illusions of a classical author shattered, this is definitely the way to go.

"He said 'Now I'm on a roll
With all the girls I know'
His baby mama
She ain't so slow
He said 'Now I'm on a roll
With all the girls I know'
I know you wanna hit that
I know you wanna hit that, hit that
All of the world
Is getting way past me
Consequences are a lost party
That's the way
That's the way things go"

New Soul - Yael Naïm

Lily Renée, Escape Artist

Author: Trina Robbins
Illustrators: Anne Simmons & Mo Oh
Pages: 78 (for the story itself)
ARC Acquired from: Graphic Universe via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
Lily Renée grew up in Austria. Her childhood was a pleasant one until Hitler came to power, spreading his control into neighboring Austria. With that came the persecution of the Jews, including Lily and her family. She managed to escape as part of the Kindertransport in 1939. Eventually, she obtained a career in the comics industry.

Review:
One of my favorite historical time periods to read about and study is that of World War II. I also adore graphic novels, so when I saw this one I could not resist. This isn't one about plot or surprising the reader; the publisher's description, like mine, reveals the beginning, middle and end of her story. That's not really what it's about; instead, the focus is on the quality of life she experienced and the success she managed to acquire despite her many hardships.

The art in the novel is beautiful and feminine, looking a lot like a clothing catalog, the kind Lily herself posed for and drew for during her young adulthood. This style fits very well with the story, and gives it an upbeat feel that goes along with the overall message.

This tale touches on the Holocaust, but is not one to read if you want to find out about the many atrocities of that time period. It's just one Jewish woman's story, and she happens to have been, all things considered, very lucky, given what could have happened to her. I like the story for its viewpoint and because I learned about the Kindertransport.

I would definitely recommend this as a good entry into studies of World War II and the Holocaust for children, as it is not at all graphic and gives a basic overview of the timeline, explaining some basic vocabulary. The additional materials following the story itself would also be excellent for such a purpose.

"I'm a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake.
But why all this hate?"

Ghost Riders in the Sky - Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness

Author: Reinhard Kleist
Genre: graphic novels, biography
Pages: 221

Although this biography of Johnny Cash is divided into three sections of years in Cash's life, the graphic novel jumps in time. These jumps can be a bit confusing at times, but, by the end, I was able to put it all together. One of the really neat things Kleist did was to sometimes do a story within a story, where he would go into the plot of the songs for a couple of pages. I thought that was really unique and clever.

Certainly this graphic novel leaves a lot out, but I think Kleist did a great job capturing what Johnny Cash was like. Of course, I haven't read anything about Johnny Cash before (I've only seen the movie Walk the Line). Still, based on all of the awards it raked in, I would imagine that it is true to the soul of the man.

The illustrations, while not my favorite type of art, fit the subject matter perfectly. Cash is a man of grizzled, rough features; of pain and darkness; of complexity. He could not be pictured in a pretty style; this gritty artwork does the job. The only place that I didn't think it worked was in the brief section on his childhood. Kleist does not seem to be able to draw youthful people; everyone in the book looked at least 35, and a hard-living 35 at that.

Now I really want to go listen to some more Johnny Cash songs, as I have very few (and mostly just the super popular ones that he probably got really sick of). It's amazing that he was able to recover from his addiction and escape the omnipresent darkness.

"As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from Hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the Devil's herd, across these endless skies "