The author delivered a beautiful portrait of Margery Williams
593944
The story line was fascinating because it was based on an obscure family and their achievements. Who knew? The author delivered a beautiful portrait of Margery Williams, her husband, Francesco Bianco and of their amazingly talented daughter, Pamela. The satellite characters, such as Pablo Picasso and Eugene O Neill, are woven into a rich story.  Margery Williams was a successful author,  but, the story belongs to her daughter. The focus is  on Pamela, an artist who bloomed early, with much  success at a young age. Sadly, that success did not translate to a happy life. Laurel Huber Davis has given us a fascinating read , which is highly reccomended.
1824352
This is a gorgeous book, lavishly illustrated by the author, a British countryside artist and cartoonist.

Thelwell and his wife were able to buy and restore a watermill and cottage in Cornwall. He describes the stumbling blocks of irregular builders, obstinate cattle, overgrown roads and odd villagers. As an artist and a fisherman he loved the site at once and was determined to stop the buildings from collapsing.

We hear some adventures with his fishing friends and his artist and boules playing friends. The two didn't really mix because he couldn't get either kind of work done if he tried to do both. The fairy pools in his little river were narrow banked and hemmed with trees and bushes, sometimes mild and sometimes in flood. A six-foot rod was required so as not to get caught up in trees.

One pal knew how the watermill had worked and was able to sort out the jumble of stones, gears, shafts, belts, hoppers, nails and so on to help establish what had been the operating system, while the breast-shot mill wheel was restored.

We also hear a little of the author's life and the state of Britain at the time - villages had been emptied with the Industrial Revolution, but now city people wanted to move back to the country, only to bulldoze many charming cottages. Some people were quietly buying up cottages, old churches and other buildings and restoring their beauty. I enjoyed this kind of detail a lot. As I am a nature lover I also loved the nature notes. Overall this is a fascinating book and I laughed aloud several times.
435395
Mona Golabek pays tribute to her late mother, Lisa Jura Golabek, in The Children of Willesden Lane.  With co-author Lee Cohen, Golabek alludes to Lisas idyllic childhood in Vienna before the Nazis came to power. She was a musical prodigy who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist and, since her tenth birthday, had studied with the demanding Professor Isseles.  The day came, however, when the professor sadly informed Lisa, who was then fourteen, that the Nazis had passed an ordinance making it a crime to instruct Jewish children. It soon became obvious to Malka and Abraham, Lisas parents, that the German occupiers were tightening their noose around the necks of Viennas Jews. In 1938, the Juras decided to send their middle daughter to England on the Kindertransport.

This book traces Lisa Juras physical and emotional journey. We meet the people who fed, clothed, and sheltered her, as well as the boys and girls who befriended her.  Lisa never forgot her mothers words:  Hold onto your music. It will be your best friend in life.  To earn money, Lisa worked as a maid and later as a seamstress in a garment factory. She found a haven in a hostel located in Londons Willesden Lane; lived through the Blitz; fell in love; entertained others with her piano playing; and prayed that she would be reunited with her family after the war. Golabeks heart-wrenching and poignant anecdotes enable us to appreciate Lisas hardships, challenges, and achievements.

The Children of Willesden Lane would be an ideal selection for young adults readers. Teenagers will identify with this lovely, talented, and courageous young lady who maintained her poise through difficult times and derived inspiration from such great composers as Beethoven, Chopin, and Grieg. In her preface, the author informs us that some of her mothers recollections were clouded by time and certain characters are amalgamations. Still, Golabek assures us that the book as a whole is faithful to the spirit of her mothers remarkable story.
191258
Emily Fox Gordon has brought my childhood home, Williamstown, back in full technicolor. This is a beautiful, true painting of what it was like to live in a small, New England college town in a more innocent age. A lovely book. I bought an extra copy for the casts of my plays that are set in Williamstown (THE POWER OF BIRDS and SUKI LIVINGSTON OPENS LIKE A PARACHUTE) so the actors could get an honest feeling for what it was like to be a child there.
842559
Frances Barth, esteemed veteran painter, performer, educator, videographer, has made a really beautiful book. The narrative is funny, enigmatic, and has its own "trueness". It blends text and image in surprising ways. And the production is tops.
1127755
This is a beautiful book. It made me appreciate an early life of poverty which was filled with loving people nonetheless, in a way that I did not think possible. My only disappointment was with the part where Cathal returns from London. It felt like only part of the story was told there, probably to the author as well as the audience. I am glad that he did return to his beloved home though and that it his work drinks deeply from that well of beauty.
3209047
As a long-time fan of Robert McCloskey's wonderful works, I find this memoir by his daughter Jane to be a rare and wonderful glimpse into the lives behind the books. It is an astonishingly candid portrait from inside a family that many of us may have wondered about. At the core of the book is a lovely selection of sketches, illustrations, and paintings by Mr. McCloskey, all beautifully printed on a fine paper. Jane's widely varied gathering of recollections form the narrative of the book, which at times becomes deeply and unhesitatingly personal. I found it to be a surprising, quirky, and interesting read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know a little more about life in the McCloskey family. This is one daughter's memoir; it's not a biography, and it's more intimate than it is exhaustive. But if you love Robert McCloskey's work, you will find Jane's book illuminating, and the illustrations alone are worth perusing again and again. My most serious complaint, in fact, is that I wish the illustrations -- especially the paintings he created for pleasure -- had been captioned. I would have been grateful to read more about them. But I'm glad to have learned what I did from the book, and glad to have it on my shelves.
1691492
A Fatal Likeness tells the story of Claire Clairmont, Percy and Mary Shelley. A trio of unconventionals who form as vile a threesome as anyone can conjure. The novel is told through a fictional investigator, Charles Maddox, who by his own curiosity listens in turns to the accounts of the two women involved in Shelleys life; Claire and Mary. We are taken into each of their corners, our sympathies swinging back and forth, as each of Shelleys loves tells their side.

Shepherds book is not only a well-crafted page turner, but she has also penned a first class biopic of the Romantic poet to boot. Shelley fans might be surprised by this truthful depiction of the man but must submit to the history and facts that support it. A glossed over version of Shelley wouldnt have been nearly as entertaining. Devotees of Mary Shelley, who is regarded as a pioneer in her field, will also be in for a bit of a shocker. But Marys character is founded on the woman herself. A woman who ran off with a man that abandoned his wife and children. A woman who stayed with Shelley even while he conducted an affair with her stepsister, Claire. In the exercise of candor, Shepherd has wrung a riveting story from these literary figures.
1185556
This book is a first class biography delivered almost as a novel, in its attractive writing, strong characters and the plot of a remarkable woman's journey through life.  Let me declare at once that the book was bought for me, as a Christmas present, by kind relatives who know my fascination with history and especially anything revolving around Napoleon.  So I was delighted with the present, but also delighted with the book as a piece of scholarship, and also as a beautiful item in its own right: lavishly illustrated with well-researched images that are pleasing in themselves as not being 'the usual suspects' but freshly-discovered prints, diagrams and photos, offered up by an author who has really done her research.  Well done indeed, and an asset to the library of any historian, or anyone who just likes a good read.
3060672
A rare history, written by an artist whose artful touch is felt throughout.
2324781
This story behind the great author is a beautifully wrought and in-depth portrait that sweeps forward from her birth and through the landscape of her life, but also fills in the picture with details of her parents' lives as well.

In the context of what was going on historically, Louisa May Alcott's success is even more awesome.  She grew up in a time where women were not yet given the voice.  Later in her adulthood, she would jump onto that cause, as well, struggling to help women obtain the vote.

Her childhood, bleak with poverty, with a father who was absent more often than not--with his own philosophical leanings toward Transcendentalism, a cause that consumed him, along with others--but her mother was very present, albeit struggling at times to feed and clothe the family.  Louisa's mother Abby lost several children in miscarriage and stillbirth, before she finally had all four girls.

What strikes me most about this wonderful biography is how Louisa finally created such a wonderful portrait of genteel poverty for her Little Women characters, polishing up her own story and embellishing it so that it would be more palatable--illuminating each family member, including her absent father, in a more favorable light.

But before we even got to Little Women, there were the years of struggle, with the compulsive writer churning out pulp fiction, adventure stories, poetry, and whatever she could sell...sometimes for just a few dollars.  But she always sent money home from wherever she was--Boston, usually.  She went back and forth between various boarding houses or garrets to the home in whatever village her mother was living.  Her life was characterized by much instability, with more than thirty moves in her childhood alone.

This tale also includes scenes from the Civil War years, when Louisa worked as a nurse until she finally had to come home (after three years) due to exhaustion and illness.

Like many writers, Louisa used her own life experiences to fuel her work, and what she hadn't experienced personally, she filled in with what she gleaned from reading.

There was so much wonderful information in&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Louisa-May-Alcott-The-Woman-Behind-Little-Women-John-MacRae-Books/dp/0805082999/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (John MacRae Books)</a>&nbsp;that sometimes I felt bogged down in the details of the early years, but as soon as she began to achieve success and had written Little Women, the story soared for me.  I loved reading about how she wrote that book, how she finally came to write the others, and even about how she finally began to enjoy the fruits of her labor with trips to Europe.

Although I knew that she would die eventually, I felt sad when it happened.  As if a great light had been extinguished, and to realize, too, that she died at a relatively young age (56).

I am still amazed, though, at how her books are still out there for all of us to enjoy.  I loved them as a child and I'll be rereading them again in the next few weeks.

Definitely five stars for this story of a major talent.
1676698
Lyle Leverich, a theatre artist himself, paints (with the participation of the late "Tom" himself) an intricate, sensitive and compelling portrait of the closest The United States has come to producing her own Shakespeare.
Tennessee Williams' ability to place passionate and visual poetry into the mouths of the commoner and gentry alike makes his work, in my opinion the finest ever produced by an American playwright. The towering and beautiful fragile characters of his plays combined with his devotion to the utter magic the physical theatre provides, allowed America through Tennessee Williams to finally place itself rightly next to Ibsen, Strinberg, Chekov and The Bard himself.
Of course "Tom" did not develop in a vacume and what Leverich provides here in this excellent biography wrapped in the guise of a psychological thriller worthy of so great an object, is a portrait of a man often crippled by acute sensitivity who saw the writing muse as a means for survival. Leverich manages to paint the man behind the myth, bring him down into a real space and time while also managing to lift him to the angels.
This is one of the greatest biographies ever written about a theatre artist- of which Williams was a supreme being. I, and many others, eagerly await volume two.
931111
"Wolf Hall: a Novel" delves into the period of English history that coincides with the remarkable rise of Thomas Cromwell, and the decline and fall of the other Thomas, surnamed Moore.  The book is a cut above many of the novels written about the period.  It is not a romance, although Ill-fated Ann Boleyn ultimate seduction of Henry VIII is vividly brought to life as are the discarded, still popular Queen Kathryn and the Princess Mary.  Yet the character that is most vividly brought to life is Thomas Cramer, his probable motivation and his fears.  Whether completely accurate historically or simply a fiction, he lives and breathes in these pages.
The author's style takes some getting used to, but once one grasps it, the beauty of the written word shines through.
2925632
Everyone knows the sad story of Lady Jane Grey, of the nine-day rule, in Tudor times.  This book tells not just her story, but the tale of her two sisters:  beautiful, vivacious Katherine and sharply intelligent but physically deformed Mary.  Mary tells this story poignantly.  The three sisters have a close bond that is consistently broken by tragedy.  Many characters the reader comes to like are brought down through execution or disgrace, which reminds us of the harsh justice of that era when people were ruthlessly seeking to gain or retain power.  Interestingly, for me the least lovable character is Jane herself, who comes across as a sexually repressed religious lunatic who fights tooth and nail (and I mean that literally) to avoid marriage or anything to do with romantic intimacies.  Still, it's sad to see how she's abused by her mother - who sounds the Mommy Dearest of the Tudor era - and used as an innocent pawn in the family's quest for the throne of England.

I enjoyed this way more than I expected to - once begun, the book is hard to put down.  Some readers may be put off by Ms. Purdy's endless sentences, but they are so rich with historical detail that this can be forgiven.  It's clear she did extensive research, particularly on the clothing of the era.  Her lush descriptions of the gorgeous, lavishly embroidered fabrics worn by the wealthy are almost mouthwatering.  Her only misstep perhaps is the depiction of an enormous bouquet an admirer of Kate's gathers for her one day in a beautiful garden - a garden in which blooms of all seasons apparently grow together.  Spring daffodils and late-summer goldenrod blossoming at the same time!? I don't think so.  But the author's descriptive powers of even this are so vivid that I have to let that go and live in the lovely fantasy....Highly recommended for those who love historical fiction from a woman's point of view.
193588
I had previously read Montville's biography and was not sure Bradlee could add much to my knowledge. As a person who idolized Williams as a player, named his firstborn son Theodore, and has the Red Sox logo tattooed on my right calf, I found Bradlee's book to be a much more somber and complete reflection upon Ted's story.
  Since Bradlee waited for an extended period following Ted's demise before finishing this book he was able to present a much more nuanced portrait of Ted's life and the darker side of his character than did Montville. His depiction of Williams' later years was greatly enhanced by his access to family members who were no longer hesitant to mention Williams' numerous foibles. This book must certainly serve as the ultimate record of that long and controversial life.
  As an individual approaching the final chapter of my own journey, the book caused me to consider what constitutes a truly successful life. At the very end of his life Ted fondled one of his old bats and mused to a visitor "...once I was a ballplayer." Whether that poignant legacy is sufficient each reader is left to ponder.
4930177
Philippa Gregory has written not so much a novel as a character study. Margaret Beaufort is a woman whose great piety is matched only by her overwhelming spiritual pride. She believes that she and God are destined to put her son on the throne of England, against all odds. Her obsession with Henry's prayed-for victory masks her own ambition for herself. Margaret's seething resentment against the beautiful reigning queen (portrayed earlier in the book The White Queen) and her equally gorgeous daughter eat her alive. Nothing will do but that God answer her prayers and put her in the position of Queen Mother - and able to bring down those she loathes. Ms. Gregory acknowledges in her note at the end of the book that Margaret becomes the "mother-in-law from hell". Why do I find this easy to believe? And yet in the end, the reader has to admire Margaret's relentless drive and faith that she will ultimately prevail. Great book!
4399764
This is a wonderful book about a splendid artist/writer who spoke to us nature lovers through her work.  The book contains not only pictures of Peter and friends but early photos of Beatrix and her life and surrounding  English countryside.  One can  feels a kinship with her, wishing she was your next door neighbor.
Her love of the hills and dales of the Lake District transfers to readers of the book, wishing that we could go and spend time in this wonderful part of  England.  Sylvia Farrer-Bornarth