2 comments about How They Met: Famous Lovers, Partners, Competitors, and Other Legendary Duos.

1. This well done effort romps through many of the famous business and romantic pairings of history, and includes numerous photos too. The Roosevelts,Kennedys,Hitler and Eva,Romeo and Juliet,Sherlock & Dr. Watson, Proctor and Gamble, Bill and Hillary are among the high points. Most of the short essays are fine, but a few seem to cater to fly by night current partners who may not really make the grade! Where are Hewlett and Packard,Charles and Anne Lindbergh? Well, you cannot include everyone, one supposes!



2. For all those who have wondered how Antony & Cleopatra, Lucy & Desi, Sears & Roebuck, Liz & Dick, Smith & Wesson, Stanley & Livingstone, Napoleon & Josephine and countless other 'couples' first met, this book is just what the doctor ordered.
   
   Author Joel Green gives us the straight skinny on 80 famous couples - how they met and their subsequent fate. A few of the inclusions seem to run to "flavor of the month" - Brad & Jennifer, Ozzy Osbourne, etc. - or worse - does anyone really care how Roseanne and Tom Arnold got together?? - but it's all good, clean fun. And entertaining and informative!
   
   
   ***
   A suggestion to the author: Think sequel. Consider the following: George & Martha Washington, Lunt & Fontaine, Winston & Clementine Churchill, George & Libby Custer.

1 comments about I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch: A Fantastic Tale of Boys, Booze and how Wham! Were sold to China.

1. If you would have killed to be a fly on the wall during the inner workings of "Whamania," you absolutely must read "I'm Coming To Take You to Lunch A Fantastic Tale of Boys, Booze, And How Wham Were Sold To China." Simon Napier-Bell managed the group in their early days. They had signed a pretty bad record deal with Innervision for their debut album "Fantastic." "Fantastic" was a big hit in the UK spawning the hits, "Bad Boys," "Young Guns," "Wham Rap," and "Club Tropicana." Despite the hits, according to Napier-Bell the group were pretty broke. Despite not having hit the proverbial jackpot yet, Napier-Bell describes George Michael as being very business minded and suspicious at all times when it came to business. Although George was serious when it came to business, in the book George and Andrew are described as childhood friends who were so close it seemed they communicated in their own language with snickers and giggles tossed in. Napier-Bell assisted the group in their legal case which brought them into a deal straight with CBS. CBS signed them directly but it did not guarantee U.S. success as the label felt they were a UK act and Napier-Bell had to do a lot of convincing to sell them to the U.S., and he had to convince people that the poppy "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" was the right song.
   
   Despite this closeness, as Napier-Bell was making business moves trying to make Wham a success in the United States, George Michael was already planning for his solo career and the waters would be tested with a single titled "Careless Whisper."
   
   It's a really great book for the Wham! fan wanting to learn little details about the group that only a person on the inside would know. There is not much information about the groups personal life as far as relationships. There is a brief mention of Andrew dating one of the groups early backup singers and maybe a few other tidbits. What's amazing is that at the start of their international success George Michael wanted to end it all, according to the book.
   
   As for the group conquering China and becoming the first group to play in the communist nation, Simon Napier-Bell was planning the China trip for the group before they were international stars and it finally happened after years of business meetings and trips to China.
   
   It's a really great book and if you are a Wham! fan or someone interested in the music business you should check this book out.

5 comments about The Rise And Fall Of The Dillinger Gang.

1. Several books have been written about John Dillinger and his cohorts along with the recently published book entitled The Vendetta by Alston Purvis. Each of the books cover the same cast of characters and incidents such as the shootout at the Little Bohemia lodge in northern Wisconsin. Jeffery King's book does provide a great deal of information on the gang's members, but not anything different than what can already be found in numerous other books on this subject. King states that the Purvis family was "deeply upset" that Hoover ignored Melvin's death. However, in Alston Purvis's book "The Vendetta", in a telegram to Hoover after Melvin's death, his wife stated, "We are honored that you ignored Melvin's death. Your jealously hurt him very much..." I did find numerous spelling errors, the same word repeated in a sentence, word omissions, and incorrect words placed in sentences especially, but certainly not limited to, the chapter on Little Bohemia. In summary, while I found the book to be interesting, it doesn't have any information to speak of that can't be found in numerous other similar volumes. It also is in serious need of a proofreader.



2. This is not a book of rehashed material, as one recent reviewer complained. Little of the biographical material on John Dillinger is new--after all, millions of words were written in his own time, and the biographies continue to flow in--but there is a goldmine of new information on all the major members of the two Dillinger Gangs. As Bill Helmer comments on the back cover, "Dillinger didn't do it alone," and King's goal in this book was to cover the criminal backgrounds of John's accomplices, something no one has done before. And he succeeds remarkably well. The previously undocumented criminal careers of Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley, John Hamilton, Russell Clark, Tommy Carroll, Homer Van Meter, and Eddie Green are covered in great detail, and it makes for fascinating reading. Most of these men committed far more crimes, and over a wider geographic area, than the celebrated gang members, Dillinger and "Baby Face" Nelson. Pierpont, Carroll, or Makley alone would each be deserving case studies themselves for book length biographies. This book is destined to become a true crime classic at least for its in-depth study of the gang members. That much said, there are flaws, which cause me to dock a star: [1] Some obsolete legends from previous Dillinger biographers--notably Toland and Nash--are accepted uncritically; [2] Nelson's three-fingered getaway driver on the Grand Haven bank robbery is not likely to have been William "Three-Fingered Jack" White, whom King definitely identifies him to be. FBI files on the Grand Haven job mention White as a possible suspect but tend to rule him out and no certain identification was ever made; [3] King obviously missed the recent expanded paperback edition of the Girardin-Helmer work "Dillinger: The Untold Story". Otherwise he would know that the fake guns used in the Pierpont-Makley death house break were carved from soapstone, not soap as previously reported. But these are minor quibbles and no historical work of any kind has ever been without errors. This book is a good read and there are plenty of leads here for future researchers to pursue.



3. Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (8/06)
   
   "The Rise and Fall of the Dillinger Gang" is really interesting. Author, Jeffrey S. King, extensively researched the background of the Dillinger gang. He offers pictures, references, quotes from people and letters and the personal history of each person in the gang.
   
   Dillinger himself was either seen as "Public Enemy Number One" or he was viewed as a modern day Robin Hood. The later comparison was actually really sad because while he wasn't robbing from the poor, he was responsible for the beatings and or deaths of several people, including many law enforcement officers. This gang robbed stores, theaters, banks, and raided police stations to help some of the members escape including Dillinger himself.
   
   Dillinger's criminal career started early. He was locked up from 1924 to 1933. He got out and continued his crime sprees. Some of his family members felt that he continued his life of crime because his first prison sentence was unfairly too long. His numerous attempts at escaping prison continued to add to his sentence. His family should have looked at why he was locked up in the first place. He was truly a career criminal and did not seem to want any other life.
   
   From his prison release in May of 1933 to when he was gunned down on July 22, 1934, Dillinger's gang was responsible for killing about 16 people and robbing 20 banks. Eleven of these people were law enforcement officers.
   
   Other members in the gang's lives are also reviewed in this book. This includes: George "Baby Face" Nelson (Lester Gillis), Harry Eugene "Eddie" Green, Homer Van Meter, Harry Pierpont, Charley Makley, Russell Lee Clark, John Hamilton, and Thomas Carroll. You will learn everything about their upbringings, their relationships, and their demises.
   
   Included in some of the photos are pictures of several of gang members after they were killed. This includes Dillinger's photo. It is unsettling to see these pictures, but what I feel was more unsettling are the smiling faces of several of the people posing in the background photos around the bodies. Because of his notoriety, Dillinger had 15,000 people view his body at the morgue.
   
   I highly recommend this book to history or biography buffs. In addition to learning about the career criminal lives of these men, you get a really good feel for what society was like at the time. You also learn about how the FBI got start and J. Edgar Hoover's role at the time.



4. If you just want the facts about the Dillinger Gang then this is the book for you. The books flows smoothly and is easy to read, individual chapters are allocated to each gang member which details their family life, upbringing and their drift into a life of crime. Many of them lost one or both parents very early in life, maybe this pushed them over the edge to crime l do not know, but low paying, mundane jobs were not an option for the Dillinger gang.
   
   Van Meter, Nelson and Pierpont were vicious, nasty creatures who seemed born for the prison yard, although evidence is presented that Pierpont was never the same after he was beaned on the head by a baseball bat, it is claimed he suffered from periods of insanity. Makely seems to have been a enough nice fellow he just enjoyed robberies along with the money and lifestyle it bought. Makely reflecting in the book said that a life dedicated to honesty would lead to the poverty he saw in his father's lifestyle which to him was a waste of a life!
   
   Many bizarre moments of the criminals lives are in the book, a milk bottle is thrown at the Dillinger gang while exiting from one of their robberies and Van Meter escaping from the police by jumping on an untended wagon pulled by horses and whipping the horses into a gallop as he and the wagon tore down the street to a successful escape! Nelson, sitting in a hotel room enjoying the rantings and ravings of Van Meter (no love lost between these two) who was distraught at the look of his face after plastic surgery.
   
   Overall a good introduction to the Dillinger gang with a lot of details on the type of tension filled lives they lead.



5. A bland but well documented chronicle of John Dillinger's criminal associates. The author provides everything you might possibly care to know about the supporting players in the Dillinger saga. Mr. King spent twenty-five years as a reference librarian for the U.S. Census Bureau, and perhaps that's part of my problem with this narrative. Although I am sure many might disagree, there were times I felt I were reading a tersely worded, formal report as opposed to a well-written compilation of the events which took place during the gang's "reign of terror." The research in and of itself had to be an exhaustive undertaking, and for that Mr. King should be commended for a job well done. Similar in some respects to Myron J Quimby's "The Devil's Emissaries," published some years ago.

5 comments about Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire.

1. If you want a quick and easy broad overview of Soros then this is your book, but I would recommend Soros on Soros as being more useful at understanding the man.
   
   Also if you're a trader, don't even waste your time on this book. Get Alchemy of finance. This book is a fairly quick read but as you can imagine with a man like Soros, any authorised book is going to be mostly flattery.
   
   But it has it's amusing moments and some good pictures. I wouldn't pay more than $5 though for it. Then you can chuck it like a magazine when you're done.



2. Soros is an enigma, and you'd expect to know more about this man when you bought this book. Indeed, you would, this book gives you a clear history of this man, from his childhood to his vision to his philantrophic reasons.
   
   However, if you buy a book on Soros, you'd probably want to know a lot about what made Soros famous in the first day: The Black Wednesday, in which Soros gambled on the depreciation of British Poundsterling against the Bank of England and won US$1 billion, making his known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England."
   
   Unfortunately, there is only a short chapter on this, even though I would bet people would be more curious on this than Soros's childhood days.
   
   The author also speculated that the Queen of England profitted from the loss of the Bank of England, but it sounds more like a rumor because he could not confirm if there was some truth in it.
   
   Anyway, this book is still good if you want to know abot Soros, but moves very slowly.



3. This should be the real title. How many people does George have to screw over before the world wakes up and realizes that this guy is just one big rat!



4. If you have read any of Chernow's biographies, such as JP Morgan or Rockefeller, and love history, then read this book. This is not a book to learn how Soros invests.
   
   This is not a book that will teach you about fixed income, equities, derivatives, or how to hedge. If you want to sell short...go to the finance section of Amazon and buy a finance book.
   
   This is a brilliant biography about George Soros. You learn about his life, how he grew up, where he went to school. How his character was formed...the events that helped form his work ethic, his philosophy about world markets and peak into how he may think.
   
   You aren't going to get under the hood of his brain, but you will get to the core of what matters to this famous man and why. Brilliantly done!



5. I did not get very far into this book before deciding that it was one of the most boring accounts I have ever read. I will donate my copy to a charity book sale and seek information elsewhere.

No comments about 1000 Erotic Works of Genius.

No comments about Rasputin - The Mad Monk (Biography).

No comments about The Celebrity Culture Reader.

No comments about Good Guys Finish First: Reflections Of A CEO And How To Start A De Novo Community Bank.

No comments about The Palace Diaries: The True Story of Life at the Palace by Prince Charles Secretary.

4 comments about The Most Beautiful Man in the World: Paul Swan, from Wilde to Warhol.

1. When I read the review in the Hollywood Reporter, I figured the book was worth a look. Indeed, it was. I can't say it better than HR: The book should have screen actors guild members "turning pages with one hand and dialing their agents with the other." This is a visual book, filled with images. There is a lot of power is this crazy artist's life. --Another artist.



2. If this were fiction, it would almost be unbelievable. As a biography, it's simply fascinating to read what he did, who he knew, and how he survived during that time in history. An excellent exploration of art, sexuality, personality. You will burn through it.



3. I have had the privilege of working with Janis and Richard Londraville as an intern, and as a gift for assisting them with the exhibition of Paul Swan's works that Janis is curating at the SUNY Potsdam campus, I recieved an autographed copy of their book. I simply couldn't put it down! The authors did an amazing job of telling the story of Paul Swan, and after I'd finished the book, I felt as if I'd known the artist for years. This is a wonderful, amazing book and I'm glad I got the opportunity to work with the authors on an exhibit of Paul Swan's works. Everyone should read this book!



4. I have a feeling this book will continue to draw acclaim as the months and years go by, for it must be the standard biography for some time to come. Drawing on a wealth of material from the artist's family, Janis Londraville and Richard Londraville have managed to animate a long forgotten story, and it has made me completely interested in Paul Swan's works in all their guises. It's hard to imagine today the ease with which Paul Swan seems to have said to himself, "Well, painting is only making me this famous, I think I'll add another string to my bow and become an interpretative dancer"? How often does that happen, and how often does any arrist excel in both wildly competitive fields?
   
   Janis Londraville and Richard Londraville hint that Swan's good looks helped him along here and there. With so many photos of him spread throughout the book, a concordance of beauty begins to take shape in the reader's mind. Is he the "most beautiful man in the world" as his press agents claimed? It's a type of good looks you don't see very much today, or if you do, you see them in leading men who are just average looking--say, the Bill Pullman look. (Take a gander at the book jacket photo.) But Swan knew how to work his look, and he studied the Egyptian arts of presentation, so that his dances resembled early versions of Madonna's "Vogue" movements, with hand manipulations framing the face, the body, the long legs and the cinched in waist. He could have been a contender in the movies, but alas, he let the camera come close a little too late (he was already 40 when he played a herald in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (first version) by Cecil B. DeMille. In fact his age was always getting in his way, like a clumsy, ardent teenage boy stumbling over his erection. In old age he was still performing his "Grecian" and "classic" dances in which, apparently, he would dance off his seven veils and at the end reveal the original naked body Isadora Duncan had fondled way back in the day. In his prime, when he went to Greece, Greek newspapers claimed that their statuary had come to life and was walking in American clothes! "See him and then see our marbles! Is he not the Hermes of Praxiteles come to life again? Or is he Antinous?"
   
   He was sort of a dramatic Paul Lynde sort of queen except without a sense of humor, and not much of a dad to his two long suffering daughters. The authors luckily had his unpublished memoirs to draw on, and they are adept in art criticism to a scary extent, coming close to persuading me that Paul Swan's painting is necessary, like Thomas Hart Benton or Jackson Pollock. At any rate he is an American Rousseau, for good or bad, and I would love a companion volume with full color plates of all his surviving work, And what a shame that the authors worked hard interviewing nearly every available witness who knew the old man, and in a touching vignette they report that one, the actress Lisan Kaye, who posed as the Empress Theodora in 1944 for Swan, can't remember him at all, trapped as she is in her Alzheimer's disease. Something very Swanlike about that inability.
   
   Do the authors cheat in subtitling their book "from Wilde to Warhol," considering that Swan actually never did meet Oscar Wilde? Yes, a little, I think, but it suits the carnival barker aspect of their subject, for whom no publicity was bad publicity.