Hello, Darlings! The Authorized Biography of Kenny Everett by James Hogg & Robert Sellers (Bantam, 2013) Kenny Everett once wrote an autobiography; or rather, he didn’t. It was ghost-written by a friend and Kenny didn’t even read it. He wasn’t interested in the past. For those who are, Hogg and Sellers’ comprehensively researched biography is well worth reading.
Tag: biography
Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly
Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly by John Gribbin (Icon, 2009) Rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly was only twenty-two when he died. Science writer (but music fan) John Gribbin therefore focuses much of this small, poignant biography on Holly’s songs and their composition. The end hangs untimely across any sense of celebration.
Orwell’s Cough
Orwell’s Cough: Diagnosing the Medical Maladies & Last Gasps of the Great Writers by John Ross (Oneworld, 2013) Whereas the medical diagnoses alone would have made for a much shorter book, (Dr) Ross has used the subject of medicine as a unifying theme by which to biograph and contextualise a dozen famous writers, astutely dissecting their lives and (squalid) times.…
The King’s Speech
The King’s Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi (Quercus, 2010) This significant if straightforward dual biography of speech therapist Lionel Logue and King George VI, supplemented by excerpts from both men’s correspondence, will be of particular interest to those familiar with the film but not the liberties this took in dramatising events.
42 Word Review: Seinfeld – the Making of an American Icon by Jerry Oppenheimer
Seinfeld: the Making of an American Icon; the Unauthorised Biography by Jerry Oppenheimer (HarperCollins, 2002) Further to Oppenheimer’s curious use of the definite article in prefacing ‘unauthorised biography’, Australians may question his authority, finding it difficult to read beyond the slipshod fact-checking (page seven) of placing Seinfeld’s father at a WWII army base in Rock Hampton [sic].