What causes a horror manga author to get into horror? In Uncanny: The Origins of Fear, we see (through vivid drawings) that it started with an outdoor toilet. The book is largely text but does include a few illustrations too. It begins as Junji Ito’s autobiography written in first person.Continue Reading
I so wanted to like Chris Stein’s, the guitarist from Blondie, autobiography, Under a Rock. Unfortunately, from my perspective, it needed both editing down and fleshing out. The author includes a lot of details about his childhood, 30% of the book, that didn’t add much to his story. When heContinue Reading
The Sex Pistols were a phenomenon that popped up about the same time as disco began in the mid to late 1970s. There truly couldn’t be two more opposite styles. For angry young people upset about inflation and no jobs, punk was the perfect way to release their frustration thatContinue Reading
I’m not even from the East Coast but I remember Crazy Eddie from the satires of him on Saturday Night Live. I never heard that his whole empire was based on scams until I read Retail Gangster. As a former internal auditor, I found this book a hoot! You canContinue Reading
I love the introductions written by this author for the golden age mysteries published by British Library Crime Classics, but they always leave me wanting more. This book, The Life of Crime, includes all the details and backstories I have been wanting on famous, and not so famous, mystery writers.Continue Reading
I love Vivian Leigh, the actress. But now, after reading Truly, Madly, I admire her courage in going all out for her dreams despite serious mental health issues. Vivian and Laurence Olivier had a real love story—not just a Hollywood romance. And, unfortunately, not all real-life stories have a happyContinue Reading
Banksy: Completed is, of course, about Banksy the provocative street artist. The book attempts, rather well I think, to explain how art critics view art differently from the public. And critics have almost unanimously hated Banksy from the start. It also investigates the nature of art itself. Can graffiti evenContinue Reading
While Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is being marketing to African-American children, everyone will benefit from reading these inspiring stories. Every vocation and sport is included here. There are LGBTQ+, bi-racial women, and various nations represented as well as the Muslim faith. Each of the 100 biographies is aContinue Reading
Two British soldiers are held in a remote Turkish prisoner of war camp during World War I. One day, they hatch a remarkable escape plan. First, they convince their captors that a Ouija board works to reach the spirit world. Then, the “spirits” tell the guards to take the prisonersContinue Reading
Patricia Highsmith was by all accounts a horrible person, who was beset with Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires. Patricia was a drunk racist anti-Semite. She drank from morning to night. She stated that “black men become physically ill if they did not have sex many times a month” and wereContinue Reading
If you are old enough to remember when vinyl records were the only choice to buy music, you, like me, will love the behind-the-scenes rock music production stories included in the excellent Sonic Boom. In 1958, Jack Warner started Warner Bros Records to cash in on the profits that theContinue Reading
Dolly Parton is an Unlikely Angel and a prolific songwriter. She has written literally thousands of songs. In fact, she vows, “I write everyday. I will do that till the day I die, whether anybody buys them or hears those songs till after I’m dead. I’m dead serious about myContinue Reading
Lon Chaney Speaks more than ninety years after his death in this excellent graphic novel biography. Lon Chaney was famous for his ability to turn himself into completely different looking, and scary, monsters. Everyone knows his iconic Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame. But some of hisContinue Reading
In the 1940s and 1950s, mental health issues were often ignored. A Japanese artist named Kusama heard voices, had panic attacks, and suffered from hallucinations. Why? It is a chicken and an egg question. Did Kusama’s mental health issues drive her mother to be strict? Or did her mother’s harshContinue Reading
“January 10. Got up. Went to Twickenham. Rehearsed until lunchtime. Left The Beatles. Went home.”—George Harrison’s diary of the first split up of The Beatles in 1969 from And in the End, a book about the band’s breakup. Was it really Yoko who split up The Beatles? Well, she certainlyContinue Reading
Oscar Heinrich was an American Sherlock Holmes. Though he believed Holmes used intuition rather than science to solve his cases. Heinrich opened the first private crime lab in the US. He invented blood-splatter analysis and ballistics while proving that a fingerprint could be relied on as evidence. American Sherlock isContinue Reading