Showing posts with label Biography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biography. Show all posts

Monday 6 November 2023

Book Review: Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick De Semlyen

 Wild and Crazy Guys

by

Nick De Semlyen

How the Comedy Mavericks of the 80's Changed Hollywood Forever

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Imprint: Picador
Publication date: 11th June 2019
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 336
RRP: $12.99AU (eBook)
Source: Courtesy of the publisher
 

Review: Wild and Crazy Guys

I'm sure Wild and Crazy Guys will be enjoyed by anyone interested in celebrity and film trivia.
 
The book follows the careers of well-known Hollywood stars Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and John Candy from the early days of Saturday Night Live (SNL), an American live television sketch comedy variety show, to the many movies the actors appeared in.
 
Nick De Semlyen provides a no holds barred behind the scenes look at the friendships, the rivalries, the bust-ups and the tantrums as the book covers their careers during the 70's and 80's.
I didn't know any of the 70's movies mentioned but I did know the actors and the 80's movies they starred in and it was interested to learn how the ideas came up for these movies.

The author describes the inspiration behind many of the movies and comedy acts, detailing not only the successes but also the flops. Many of which were conceived in a drug-fuelled haze.

The book is set out like a documentary, with interviews from the stars themselves, flashbacks and pages of colour-plate photos.

If you are after a bit of nostalgia or are just curious to find out what the comedy of the 80's was all about, Wild and Crazy Guys will not disappoint.

My rating 4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Challenges: Non-Fiction reading challenge
                    TBR challenge

Monday 12 September 2022

Book Review: The School by Brendan James Murray

 The School: The ups and downs of one year in the classroom
by
Brendan James Murray

One teacher. One school. One year.

 
Imprint: Picador Australia
 
Publication date: 25th May 2021
 
Genre: Non-Fiction / Biography 
 
Pages: 416
 
RRP: $ 34.99AUD
 
Format read: Paperback
 
Source: Courtesy of the publisher
 
My review of The School
 
Brendan James Murray has been a high school teacher for over a decade. In The School he combines students and events from his vast teaching career into one year at a Government high school situated on the Victorian coast.
 
Murray includes moments from his own life as a student filled with self doubt and bullying as the story moves from present day to his own days at school. His obvious affection for his students shines through as he talks about a myriad of students that come and go through his teaching life and the ones that made a lasting impression. 
 
I didn't agree with all of Murray's thoughts on the education system but I must admit I was nodding along to many of his words.
 
Highly recommended reading for all teachers and parents of teenagers. Adolescence is a hard road and for some teens their teachers are the only positive role models they have. It was encouraging to read about a teacher who is so passionate about his role, not only as a teacher but also as a mentor to these children.
 
The School is an insightful and, at times, heart-wrenching account of life in a secondary school. 
 
My rating 4 / 5  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 
About the author
 
Photo credit: Yanni
Brendan James Murray is an award-winning author and teacher. He has twice received National Literary Awards from the Fellowship of Australian Writers for his short stories, and his first book The Drowned Man, was joint winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime in 2017. His second book, the critically acclaimed Venom, was featured in the ABC's Conversations program as part of the 'Best of 2018' series. He lives in the Mornington Peninsula with his wife, who is also a teacher.





Friday 12 June 2020

Book Review: War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott

War Doctor
by
David Nott
Surgery on the Front line



Publisher: Pan Macmillan 
Imprint: Picador
Publication date: 26th February 2019
Genre: Memoir / Non Fiction
Pages: 320
RRP:  $29.99AUD
Format read: Trade paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world's most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.

The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.

Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster - was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.



David Nott has written a compassionate story of his years as a volunteer surgeon working in hospitals around the world in war torn areas in Afghanistan, Sarajevo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Darfur, Yemen and Gaza. Operating in poorly equipped hospitals with the most basic of instruments.

Nott didn’t come from a privileged background. He describes his sometimes harsh and lonely upbringing. He has achieved his accomplishments through hard work and perseverance. There were wins and failures along the way.
It’s hard for a book like this, with David in the centre of some quite political wars, to not be political however he steers clear of taking sides giving the reader facts and eye witness accounts.

David Nott comes across as humble and sensitive. The inhumanity he witnesses has a profound effect on him and he finds it hard to fit back into normal life. Nott explains his need to help people and the pull to be amidst the trouble and constant danger of a war zone, operating while missiles are reigning down and during sudden blackouts. Survival sometimes was just pure luck.

War Doctor is a fascinating and humbling account of a doctor’s life in a war zone. Written with real compassion for all humankind. David Nott is a true humanitarian.

An emotional afterword by David’s wife Eleanor is filled with love and pride.

  My rating 4.5/5           ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Photo credit Goodreads


David Nott is a Welsh consultant surgeon, specializing in general and vascular surgery. He works mainly in London hospitals, but for more than twenty-five years he has also volunteered to work in disaster and war zones. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours and in 2016 he received the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award and the Pride of Britain Award. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters. 

 




Monday 18 November 2019

Book Review: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang #BRPreview

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister
by
Jung Chang

Three Woman at the heart of Twentieth-Century China


Publisher: Penguin Books Australia 
Imprint: Jonathon Cape
Publication date: 15th October 2019 
Genre: Biography / Historical
Pages: 400
RRP: $35.00 AUD
Format read: Uncorrected proof paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Bettter Reading

 



The best-known modern Chinese fairy tale is the story of three sisters from Shanghai, who for most of the twentieth century were at the centre of power in China. It was sometimes said that ‘One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country’, but there was far more to the Soong sisters than these caricatures. As China battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, each sister played an important, sometimes critical role, and left an indelible mark on history.

Red Sister, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Chinese republic, and later became Mao’s vice-chair. Little Sister, May-ling, was Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of the pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Big Sister, Ei-ling, was Chiang’s unofficial main adviser. She made herself one of China’s richest women – and her husband Chiang’s prime minister. All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant attacks and mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. The relationship between them was highly charged emotionally, especially once they had embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters’ world.

 
 


Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is the biography of the amazing Soong sisters who together made a huge impact on history.
The three sisters became a modern Chinese fairytale. They were much talked about and fanciful gossip about them was often passed around.

“In China there were three sisters. One loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country.”

Charlie Soong being very forward thinking sent each of his daughters to an American boarding school at a young age. He made influential friends who were then introduced to his daughters. The sisters were very intelligent and interested in the politics of their country. They also believed that women should be man’s equal and the three sisters all rose to positions of influence.

Jung Chang divides the book into five parts spanning the years 1866 – 2003. It features the rise of Sun Yat-Sen and the overthrow of the Chinese monarchy to May-Ling’s marriage to Chiang Kai-Shek.

I’m not normally a great fan of non-fiction, especially political tales, however this riveting biography is so well written it at no time becomes weighed down. The three sisters, their lives and loves, make for some fascinating reading. Moving from grand parties in Shanghai to penthouses in New York, from exiles’ quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meetings in Moscow we read about power struggles, godfather style assassinations, secret talks and bribes making this a book that is compulsive reading.
 




Jung Chang is the internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China; Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday); and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies outside Mainland China where they are banned. She was born in China in 1952, and came to Britain in 1978. She lives in London.







Monday 30 September 2019

Book Review: Renia's Diary by Renia Spiegel

Renia's Diary
by
Renia Spiegel 
Translated by Anna Blasiak & Marta Dziurosz


Publisher: St Martin's Press
Publication date: 24th September 2019
Genre: Nonfiction/Holocaust 
Pages: 328
Format Read: eBook
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley



Renia Spiegel was born in 1924 to an upper-middle class Jewish family living in southeastern Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. At the start of 1939 Renia began a diary. “I just want a friend. I want somebody to talk to about my everyday worries and joys. Somebody who would feel what I feel, who would believe me, who would never reveal my secrets. A human being can never be such a friend and that’s why I have decided to look for a confidant in the form of a diary.” And so begins an extraordinary document of an adolescent girl’s hopes and dreams. By the fall of 1939, Renia and her younger sister Elizabeth (née Ariana) were staying with their grandparents in Przemysl, a city in the south, just as the German and Soviet armies invaded Poland. Cut off from their mother, who was in Warsaw, Renia and her family were plunged into war.

Renia's Diary has been translated from the original Polish, and includes a preface, afterword, and notes by her surviving sister, Elizabeth Bellak. An extraordinary historical document, Renia Spiegel survives through the beauty of her words and the efforts of those who loved her and preserved her legacy.




Renia’s Diary is the journal entries of Polish born Renia Spiegel from 1939, age 15 until 1942 when she was murdered, at age 18, by the Nazi’s.

Diaries are an important part of holocaust history. They allow us to hear the voice of those that did not survive. The diarist is writing in the present and has no idea what today’s events may have on things to come.

Renia writes in her diary as if talking to a friend. It is filled with teenage angst; first love, first kiss and jealousies.
At times the war takes a back seat to Renia’s self doubt, troubles with friends and talk about boys. Whilst at other times it is the full focus of her entries. A lot of her feelings are reflected through poetry. She really is an amazing poet!

When the German and Soviet armies split Poland into two zones Renia is living in Przemysl, a small city in south-eastern Poland, with her Grandparents and the yearning for her mother is constant and heart-breaking to read.

As you would expect in a young girls diary some of the entries are obscure. She sometimes uses in-jokes or code words and you need to read between the lines.

As Renia ages you can feel a shift in her entries as she moves from the self-centred anguish of a young teen to a those of a mature woman in love.

The diary is published by Renia’s younger sister Elizabeth who escaped due to the help of Renia’s boyfriend, Zygu, and family friends. Elizabeth fills in a lot of the blanks that are left by the diary.

A must read!


                          🌟🌟🌟🌟
 My rating   4/5

 





 
 

Sunday 28 July 2019

Book Review: Making Trouble - Tongued with Fire by Sue Ingleton

Making Trouble - Tongued with Fire
by
Sue Ingleton

Publisher: Spinifex Press
Publication Date: 1st August 2019
Pages: 256
Format  read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher


In the winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits travel from England to Australia. Harriet Rowell (age 22) and Alice Moon (age 18) were champion swimmers in a time when women didn’t go into the sea; and they were in love in a time when many women were in love with each other but held such love secretly. Harriet and Alice took on the world at a dangerous time for women’s freedom of expression, but their love ended when Alice moved to Sydney to become a writer.

Before Harriet can get over her grief from the breakup, tragedy strikes; Alice is found dead in her bed at thirty-seven. Suspicions rest upon the powerful, chauvinistic scientist, John McGarvie Smith, with whom Alice had been working in her newfound capacity as a journalist. This book seeks to uncover the truth of Alice’s death and seek justice.
  




Making Trouble – Tongued with Fire is the imagined history of Harriet Elphinstone Dick and Alice C Moon.

Sue Ingleton has undertaken extensive research to compile this story however there are many aspects of these women’s lives that must be assumed or created as there is very little written communication available. Ingleton uses travel records, newspaper clippings and death certificates to validate her story.

Harriet, born in England in 1852, is a woman ahead of her time. She believed that women weren’t weak and feeble minded, as men would have them believe, and given the chance could be just as athletic as men. She was to become a great swimmer often competing in races against men.

In 1876 Harriet migrates to Australia, the land of opportunity, with partner Alice Moon. Alice was quick-witted, outspoken and bold. She loved a challenge. Harriet was more level headed, discrete and diplomatic.
The two women opened women’s gymnasiums in Australia and took their exercise programs to girls’ schools. Their aim was to bring the health that came with rural activity to women in the city.

I was fascinated by this story of two little known women who made such great inroads into women’s health and fitness and also women’s rights in Australia.
The author narrates the story more like a fictional tale than a biography bringing the reader right into the home, and daily life, of these women.

The story moves from Melbourne to Sydney and the two women have quite a list of remarkable achievements with a shadow hanging over Alice Moon’s untimely death.

Recommended for anyone who is interested in learning more about the women who pioneered our health and fitness regime and pushed for women’s rights.

On a side note, I don't think the cover or title give the book justice as this truly is an engaging read and extremely well written. I honestly think if I saw this on a shelf I would pass it up so I am immensely grateful for the publishers giving me the opportunity to read this amazing story.

                               🌟🌟🌟🌟

 My rating   4/5 


photo credit: Spinifex Press

Sue Ingleton is a multi-award winning actor, director, writer and stand-up comedian. 
Sue is a recipient of the Sydney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award, the Gloria Dawn/Gloria Payten Award, a Perrier Award Nomination at Edinburgh Fringe, and has performed at Adelaide International Festival of Arts, Montreal Juste Pour Rire, Festival of Fools UK, many Melbourne International Comedy Festivals, and New York International Theatre Festival. 
She has written and produced eleven plays, written two books and is in three published short story anthologies.