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responded, click here.
Being John Lennon: A Restless Life by Ray Connelly. The woman who raised him, Aunt Mimi, reported that she learned early on the most effective way to discipline John was to give him the silent treatment. "Don't 'nore me, Mimi! Don't 'nore me!" he would plead.
That anecdote, shared early in this affectionate but clear-eyed biography, seems to foreshadow John's whole life. He craved the world's attention, but he couldn't resist testing boundaries. It made him often hard to love -- for bandmates, friends, and fans alike -- but irresistible all the same.
Reading this book, it struck me how little time John had. Murdered at 40, he's been dead almost as long as he lived. That aids poignancy to his tale. He wanted more. He wanted satisfaction and contentment. He looked for it in unlikely places -- from fame to transcendental meditation to heroin -- but he never found it. He seemed as though he was getting close at the end, as he attempted to balance fatherhood with music making, and then BANG!
Much has been written about John Lennon and that little band he started. I've read a lot of it. I can recommend this book to both the casual fan and the fanatic.
1. What are you currently reading?
The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes. 30-something Gemma is a successful adult, a event-planner with a great car and good friends. But her romantic life is non-existent, and her mother is suddenly a bigger part of her life than ever before. Dad is having his mid-life crisis a little late and has moved out of the family home so he can carry on an affair with his (much younger) assistant.
No matter how old you are, you can be affected by your parents' marital strike (confession: a similar situation happened to this gal herself). But complicating Gemma's response is her own recent history: Her boyfriend left her for her best friend. So she feels overwhelmed and disillusioned just now. She expresses this in a series of clever, highly readable emails to her girlfriends, which unexpectedly become her entree to a new career as an author.
Back when the millennium was younger, I read a lot of Marian Keyes. I like her warm and witty style, and I enjoy that she sets her books in Dublin and London, which are unfamiliar to me and fun. For some reason I moved out of my chick-lit phase. This particular volume has been sitting in my TBR pile since -- gulp! -- 2008. (The sticker on the back is from Borders!) I'm glad its time has come.
No matter how old you are, you can be affected by your parents' marital strike (confession: a similar situation happened to this gal herself). But complicating Gemma's response is her own recent history: Her boyfriend left her for her best friend. So she feels overwhelmed and disillusioned just now. She expresses this in a series of clever, highly readable emails to her girlfriends, which unexpectedly become her entree to a new career as an author.
Back when the millennium was younger, I read a lot of Marian Keyes. I like her warm and witty style, and I enjoy that she sets her books in Dublin and London, which are unfamiliar to me and fun. For some reason I moved out of my chick-lit phase. This particular volume has been sitting in my TBR pile since -- gulp! -- 2008. (The sticker on the back is from Borders!) I'm glad its time has come.
2. What did you recently finish reading?
Being John Lennon: A Restless Life by Ray Connelly. The woman who raised him, Aunt Mimi, reported that she learned early on the most effective way to discipline John was to give him the silent treatment. "Don't 'nore me, Mimi! Don't 'nore me!" he would plead.
That anecdote, shared early in this affectionate but clear-eyed biography, seems to foreshadow John's whole life. He craved the world's attention, but he couldn't resist testing boundaries. It made him often hard to love -- for bandmates, friends, and fans alike -- but irresistible all the same.
Reading this book, it struck me how little time John had. Murdered at 40, he's been dead almost as long as he lived. That aids poignancy to his tale. He wanted more. He wanted satisfaction and contentment. He looked for it in unlikely places -- from fame to transcendental meditation to heroin -- but he never found it. He seemed as though he was getting close at the end, as he attempted to balance fatherhood with music making, and then BANG!
Much has been written about John Lennon and that little band he started. I've read a lot of it. I can recommend this book to both the casual fan and the fanatic.
3. What will you read next?
Richard Nixon, The Life by John A. Farrell. I began this book before the Lennon book. I must return to it.
