Arresting portraits of the Stones in flamboyant youth and slightly mellower maturity.
The Rolling Stones spend 40 years rocking out on stage in this captivating photo album.
Angeledes travelled 153,043 miles, by his reckoning, to attend 132 Stones concerts from 1975 to 2017 and took black-and-white and color photos of the shows. The subjects of these 276 pictures are a constant—singer Mick Jagger, bassist Bill Wyman, and company playing instruments and/or singing on standard-issue stages—so the book’s deeper theme is the effects of time on each of the band members. Some things changed markedly over the decades: The band’s 1970s glam stylings—lamé, bell-bottoms, heavy eyeshadow—gave way to jeans, natural fibers and lighter makeup, and Jagger’s delicate physique became noticeably more muscular in his 60s. Some things didn’t change, including Jagger’s and guitarist Ron Wood’s hair color, which never betrayed any gray, and drummer Charlie Watts’ stony expression and sartorial conservatism. There’s a timelessness to the images in the sense that, even in the ’70s, Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards often looked like old men, creased and haggard as they shrieked into microphones. As the years unspooled, the Stones looked less like raging enfants terribles, and more like relaxed old friends, sneering less and smiling more. Angeledes’ photographs are evocative and atmospheric, and each conveys something of the character of those pictured and the kineticism of their performance antics. There are some indelible images here, including a shot of a youngish Jagger, writhing in a torn, wispy top and print pants, his lips gaping, which is, by itself, worth the price of admission. In between photos, Angeledes relates a few amusing, shaggy dog anecdotes from his Stones-chasing days: getting a snapshot of Richards leaving a court proceeding regarding drug charges; hitchhiking through England after a gig; or getting hassled by security at a Calgary concert (“the guy got really steamed when I tossed that roll of film hoping to ‘lasso’ some portion of his anatomy”). The result is a fine record of the Stones’ stage act and a set of absorbing pictorial studies of the band mates.
Arresting portraits of the Stones in flamboyant youth and slightly mellower maturity.Pub Date: June 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-93-825806-3
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Sea Lion Productions
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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