For die-hard fans only. Zeppelin fanatics will want to turn to Stephen Davis’ hoary Hammer of the Gods (1985), which, though...
By-the-numbers biography of the shaggy rocker.
Unfortunately, former Q and Kerrang! editor Rees hits nearly every rock-bio cliché. As his yarn opens, we find an aging Plant, frontman of Led Zeppelin, world-weary, “the weight of history pressing down upon him; the burden of all the demons he had come here to put to rest at last.” Then the perfunctory career review begins: Midlands boy grows up in a bombed-out, gritty industrial landscape, the child of music-loving (but classical music, mind you) parents, hears Elvis—and, more to the point, Bill Haley and His Comets—and is turned into a faux American. As Rees rightly notes, Plant, initially known in Britain as the hippie’s hippie, is a shrewd and bookish fellow who refuses to be pinned down. He made his fortune as a singer of heavy rock, but, as folk-rock idol Roy Harper says, “Robust Planet” was smart not to do the same old rock thing in the 30-odd years post-Zep, instead searching endlessly on the musical horizon for the next thing to do. (The current next thing is a blend of Middle Eastern and Americana, a pleasingly contradictory sound.) Plant, who at 65 “is now eligible for a bus pass and a state pension” in Britain, is a serious enough musician to warrant a serious biography, though perhaps it’s payback for thudding anthems like “Kashmir” and “Immigrant Song” to have a life story clotted with thudding prose along the lines of “His path was set,” “In many respects 1965 was to be a pivotal year,” and “He heard the screams, smelt the sex and sensed the power that could be bestowed upon the man with the microphone.”
For die-hard fans only. Zeppelin fanatics will want to turn to Stephen Davis’ hoary Hammer of the Gods (1985), which, though covering only the band and not Plant’s solo decades, isn’t as painful to read.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-228138-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: It Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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