Television Books


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Television Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

Television
Likes Me, Likes Me Not (Two of a Kind #16)
Published in Mass Market Paperback by HarperEntertainment (2001-04-01)
Author: Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen
List price: $4.99
New price: $1.99
Used price: $0.01
Collectible price: $10.01

Average review score:

Boy oh boy
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2001-11-22
Is someone trying to break you and your boyfriend up? Or is there a miss understanding? Well in this book MK and Ashely are having major boy problems. Will they get back together? Find out by buying this book right now, all you have to do is order.

Boy oh Boy...Choose me!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2001-10-17
Mary-kate and Ashley are going to a dance and there dates are dumping them. A boy Mary-Kate likes is going to the dance with her bestfriend Campbell. Ashleys (so called) boyfriend is getting fed up with her and took a date with Dana, Ashleys worst enemy. What will they do? They'll live with it, that is what they will do. They have to. They are on a commity and they have to live with there X boyfriends forever. Ashley is partners with her X boyfriend Ross and is misserable to go set up for the for the dance. Maary-Kate has to actually live with her so called "friend" Campbell since they share a dorm room. If you want to here about the rest of the book, borrow or buy the book!

Losing at the Love Game
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2001-04-21
Mary-Kate and Ashley go to school at White Oak Academy. They both have major crushes on two boys at Harrington School for Boys, which is down the street. This also makes them excited when the boys of their dreams are assigned to work with the two on remodeling a new Student Union. The first day goes great, but when day two rolls around, things don't go too well. Both of the guys are completely ignoring the girls. What did the two do? Well.....Let's just say both of the guys have their reasons. I really like this book, and to find out what happens next, read Likes Me, Likes Me Not

Likes me. Likes me not
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2001-04-20
This book was really good book. It's about Mary-Kate and Ashley both like a boy. And there trying to ask them to the Spring Fling. But before they can the boy of Mary-Kate's dream's is going out with her roomate. (old). And Ashley's crush is going out with somebody else too! Should they find new dates?? Or get revenge!

Likes Me, Likes Me Not
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2001-07-18
This book was another great Two Of a Kind book. When you read the back of the book it says that Mary-kate and Ashley are going to get revenge on the boys (Ross and Grant). Grant dumped Mary-Kate for her best friend Campbell, and Ross dumped Ashley for Dana, the most popular stuck-up girl in first form. Could things get any worse? Yes!

Television
Lilo & Stitch Sticker Book (Ultimate Sticker Books)
Published in Paperback by DK CHILDREN (2002-05-01)
Author: DK Publishing
List price: $6.99
New price: $75.29
Used price: $19.36

Average review score:

fun fun fun
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2005-09-02
this is a great book. you personally make your own stories and the best part is the stickers arent permanent. cool.

Must-have for L & S fans!!!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-28
The stickers peel off a little too easily(which is sometimes a good thing)...some even just want to fall off the pages...but it's a cute book with great stickers.

Very Cute!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2002-12-09
This book is a lot of fun for Lilo & Stitch fans of all ages. The stickers remove and attach easily, you can move them around (they don't stick permanently), and when you're finished, it makes a nifty picture/story book of the movie. Lots of fun!

Cool Stickers!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-23
This book has nice stickers, most are stills from the movie and the others are what I call "character poses." If you like Lilo & Stitch then you'll like this book.

Great Disney Fun from DK
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2002-06-18
DK and Disney have put together a smart litte book of sticker fun from "Lilo & Stitch" which is sure to please. The kids just love it. The color pictures of the characters are really well done and vibrant. This is a very good book full of fun for all.

Television
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones
Published in Paperback by Touchstone (1995-01-01)
Author: Peter Arnett
List price: $22.00
New price: $0.75
Used price: $0.32
Collectible price: $22.00

Average review score:

Very entertaining
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-08-18
I had no idea of the things Arnett had done before the 1st Iraq war. He has led quite an amazing journalistic life. Very enjoyable read.

Excellent and gripping
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-07
I have read several reporters auto-biographies but Peter's is the most interesting and gripping. It is full of insightful detail that really makes you feel the excitement and terror of being a war correspondent.

Peter Arnett: Best Wartime Reporter of Our Generation
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2001-12-12
For anyone with the least bit of interest in the Vietnam "police action" and the Gulf War, and honest wartime reporting from someone with an impenetrable sense of integrity, this autobiography is a "must read." Dr. Arnett's autobiography should also be required reading for all jounalism students as a measure of their worth and what it takes to persevere when the "real story," the story on the ground, may not necessarily match that of the "party line."

Great war coverage
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2001-12-05
Want to know what really happened on the battlefield in Vietnam and else where? Read this book. As with most good journalists who stood firm maintaining the freedom of the press, and gave the public a true picture of what was happening abroad, he was railed on by the Pentagon and Whitehouse officials throughout his career. I've just read the book and something especially haunting was the last chapter. He is covering Afghanistan, the year was about 1993 after the 'freedom fighters' got rid of the communists and the entire country is ridden with corruption, violence, and warring factions. While waiting for his plane to Kabul he has a conversation with an influential Pakistani who blamed the chaos on the "mercurial American foreign policy". Saying "all you Americans cared about was destroying communism, and you welcomed extremists to the struggle and trained them to kill. But many of those people don't like you either, and you're the next target". On the very last page, Arnett ends the book as he is leaving Afghanistan, he writes: "The collapse of the Soviet empire, the end of the Cold War, had not brought harmony to Afghanistan, merely conflict and criminality. And the United States would reap a bitter harvest from the seeds of the Islamic revolution it helped sow. I was glad to be leaving Afghanistan but I knew that the story was not over". I would probably have to go back". As usual,the Pentagon and their right-wing pundits who attack people like Arnett as sympathizers, and conspiracy theorists, have been proven wrong by history, and the current events today.

A thrilling account by a master journalist.
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 1999-09-21
A thrilling account by a master journalist who pursued `the story' for four decades over four continents. Guided by a determination to write only what he himself saw, Arnett sent out a steady stream of reports about what was actually happening in Vietnam, shrugging off the official military handouts as the "Five O'Clock Follies." His doggedness, bravery and resourcefulness in getting to where the action was resulted in Pulitzer Prize winning reports. He later became famous, if controversial, as one of the few American reporters to cover the Gulf War from inside Baghdad. An exhilarating read.

Television
Loitering With Intent - The Apprentice
Published in Hardcover by Macmillan Publishing (1996-06-07)
Author: Peter O'Toole
List price:
Used price: $11.40
Collectible price: $25.00

Average review score:

O'Toole Amazing life in His Own Delightful Words
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-25
I want Peter O'Toole to scrible my life story. One of our grandest actors turns out to be a remarkable writer. If he was writing about any other person than himself, this would be a great book; a most enjoyable reading experience; and a primer in how to tell the story of a larger than life person. As it happens, Peter O'Toole, the exceptional writer, is writing about Peter O'Toole, the peerless actor.

And this is Volume Two! Do grab the first book, "Loitering With Intent: The Child." It is not only a fascinating story of the very early years of O'Toole's boyhood in Ireland, it is also a personal account of the world plunging into the chaos of the 1930s that became World War II.

Read them both...preferasbly in order. And pray Mr O'Toole is with us long enough to craft volume three!

Brilliant 2nd. volume of O'Toole's biography.
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 1999-06-08
Peter O'Toole continues recounting his early years in the second volume of his biography. It has a slightly different style than the first volume (The Child), but is still extremely enjoyable. Highly recommended.

hit and miss
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 1998-04-24
That O'Toole can write is no surprise to anyone who has seen him act, since--although he is saying others' lines on screen--a pulsing intelligence comes through in his performances. (Brando can't write in SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME, and neither could KATHERINE HEPBURN in her autobiography. As good as they are as actors, they don't suggest eloquence on the screen...despite the quality of the lines they say). But O'Toole is not one of the greatest writers alive. This volume shows that. His writing needs to be more linear. He IS one of the greatest actors alive, however. So I wish he would leave his desk and get in front of a movie camera or on stage instead. I don't believe there is such a thing as a genius actor. But if there is, O'Toole is it (and the only one). There has certainly never been an actor as charismatic (well, maybe Cary Grant. But could Grant have played serious drama as well as light comedy? He never played in a drama that I know of).

The Peter (O'Toole) prescription for a life well lived!
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-26
Who says a great actor has to be a self-absorbed boor with no life or thoughts of his own offstage or off-camera? This second installment of noted actor O'Toole's autobiography brims over with vitality, quirky charm, and loving reminiscences of fellow drama school students, teachers, and a host of other fascinating souls. O'Toole is clearly one of those people who makes his own fun, and naturally finds kindred spirits wherever he goes in life. He doesn't choose his friends based on their status or what they can do for him, he just enjoys their company. And how! The myriad, unorthodox ways O'Toole and his pals devise to obtain lodgings, food, semi-clean laundry and other of life's necessities will have you laughing out loud. One of many highlights concerns the delightful, party given to celebrate the final hours of leaky old houseboat, where guests take turns pumping the sea back out even as it sloshes at their ankles. A rip-roaring good time was had by the artist as a young apprentice, and his mates!

Brilliantly written and very funny
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 1998-11-22
O'Toole has a gift for the English language -- you just want to read whole chapters aloud, to enjoy the sound of the words. There are also scores of laugh-out-loud funny anecdotes sprinkled throughout, all told with wry joy. This isn't a typical actor's memoir -- this is way more fun.

Television
Louise Brooks
Published in Hardcover by Knopf (1989-10-14)
Author: Barry Paris
List price: $24.95
New price: $19.99
Used price: $1.83
Collectible price: $24.99

Average review score:

Highly overlooked actress starring in 'Excellent Bio'.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2000-02-26
This Bio does not look upon Louise Brooks as sympathetically as other's Bio's do. Here we feel that we are being told the truth - as not everything in her life was perfect, or admirable, or even sympathetic. Louise Brooks was still a person who did things her way. And this books tells us what her was. A wonderful look at a wonderful Actress, Dancer and Writer.

A Great Biography
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-12-24
An all-emcompassing book for fans of Louise Brooks. It has interesting stories and beautiful photos.

A brilliant summation of an extraordinary life
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-12-23
This is a great biography of an obscure, but fascinating silent film star. Barry Paris has done a great job researching the life and times of Louise Brooks. A must-read for any Brooks fan.

One of the best biographies
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 1997-09-15
This book was wonderful, before I read it I had no idea in the world who Louise Brooks was or what an impression she had on the motion picture industry. While this book is full of information and well written there are some slow points. A wonderful book for anyone interested in films.

Highly readable biography of Louise Brooks
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2000-08-02
I am one of those who became entranced by Louise Brooks after seeing her in "Pandora's Box". She appeared to be highly sexual, intelligent, and to be marching to the sound of a drummer that she alone heard within herself. It turns out that she was all of this. This is an excellent biography and a lesson about what happens to those who despise the opportunities that life presents to us and to those whose lives are driven by sex rather than common sense. Louise Brooks was a very modern woman despite having been a star of the silent screen. She made only a few films but her performances in those films stand up with the great performances of today and their naturalism makes the acting of most silent screen starlets seem idiotic. While other actresses were concerned with nothing but their looks, Brooks was reading Shaw and Proust. While others did all they could to ingratiate themselves with the movie studios, Brooks had nothing but indifference for them. She turned her back on fame, fortune, and power. She could have had a brilliant career but always sabotaged her chances. She had beauty and incredible sex appeal. She had Chaplin as a lover. She wrote. She lives on today as an image of a woman ahead of her time and also as a tragic waste. Her own difficult personality drove everyone away. Her lack of discipline was childish. She fascinates. This is the best biography we will ever get of her. Recommended.

Television
Major Meltdown: Dawson Creek #4
Published in Mass Market Paperback by Simon Spotlight Entertainment (1999-01-01)
Author: K.S. Rodriguez
List price: $4.99
New price: $1.50
Used price: $0.01
Collectible price: $10.00

Average review score:

Good ONE! A+++
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2000-07-13
I've read all the Dawsons Creek books, and this one is my 2nd favorite! They get a break from Capeside! And its snow! Joey gets the guys, which makes Jen jealous. Even though things heat up with Jen & Dawson. Plus Pacey meets someone special! Very good! RECOMEND!

Good ONE! A+++
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2000-07-13
I've read all the Dawsons Creek books, and this one is my 2nd favorite! They get a break from Capeside! And its snow! Joeu gets the guys, which makes Jen jealous. Even though things heat up with Jen & Dawson. Plus PAcey meets someone special! Very good! RECOMEND!

This is the best show/book ever
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1999-01-22
This book is the best book that i have ever read and the only book i can read over and over which is unusaul for me.Please make more books on Dawsons Creek and I will keep reading them.

I'm a Dawson's Creek fanatic!!!!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1999-01-11
I love Dawson's Creek! The books are just as good!! I wish that in "Major Meltdown" Dawson and Joey got back together! I saw the title and thought, wow this looks so cool, I have to add it to my collection! I'm a Dawson's Creek fanatic! The book was my favorite out of the other ones I own which are the following: Long Hot Summer, Calm Before The Storm, and Shifting Into Overdrive. I keep reading it over and over again! I wrote my own story about Dawson's Creek, but I can't think of a good title. I think that a good title interests the reader!! Thank you so very much for letting me voice my opinion! Yours Truly, A devoted fan!!

The best one so far!
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2000-07-27
I say so far becouse i dont doubt the Dawsons Creek authors one bit to bring out better and better books, but this is my favorite i loved it so much i stayed up in to the night to finnish it the story line to this book is exallent about a skiing trip and it is wonderfully written it makes you feel happy, sorry and annoyed for the charectors as it makes you feel so there i would recomend this book foe everyone not just Dawsons Creek fans.

Television
Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment
Published in Hardcover by St Martins Pr (1991-08)
Author: Michael Parenti
List price: $21.95
Used price: $0.12
Collectible price: $21.99

Average review score:

Excellent!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2000-03-27
A wonderful eye-opener for any blind patriot who believes everything on TV and movies, and takes it all at face value. This book points out the hidden agenda of mass, corporate-owned media...

Alternative Entertainment
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2002-04-07
Parenti's critical review of the Rambo movies really made an impression on me. I used to like the Rambo movies, but now watch them mainly for laughs. Each subsequent Rambo release is, as Parenti describes it, worse than its predecessor. There was talk of reviving the Rambo character now that the U.S. is at war against terrorism. Let's hope it doesn't happen.

I'm not sure if working people are portrayed as negatively as Parenti has described it. If we only take Archie Bunker as an example, then yes, but filmmakers love to advance the theme of the powerless versus the powerful, because the opposite doesn't go well with audiences. Perhaps Parenti knows something I don't on this issue.

Parenti's favorable ratings of two films - JFK and Salvador - made me want to see them - over ten years after they had been released. I managed to see JFK, and it was great. I am still looking to see Salvador.

What I would like to see is an updated version of this book, since there has been more Hollywood propaganda released since the original version came out.

Why Archie Bunker and not Eugene Debs
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2001-10-17
To hear newscasters avoid talk about class in America, you'd think the concept is as obsolete as the Soviet Union.Yet Michael Parenti continues to insist that class bias not only spreads out from the heart of society, but shapes it. Here he looks at TV's entertainment role in preserving social privilege. From popular stereotypes such as the Lone Ranger and his third-world flunky Tonto, to the invisible world of labor, to the well-meaning but misunderstood plutocrat, Parenti exposes capitalism's self-serving myths as portrayed on the little screen. Sure it's fun to kick around TV and a lot of people do it, but Parenti does it in a highly informative way that confronts our last remaining taboo - the role of wealth and power in American life.

Maybe the best chapter concerns profits and censorship. It's no news to point out that the networks and advertisers are in it for the money. But it is news to point out those instances when producers actually forego profits for the sake of respectability. Parenti details instances when industry has eaten losses rather than jeopardise the system of wealth and power it serves. For example, Procter & Gamble, TV's biggest advertiser, makes this allegiance clear by banning all content critical of Wall Street and the Pentagon from scripts it sponsors. In fact, most scripts - as Parenti shows - go through not 1, but 4 levels of censorship. No wonder, the public walks around in an ideological haze wondering why the world hates us -- and so much for the dollar sign's being more important than the system of which it is a part.

Another telling chapter concerns one of entertainment's most popular myths: "We only give 'em (the audience) what they want." Sounds good. But, as Parenti documents, despite this appeal to democratic ideals, the entertainment marketplace is anything but democratic. He sketches out control points or nerve centers that reduce real choice to pseudo choice, sort of like a multiple choice question whose options are narrowed to a desired range of outcome. All this is made sorrier by indications that American audiences respond to forbidden topics on those rare occasions when they seep through.

No book that debunks the FBI's screen role in the civil rights movement, or points out the class conditioning behind TV's version of Treasure Island, can afford to be overlooked. Whatever the book lacks in depth is more than made up for in focus. Despite his unperson status, Parenti remains a key figure among dissident academics banished to the book-selling fringes. Recommended to all those who understand TV viewing as anything but a passive pastime.

a good analysis of admixture of propaganda and entertainment
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2000-06-06
Propaganda is basically found in every modern society, so it should come as no surprise to find it in a movie like "Red Dawn," which Parenti refers to. He brings up such interesting facts as that all the TV networks have a department devoted to censorship, such as CBS's euphemistically named "Standards and Practices Department"; that companies like Procter & Gamble often have inordinate veto power over broadcast content considered subversive; and that PBS, which is actually anything but a "public" organization, has been dubbed the "Petroleum Broadcast Service" due to the large influence of the oil companies that help fund it. He who pays the piper..., you might say. I highly recommend this book.

A great look at the entertainment industry
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 1999-02-11
Parenti does an excellent job in exposing how lopsided the entertaiment industry is, and how Right it is centered. He looks at aspects as diverse as Oscar winning movies to WWF wrestling, and how politically oriented they are, more often then not the Right. The Cold War did a number on American movies and it tainted the industry to this day in producing mediocre films that did not threaten or offend anyone high in power. I feel that today the situation is improved just a little bit, with more accurate portrayels of minorities and women and so forth, but we still have a long way to go in the entertainment industry. An excellent book for anyone at all interested in the entertainment industry and an eye opener as well.

Television
THE MAKING OF \"EVITA\"
Published in Paperback by BOXTREE (1998)
Author: ALAN PARKER
List price:
Used price: $4.99

Average review score:

spectacular
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1998-08-23
This book s spectacular. The photography is outstanding. The scene outline that was scetched out gave an interesting insight as to how the scene was going to be shot. Couldn't get enough of Madonna and Antonio. Madonna was the perfect person for the role of Ava Peron the could almost be twins. Liked the opening by Madonna was very poiniently done.

SPECTACULAR!!!!!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 1998-08-23
This book is spectacular the photography is outstanding. The book gives you more than just photo's it gives you a couple of interesting insights as to how some of the scenes were created. Right down to including sketches of the scene in wich the song 'You Must Love Me' takes place intrieging. Would definetley recomend this book to any one interested in the movie; or if you like Madonna or Antonio. This book gives you your moneys worth and then some.

spectacular
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 1998-08-23
This book s spectacular. The photography is outstanding. The scene outline that was scetched out gave an interesting insight as to how the scene was going to be shot. Couldn't get enough of Madonna and Antonio. Madonna was the perfect person for the role of Ava Peron the could almost be twins. Liked the opening by Madonna was very poiniently done.

Superb!!!!!
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 1999-07-17
This book was awesome. It had wonderful photography, and a very good and understandable explanation of the movie. I could no put it down. I think that he pictures, though, made the book. Both Antonio, and Madonna looked great!

It's a wonderful book for lovers of the movie-Evita!
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 1999-01-25
I loved the movie Evita, starring Antonio Banderas and Madonna. I read this book and couldn't believe it. It told me all I ever wanted to know about the movie, and more.

Television
Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend
Published in Paperback by Cooper Square Press (2002-12-25)
Author: Arianna Huffington
List price: $17.95
New price: $9.99
Used price: $9.95

Average review score:

To Err is Human...to Forgive, La Divina...
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-29
Don't you think it'd be GREAT, if Amazon listed the book's true author as Arianna Stassinopoulos instead of Arianna Huffington? I mean, really. Oy.

The Best Biography I've Ever Read
Helpful Votes: 18 out of 18 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-28
I can't believe no one has reviewed this book...so although I have never written one before here goes....
Critics say that this is the best book on the intensely private yet captivating Maria Callas. I'll go farther than that and say that it is the best biography I have personally EVER read and I am a huge fan of biographies. Yet, I can't quite put my finger on why its so good. Maybe its because Arianna Stassinopoulos shows a profound empathy for the diva or perhaps it's because she interviewed practically every living person who knew her. Maria Callas, the love interest of Aristotle Onassis who later dropped her for Jacqueline Kennedy, and of course the greatest dramatic opera singer who ever lived, is brought to life right in front of you in this fantastic, well ..... just read this book. You'll love it as much as I do.

Good beginning and ending - boring in the middle
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-28
The book is very good, but in some parts can be quite dull if you are not an Opera fan or musician. The beginning up to when she becomes famous is exciting, and the end as she is no longer quite so famous, is interesting. But the middle is redundant. Arianna goes through detail after detail of each and every performance. That to me is not exciting to read. But because I was curious about the whole Onassis/Kennedy/Callas triangle, I waited. It is important though to read everything to understand her personality. This woman was a wonderful person and a great legend, but she definitely suffered I would suspect from Histrionic Personality Disorder. Onassis is definitely a complete dick, not that this is a surprise, he reminded me a lot of Diego Rivera when it came to women as his possessions. They might have been friends had they known each other - although I suspect thier politics were different. I also purchased a CD to hear Maria sing and often played it while reading, quite a beautiful experience. I was not an Opera fan prior to buying this book. I only bought it after seeing the movie from Netflix - Callas Forever - a Historical Fiction. Curiosity got the best of me and now I am a fan - of Maria.

Excellent biography. Read it when it first "came out!"
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-10
The number one recall I have about this book still haunts me to this day... her abortion. Onasis giving her the choice, him or the child.
Haunting. Horrible.
Above all, this book was a major "undertaking" for the author which she executed superbly! What a story! What a book!

a page-turner
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-05
(To the reviewer before me: Now we're two.)

I have not read any other biography on Callas, but I listen to her avidly (her La Wally aria is particularly addictive) and have her Tosca performance on DVD as well as the documentary Maria Callas: Life and Art. But Callas's music alone has always made me wonder about her. Such deeply mined emotions in her singing, such ferocity, such purity, such power. How does she get all these in her performances? Where does she mine them? Zefirelli has compared her to Michelangelo, Bernstein has called her the greatest artist in the world. This book answers these questions and explains why. I have to say that it is a compulsive page-turner, even now in the twenty-first century where opera is no longer mainstream. There's always something interesting in each page. At the same time the biographer doesn't belabor a particular episode or detail in Maria's life as to make it boring or overly dramatized. And Arianna Stassinopoulos is no Kitty Kelly: everything seems very well-researched and reliable.

Television
Marilyn (Photobook)
Published in Hardcover by Taschen (2004-09)
Author: Andre De Dienes
List price:
Used price: $77.62

Average review score:

Marilyn boxed.
Helpful Votes: 15 out of 15 total.
Review Date: 2003-05-06
I've got copy 4066 of this sumptuous (and reassuringly?) expensive package and I thought this review should really detail what you'll get for your money.

ONE: An oversize Kodak color film box, nineteen inches high by sixteen wide and three deep, this is a big facsimile of the box that De Dienes kept some of his Marilyn prints in. The package weighs twelve pounds and will hardly fit any bookcase. The inside has recesses for the two books and one booklet. Black silk tape allows for easy access of the contents.

TWO: A large, beautifully designed and printed, 240 page book of Marilyn photos printed on thick paper. Although the printing screen is not the highest (150 dpi) the photos leap off the page, especially the full-page color ones. Many of these photos seem to be very private shots of Marilyn that De Dienes took during her career (a few show her with other people, a hairdresser and bookseller). Several at the back of the book show Marilyn's face montaged into clouds or surrounded by celestial bodies. Between the photos, printed in silver ink and in a large typewriter font, there are excepts from De Dienes memoirs. Also printed in silver are smaller photos with his hand-written captions.

THREE: A booklet with twenty-four, one to a page, magazine covers featuring De Dienes photos of Marilyn. Seventeen of them are European titles. Predictably, great photos are weakened by logos, cover lines and generally poor cropping. I thought this booklet was rather disappointing in its production.

FOUR: The 608 page facsimile of De Dienes manuscript and composite book. I think this is the most fascinating item in the box because of the production problems. The original pages were typed on one side of a sheet of ordinary paper and this facsimile is on similar weight stock so that the back of each page has some text showing through, as the original (There is a production problem here though, the paper rightly has text show-through but the photos do as well, on the original paper only the white back of the photo would have been visible). Although the manuscript was in black and white it has been printed in four colors to create the aged paper look and the few handwritten numbers in green and red that De Dienes wrote on the photos. You can see all of his corrections and deletions to the manuscript and read the comments he wrote about the various contact prints of Marilyn and other printed ephemera he stuck on back of each page.

The original composite section has a hundred pages (it becomes two-hundred pages in this facsimile) of cut-out contact prints which De Dienes stuck on the typewriter paper, again they are reproduced in four-color black because of the occasional handwritten colored numbers, even the image of the punched file holes on each page is reproduced. Hundreds of these contacts show how he photographed Marilyn and you can see how dozens of shots were taken of which only one or two were probably published. Most of these images have never been seen before and certainly never in the form that they are presented here.

Overall I think the Marilyn Box is an amazing production package. A world famous visual icon is presented in a unique way.

*** FOR A LOOK INSIDE click customer images under the contents photo.

Marilyn Masterpiece
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2002-12-14
A truly wonderful pictorial memory of Marilyns early modelling years.The photos capture the emotion that exsisted between Marilyn and Andres and are uniquely presented in the large book.The box containing the books is truly one of a kind making the entire publication very special and authentic.

beautiful, sumptuous package
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2003-07-15
When I opened this box on Christmas morning, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. A recent convert to Marilyn-ism, this was one of the first books about her I owned, and I'm so glad, because I think it's important to know Norma Jeane before you know Marilyn. These huge, glorious photographs taken by Andre de Dienes capture her innocence and natural beauty at a time when she was an unknown model. De Dienes' memoirs are touching and reveal Norma Jeane as she was to him, a man who fell in love with her, as so many would in the future. After paging through these books, you are left to feel as though Norma Jeane Dougherty would never look quite as beautiful again (and of course she would, but not in the same way). Revealing Marilyn Monroe at her earliest beginnings, this limited edition package is definitely worth the money.

A book for a sturdy coffee table
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-22
For the Marilyn fan, this is a great book. The photographs reproduced in the large book are magnificent. The large book is difficult to read with silver ink on white paper, but it is cleaned up excerpts from the smaller facsimile typed recollections of De Dienes. It is heavy, thus a sturdy coffee table is required.

WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK!
Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-08
This book by Andre de Dienes is the most amazing title ever assembled on Marilyn Monore. ANY fan of Marilyn's will find this book worth every dollar. The design and reproductions are amazing! The diaries are a wonderful read! ...


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