Entertainment Books

This is a great product for Josh Groban fans who want to (attempt to) sing like him. Although the music itelf is simplified, it still gets the point across. I recomend it!

This music book is just what I hoped it would be. Easy to read/play, and the price was great!

This has everything I could have wanted.All the songs are complete and in the rights keys.Nothing is missing.It's magic to play Groban by yourself.Plus it has the English translations to the foreign language songs and great shots of Josh.

The sheet music here is challenging, but playable and close enough to the composition on the CD that it's amazing! the vocal is soprano, the piano moderate difficulty, it's exactly what i expected, and i would encourage it's purchase if you're looking for the sheet music to the Josh Groban Closer album, all songs are in the book.

Love the fact that the words and translations are provided. Not an expert pianist but the music works for my purposes (playing for fun and to sing along with).

Don't love the fact that when I tried to press open the book so that it would lay on the music stand of my piano, the whole cover fell off (cheap binding materials, apparently). But at least now I can use it.

Not soemthing I would read cover to cover, but the individual "Hacks" that I have read are pretty good. I have lots of books along this line and this is one of the bet. I put it up there with Stu's "DV Rebels Guide" which is also incredible. If you like the Rebel guide, you will probably like this as well. Lots of good stuff. Enjoy!

Great book with great content I recommend it to anyone who want to take there film making a step forward and is to busy or lazy to download the information from the internet becaue it is all there. Spread around of course but you will find every piece of information even most of the pictures used in this book so. If you have time and dedication you can save yourself the money by looking it up on the internet.

This book covers many aspects of video. Labeling tapes, making excel spreadsheets for saving information, time code on tapes, how to achieve certain effects, lighting, and green screen effects just name a few. The book is general to most all video software and is a very usefull tool I'm glad I purchased. Don't let the term "HACKS' fool you it 's only refering to tips or tricks.

I found the book to be very practical and have the
kind of "nuts-and-bolts" pointers that I like. You
don't have to read it cover to cover (I didn't) but
can pick it up and go to the points that interest you
or where you are currently in need of help. It refers
to various "commerical products" that the author has
used to get the job done. I found this helpful. With so
many competing products to chose from it's nice to
hear, "If you get product X you'll be able to do Z,"
rather than buying and hoping (or not buying and
wondering). Kuddos to the author.

I learned so much from this book. In fact, I've already implemented several of the ideas and have had great results. If you're semi-professional (video has been added to your responsibilities but you have no experience with this medium) BUY THIS BOOK.

Who would have thought of parchment paper and clothes pins to diffuse light and create a softer, more natural light over the subject? That's just one of the great tips I've already started using.

I've bought several digital video books while trying to learn this medium, and this has been by far the most useful.

I loved this book!!! The introduction to me was GREAT! It kinda gave you a little hint of what you were about to get into!!! It's just wonderful! This book was really a great read and like it was being told by someone who actually has been through that!!

this book was really good,the main character is like my twin. i recommend this book to everyone 13-16

this book was ok but again another book that doesn't have a good ending, well a ending that excites you this was very boring and typically left me with no expression.

At first I doubted I'd enjoy Dymond In The Rough, I'm not really big on reading. But since I opened Dymond In The Rough, I believe that reading has definitely grown on me. I absolutely loved Dymond and her play cousins, Kera and Porsha.

I recommend this book to all young and curious teens like myself.

Reviewed by: Lauren
OOSA's teen reviewer

Dymond, at fourteen, has a pretty good head on her shoulders. Having a good, open relationship with her mother has been beneficial. But like most typical teens she's smelling herself. Sometimes what adults say go in one ear and out the other, particularly when cutie Kyle Banks enters the picture. Will Dymond give in to peer pressure?

I really enjoyed it. I liked the idea of it and it worked. I also liked the power words. Dymond in the Rough is simple, yet interesting enough to hold the attention of young adults. Dymond is them. She's dealing with common, everyday issues like boys, peer pressure, and coming into her own. I have scoured the bookstores for books geared towards our youth from infancy on up and it's been no easy task. I'm glad that I now have the Platinum Teen Series to look to. It reminds me of the popular series like Junie B and Ramona Quimby, but for us by us. Kudos to KaShamba Williams. No cussing, no violence, no sex and your child is reading. What more can a parent ask for?!?!

The only drawback to this book is it is in need of better editing. It's great that our teens are reading, but let's set an example and give them a good quality product, including proper punctuation.

This is one of those books.
Unfortunately shorter than War and Peace or Brothers Kam... , something Cyrillic. We need more from this author. She is someone who has the wit to spit in the eye of the inevitable. You wouldn't mind striking up a conversation with her in the line at the DMV or waiting for that express elevator. If you guys have any pull, use it for our advantage. Please. This is a funny, insightful, useful book.

This book has more of a comical approach to the apocalpse.It was an alright read but don't be looking for good info on survival.This is a fun read not a serious one.

Funny as hell, no funnier than that; funny as underwater basket weaving.

Ahhh, Meghann Marco, it must be crazy being around you. So the end of the world is coming (and it will come) so what are you going to do? Well, Meghann has given us some options based on knowledge-stealing from friends like 'Smart Neighbor', her own research, and piles of Apocalyptic movie scenarios. While this book isn't dead serious, it still provides some actual information yet in a highly humorous way. What do we have to look forward to - here ya go:
1. The False Utopia where culture, emotions, and reproduction are controlled by the 'higher ups'. How to break free of those mind controlling drugs they have you on and how to hide your freewill so as not to be captured and 'recycled'. You learn how to tell if you're in a dreamworld and how to avoid the simulacrum robot replacement initiatives.

Some at the movie references: The Island, Matrix, Clockwork Orange, Total Recall, Equilibrium, Stepdford Wives.

2. Neo-Medieval World and how it's brought about through natural disasters (super volcanos, greenhouse effect, ice age, meteor strike), pandemic disease, robot revolution, and the massive co-ordinated animal uprising. You learn how to survive in the apocalyptic wasteland (remember Wardrobe, Firepower, and proper choosing of your Vehicle & Pet). How to become the Warlord. Converting your car to use alternate fuels. Some notes on zombies and how to make antiserums (along with who to save - hotness is a factor). And dealing with massive severe climate change.

Look to movies like Mad Max, Army of Darkness, 12 Monkeys, Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Back to the Future, 28 Days Later.

3. Advanced Technological Dystopia where computers and robots infest our world. What to do to become the heroic detective and how to talk in 'cityspeak'. Being the Hacker and how to dress for it. How to tell if someone is a replicant and clone (and using it to your advantage). Dealing with extra-terrestrials and robot uprisings.

Movies: Terminator, A.I., Blade Runner, Fifth Element, Mars Attacks, They Live, and Alien.

4. Lastly, Tips for saving the world such as how to stop the alien invasion, assembling the proper ecclectic group of people to save the world, beating the massive co-ordinated animal uprising, and dealing with giant insects and other mutants of radiation.

Meghann gives us a great book to show how we can outwit and survive those less knowledgeable people that live down the street. Big influences on Mad Max movies, Matrix, & Blade Runner. Also, Meghann wants to make sure that anyone should be saving Jude Law for her (or George Clooney as a back up). She appreciates the undefined wisdom of Biff Tannen and most importantly... do whatever you need to to get a 1974 Ford Falcon 'V8 Interceptor' and you will be sure to survive.

- Do houseguests constantly complain that you've got nothing interesting to read in the bathroom?
- Do friends complain that waiting impatiently for you (as you try on your 33rd successive outfit while getting ready to go to the club) is boring because your coffee table contains only archaic episodes of the Onion and a few unpaid cable bills* to read?
- Are you constantly searching for 'light' or 'light-hearted' reading material that won't suck you in to a plot-line and refuse to let you get to sleep until 5 minutes before your alarm goes off?

Then go get yourself a copy of Field Guide to the Apocalypse : Movie Survival Skills for the End of the World by Meghann Marco

Most of the people I choose to spend my Saturday nights gaming, watching movies or even just socializing with, probably could have written this book. I probably could have written this book. You probably could've written this book** -- if we weren't so busy whiling our time away reading and writing things like Amazon.com Reviews instead, that is.

But thank heavens that Meghann Marco did - because it needed to be written!! And she definitely did it justice. Don't believe me without thumbing through it yourself? Go read a few excerpts.

It's a delightful little book - and if you keep it on the coffeetable, or in the W.C., it will amuse the crap out of you*** - presuming you have at least a passing knowledge of post-apocalyptic movies. It's good to be familiar with just about any Charlton Heston after-the-end-of-civilization movie (Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Omega Man...) It's good to know any Kubrick 'futurism' movies (2001, Dr. Strangelove...) It's good to know some of the more popular Philip K. Dick stories-adapted-to-movies (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report...) It doesn't hurt to have a healthy knowledge of the Classic-Sci-Fi-novel-turned-movies (1984, Farenheit 451, Brave New World...) in order to get a lot of the 'Cognoscenti' references. But even if your only familiarity is a brush with Logan's Run or the Matrix movies, you'll still enjoy the humor.

Honestly, this isn't deep, meaningful literature. It's not groundbreaking - there are a slew of similar books on the same subjects, including those limited to just one genre of PA society (zombies, comets, asteroids, wastelands...)
But it IS damn funny... and it's definitely worth the cover price.

Even if nobody else ever stays in your post-apocalypticesque bathroom long enough to find out why you kept laughing so hard while you were in there!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Which at least explains why they aren't watching pay-per-view adult movies on your TV instead
** An assumption, given that you're literate enough to have gotten this far and clearly have at least a passing interest in the subject matter - or you wouldn't have kept reading
*** The pun was unintentional when I wrote it, but then it amused me, so I left it in due to vanity (did you catch that one?) and because I can (can! hah... another bad restroom pun! I crack me up - not as much as the book does, but you get what you pay for)

If you ever found Cooper handsome, this book certain has many photos to entertain and foster this thought.

The hardcover is a must! The narrative inside is perhaps average but if you supplement the book with a bio novel on Cooper you'll certainly feel its well worth the expense. Buy, buy, buy

Well, let me start with what beautiful tribute this book is to her father. Maria Cooper's book is beautiful, but too many of the pictures look posed (Hollywood style). And the pictures that are actually not posed say more in body language about a family that clearly protects the Cooper family image. These people are beautiful, but they are too perfect: clothes, hair, makeup, you know it's all there. One picture I found fascinating, is of the three of them on a beach facing the ocean. Maria and her mom on the left, and further away is Gary Cooper and his body language is quite clear. Hmmm, that definitely was a candid shot. And if anyone is really looking, the beautiful Maria seems to be the glue that kept that family together. There is a gorgeous shot of the three of them in their ski clothes in an old house. Rocky with little makeup is quite beautiful, but Maria and her Dad are the ones in sync in this picture. I don't know, but these pictures show a definite strain in the family relationship far more than I ever realized. With friends, the pictures are happier. I am a fan of Gary Cooper's and always will be. And the fact, that he adored his beloved daughter and she adored him is clearly seen in this book. Maria Cooper shows us a Gary Cooper I have already seen in other pictures other people have taken of him. There really isn't a lot of hugging, and touching, and birthday parties, water fights, and family occasions, events, like most people and other stars have of their lives while children are growing up. I would love to have seen a picture of Mr. Cooper in his overalls in his garden (he was an avid gardener), teaching Maria to do things, showing her how to ride a horse, acting goofy.. Maria Cooper is quite lovely, and this book is wonderful to look at, but I don't really feel anything but a little sadness that she didn't show us more candid and "real" photographs about of her Dad and the family. There was a great deal more to this man than meets the eye. I didn't get too much of a glimpse into that.

The cover photograph, of Gary Cooper spoon-feeding ice-cream to his daughter on the streets of "Hadleyville," is a poignant clue to what follows. Maria Cooper was a girl who lived a very rarified life, and she lets us take a delicious peek at it.

This is a great book for initial insight into Gary Cooper by his daughter. It is very obvious she adored her father. The book is very informative about the personal life of "Coope" with many wonderful pictures, however, the book is more images than writing. The details are only touched on. If you are a Gary Cooper & you want many unseen pictures, this is the book for you...

In a day and age when the children of "the stars" write the most deplorable books about their parents, this book is a wonderfully tender tribute to a true hero. Absolutely refreshing.

I am - or was - an overweight teen. I really love the show Growing Up Gotti and once I heard that Frankie had a diet book comng out I thought that this would be a perfect oppurtunity for me to loss the weight for good. I ordered the book and it exceeded my expectations. Frankie is truly a great writer. This book encouraged me to follow his diet steps! Now, only half way through my diet, I have lost 24 lbs. And it is thanks to Frankie! So thank you for helping me and others lose extra weight for good.

I wish there was more publicity on this book. I had watched the show and goggled the show for images and came upon a picture of him before the show and was shocked to see his weight and even more shocked at what he is today. After viewing the sample pages provided by Amazon, I knew I had to grab a copy. I am 10 years older then Frank but he touches the core of my problems. He is an admirable writer that can be respected by all ages. I really appreciate his honesty, sincerity and encouragement. He taps into emotions and experiences that I have yet to see in any book, and for it to target the young generation is phenomenal!! Thanks Frank :)

The author of this book was just arrested for drug posession. Diet and exercise, or was there something more?

Lies and scandals.

i love the growning up gottie show
it of the chin, but anywayz, hi frankie, i just wanna say that u look soooooo fooooone,now we girls can see ur the real frankie
u look amazing

Frank Gotti's diet and exercise book really reveals the trauma of being overweight as a kid/tennager. I couldnt believe the before and after pics! And the heartfelt text inside. Frank was not afraid to show his sensitive side, in an effort to help others lose the weight as well. I applaud him--he has guts!....(and he's gorgeous!)....Katie Ross

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn to play the banjo in the frailing style, even if you have no musical experience at all. Patrick Costello's method of teaching makes learning easy and fun, and you do not even need to be able to read music!

After the introduction by Patrick, (and Pat, his 'Dear Old Dad'), there are tips on how to tune your banjo, and advice on the correct technique for holding and playing it, and then you are shown your first chord. You will then be able to 'frail' your very first folk song! After the first couple of songs, Patrick explains how to read the tablature which is used throughout the rest of the book. There are many tunes in the book to learn to play, lots more chords to be learned, and different techniques to practice. Towards the back of the book there is a lot more 'in depth' stuff which I have not attempted yet!

Learning the banjo is great fun, and Patrick Costello's friendly and relaxed manner of teaching makes this book an absolute must for beginners. At the end of the book he relates little anecdotes which are both amusing and encouraging.

The book is A4 size, with 168 pages full of instruction along with the words to the tunes you can learn. There is even a bit about reading music if you are interested in that!

I was a complete novice when I bought my banjo 5 weeks ago and have found this book invaluable. I live in the UK and could not find it in any of my local music shops so looked on Amazon and bought it from there! It arrived in possibly a shorter space of time than if I had ordered it from a shop in the UK anyway! And it is worth its weight in gold. Highly recommended!

As a student of the 5 String banjo I was pleased to discover the author's video submissions to You Tube. In this way for the past twelve months or so he has been giving free instruction in the craft of clawhammer style frailing. This instruction has been helping players at all levels to improve. His teaching methods are very effective and the whole affair is light hearted and full of humour. His book The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo is written on the back of the demand created by the free videos and carries the same massive sense of humour and fun while bringing the reader into the realm of proficient banjo playing. It carries entertaining anecdotes of the author's own journey towards becoming the expert that he is and sets out the way of progress for the student in a manner that boosts confidence and sense of achievement without to much technical theory.
I think this is without doubt the best tutor book for frailing the banjo that I have read and I have tried quite a few in the past. I fully recommend it to anyone that wants to learn to play this instrument.

If you really want to learn to play the banjo, this is far and away the best book out there. Patrick Costello is a superb instructor -- entertaining and thorough in his teaching. It doesn't get better than this! You will learn to play the banjo!

I first found out about this book from Patrick Costello's YouTube video instructions, which match up well with this book. When I got the book in my hands, I was very excited. It matched exactly what I wanted to learn, and how. It starts you with the basic frailing strum (bum-ditty), and quickly has you playing a song to get the feel for the rhythm of this style of playing. There are plenty of songs to keep you busy for quite awhile, and Patrick's storys in the "Tao" portion of the book will have you smiling.

I am a fledgling (at best) banjo player. I have read and researched many books, articles, and websites pertaining to banjos. This is an excellent book. I wish I had found this one first. I may not have purchased some of the others(?).

George Hurrell is universally acknowledged THE Hollywood portrait photographer, the man who recreated during the talkies much of the mystery of the silent stars through his breathtaking photographs. At a time when the finest still photography was becoming more incisive and natural, Hurrell managed to balance this new naturalism and directness in highly manipulated ways, producing in his best work iconic images of the great stars of MGM. After the second World War his work became largely passe, appearing too contrived and built up for an age demanding grit and spontaneity and an off-hand naturalness.

This work seeks to both show and tell the story of Hurrell's highwater era as not only the major photographer of the stars, and MGM in particular, but also his development as artist. Breathtaking photographs fill the volume - Harlow on a polar bear skin rug, her gown glowing a burnished white against the softer fur while all around her Hurrell captures an infinite play of lighting, the entire amazing and unrepeatable, a dream world evoked out of the irridescent sheen of an infinity of microscopic silvery gifts left by the platinum negative; Norma Shearer transformed from attractive but doughty into a timeless vamp, surpassing her silent film predecessors with an electric sexuality never before captured on still film; Joan Crawford, Hurrell's great muse at the top of his game, seen in powerful forceful images, unrelenting in their hold on an Apollonian authority.

Hurrell's flamboyant personality, his novel and sometimes off-putting behavior during shootings, seems now unfortunately taken as role template by many lesser fashion photographers. In his day and at his height during the late twenties through the beginnings of World War II Hurrell dominates a demanding and highly accomplished professional field.
Whether you live in a sumptious penthouse overlooking Central Park, need a single book for the coffee table in the living room of that restored Neutra you just purchased, or just enjoy reasonably priced fashion books, Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits fits the bill. At a significantly reduced price its a lovely reminder of one of the nicer advantages of democratic publishing: not every fine art book is a prohibitively expensive limited edition printed by a small press.

As a glamour photographer myself, this is a book I own and use for inspiration. I love the way Hurrell not only captures the inner-beauty of the subjects, but his photojournalistic approach. I often graze through this book as I've read it many times over--the grazing gets me going when it comes to my own glamour photography. I recommend anyone interested in this book, buy it now! If you'd like to see how it's affected my career, also check out the following books, Garage Glamour: Digital Nude and Beauty Photography Made Simple, Rolando Gomez's Glamour Photography: Professional Techniques and Images and even a book where I have a chapter, Professional Portrait Lighting: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers (Photo Pro Workshop series) This book should not only be on a collector's list, but for any student of photography--we're always learning no matter what level your photography. ---Rolando Gomez, contributing writer, Studio Photography magazine

This book -- how beautiful. I have photography books by several of the great portrait photographers of the 20th Century, and this one is the best. There are a wealth of photographs, and the story of Hurrell's life is also interesting. If you ever thought about seriously learning about photography and taking some good pictures, this book will take any hesitation out of your mind. Gorgeous!!

This book is everything I expected. The pictures are great and the text very informative. I am enjoying it very much and it is a valued addition to my film library.

I thoroughly enjoyed browsing through and then reading this beautiful tribute to the legendary work of George Hurrell. As compelling as Hurrell's photos are it is the author's indepth knowledge and understanding of Hollywood and Hurrell that set this book apart.

Mark Vieira's own photographic artistry is based on Hurrell's techniques, providing current-day enthusiasts with authentic glamour photography of their own.

According to taste, Dean Jensen's "Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton" can be read as tragedy or triumph. After being on display almost all their lives, the Siamese twins at the end lived in quiet obscurity, clerking in a grocery. All their lives they had said that was how they wanted to finish.

However, they had also wanted husbands and children, and they never got those.

Unlike most Siamese twins, who have to deal with an array of deficits and health problems, Daisy and Violet Hilton were normal in every other way. Not just normal but, as we'd say today, gifted and talented.

More remarkable than the link of flesh at the base of their spines was their sunny disposition, maintained somehow despite an infancy and childhood that was extremely restricted by a stepmother who didn't want anyone to see them for free.

Their charm was their salvation. Although they were wickedly exploited, over their lives they repeatedly attracted devoted friends who rescued them time and again. These never were able to rescue the twins entirely from the exploiters, or from their own sad inability to judge boyfriends, but they kept the Hiltons from utter degradation.

Jensen interprets their lives as an endless search for love, which he -- and they -- interpreted as romantic, sexual love. That escaped them, but they did enjoy did attract affectionate love, which, it may be, they were always too distracted to quite recognize.

Jensen tells the story at a glacial pace but with plenty of detail. He rescues an amazing story. In the `20s, the Hilton Sisters were as celebrated -- and, briefly, as highly paid -- any of the characters of that wacky decade. Somehow they failed to make it into the popular histories along with such comparatively dull stars as Shipwreck Kelly.

The Hiltons' story is a gold mine of irony, but Jensen is not an ironist. By a odd accident, the women ended up in the same place, North Carolina, where the first famous set of Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, had enjoyed the kind of life the sisters had longed for: surrounded by children in rural domesticity. Jensen fails to make the connection.

This was the BEST book that I have read in YEARS.
The book held my interest.
The story was great, along with the ending.
It was not a fluffy gloss over of the twins, but an honest bare-bones account of their lives.
It was happy, uplifting, tragic, and sad in all.
The book truly made an impression on me.
I think about these two girls often.
It's been 100 years on Feb 5th 2008 since they were born.
Buy it & read it.
You will not be disappointed!

I just could not put this book down. These girls were vulnerable, tragic, and strong and heroic all at once. The author reports of a life I cannot imagine. Very well written and researched. DO NOT start reading this book unless you have all night to do so.

It may sound unbelieveable, but The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton is the best book that I have ever read. I am surprised at how emotionally involved I became with regards to the twins triumphs and tradgies. The book kept me in suspense from start to finish. I think that the author (Dean Jensen) did a fantastic and brilliant job of really getting you to know the sisters individually. He also touched on things going on in history at the time to help create a realistic and interesting setting. Great photos too. It was also fun to read the book and then watch Chained For Life. So wonderful to see the twins perform. I am encouraging all of my friends to read this incredible book.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, perceptibly hung over, possibly still drunk, eyed the Hilton sisters over breakfast at MGM Studios. Daisy and Violet had just strolled into the commissary, taking a single empty chair across from him. Daisy picked up a menu, and without looking at her sister, asked Violet what she planned on ordering. Fitzgerald turned pea-green, ran outside, and retched. The sisters were at MGM to star in the film Freaks.

Daisy and Violet Hilton were pygopagus conjoined twins, united by a "cord of flesh" near the base of their spines. As described in Dean Jensen's biography, The Lives And Loves Of Daisy And Violet Hilton: A True Story Of Conjoined Twins, they were also clever, beautiful, and eminently likable women. And yet, Fitzgerald's reaction to them was uncommon only in manifestation. For something in the sister's irregular form converted even their most trivial activities into enchantments. In merely wanting breakfast, Daisy and Violet inspire our unseemly fascination, exposing us as gawkers, or moralists, or miserable, inconsiderate drunks.

Born in England, Daisy and Violet were just infants when the Brighton press proclaimed the occurrence of "an extraordinary freak of nature." They were toddlers when championed by Harry Houdini. At sixteen, having conquered American midways, they attempted a transition typically blocked to "sideshow freaks": they tried to make it in Vaudeville. In their first performance, Daisy and Violet sang, played instrumentals, and charmed the crowd with tosses of brown curls. Then two young boys, dressed in tuxedoes, joined them onstage. Each took a twin by the hand. Music swelled and the foursome began to glide across the stage, "locked in a pas de quatre." The sold-out crowd erupted. They stood in applause. They cried "tears of joy." They dashed toward the box office to secure tickets for the next show.

Such reactions, sparked at the sight of something as natural as teenagers dancing, explain Daisy and Violet's legendary success. It also inversely illustrates the more common, less noble, response they elicited: dehumanization. Given away by their unwed, terrified mother, the twins grew up chattel to guardians whose parental interest stopped at exploitation and appropriation. Even their first memories, "the movements of the visitor's hands which were forever lifting our baby clothes to see just how we were attached," recall their tragic position: trapped between those who used them and those who wanted only to look. Their childhood was replete with threats of being sent to the "asylum for monster children." They spent most of their time confined in a room - lest someone catch a free glimpse. Years later, while in the office of the attorney who would eventually emancipate them, Daisy and Violet were recounting their upbringing when they were interrupted by sobbing. The stenographer had begun to cry.

Curiously, the empathy wrought by Jensen's faithful portrayal of Daisy's and Violet's lives is no prophylactic to the rubbernecking its details will inspire. It is easy to chastise the surgeons who wanted to saw the sisters apart, but upon the discovery that when Violet got drunk - which she often did - Daisy would get "a little buzzed," the teratologic glee is irresistible.

This conflict resonates loudest in Jensen's chapters discussing the sisters' love lives. Readers will no doubt be moved by Daisy and Violet's inability to find lasting love outside themselves. They will decry the twenty-one states that refused, on moral grounds, to permit Violet to marry. They will disdain the reporters who pressed their eyeballs to the keyhole of Daisy's bridal suite. They will blame the public responsible for this media circus when her introverted husband runs off. And yet, when the reader's friends discover the Hiltons were conjoined twins, and ask the question that everyone asks, the reader will will be quick to answer: Yes, Daisy and Violet had sex, lots of it. Even Jensen, unflaggingly sympathetic as he is, seems unable to resist this salacious urge, ending his story with Daisy and Violet's most enduring "trebling," a burial plot shared with a man whom they never met.

Had Daisy and Violet not been conjoined twins, their biography might well resemble that of those other Hilton sisters, circa 2050. The Hiltons sought and eventually rebuked public attention. The Hiltons learned those well-worn lessons of fleeting fame and wasted fortune. Such comparisons phosphoresce in Jensen's exposition, which can, at varying times, feel either rudimentary or dispensable. Yet, Jensen avoids melodrama. He evokes the Dickensian far more than he uses it as an adjective. And he is delightfully adept with anecdotes, a skill put to memorable use recounting a world populated by the likes of pugilistic bandleader Blue Steel; "flimflam man extraordinaire," Terry Turner; and a villain who actually named himself, Myer Myers. And besides, Daisy and Violet are not those other Hiltons. They were world famous: the Royal English Twins United, made singular by a slip of Mother Nature's hand, "grown together the way tomatoes on a vine sometimes do."

Like every kid in America, afternoons after school meant watching television and who better to watch than Abbott and Costello?

This book took me by surprise. For years I heard stories about the tragic events that happened in Lou Costello's personal life but somehow images of him in HOLD THAT GHOST or bothering the Andrews Sisters didn't jive with those images.

Lou's daughter, Chris, wrote a loving tribute to her father that is accurate, on point but never gets syrupy sweet. Nor is it a "Daddy Dearest" where she portrays anyone as a monster.

Although she was not born at the time, Chris traces her father's roots from New Jersey all the way through vaudeveille and finally Hollywood. In a sesntive way, she recounts the tragic loss of Lou's son, Butch and with just as much delicacy she handles the problems of her mother's drinking.

Although I would have liked to have had a better insight into what went on as the team created some memorable movie scenes, Chris concentrates solely on the man. You put down the book and wonder how Lou Costello - plaqued with IRS problems as well as health issues - could be so funny and so giving all the time.

Even if you are not an A&C fan, this book will show you the side of a professional comedian who gave the gift of laughter to others despite his own problems.

I found out from a local bookstore that this particular edition of Lou Costello's life was out of print and that their supplier unable to procure. The bookstore reminded me to check with Amazon and there it was. You had one copy which I quickly scooped up. Delivery was even a day earlier than stated. Very pleased as always with Amazon website, products and delivery

Starts with his early years.
The beginning of Abbott & Costello.
21 years later , the break-up of Abbott & Costello.
They were two opposites.
One didn't drink, one drank heavily.
Offstage: one loud jokster, one quiet & reserved.
Both gambled heavily.
Lou's long illness.
Death of Lou's son. Plus More.

As a book written by his daughter it is very selective in its memory of Lou Costello...second hand memory mostly since she is Lou's youngest child and only witnessed his final 10 years in a somewhat lucid manner.
Nevertheless there is a lot of love that comes out of her description of Lou's complex life. A love that she obviously gets from an idolizing and idealised image she has formed of her parents...losing both of them at a very early age and not being on the best of terms with a lot of the rest of the family(a somewhat glossed-over fact, only tentatively described in the very last pages of the book)she writes in a rather simple somewhat scattered and disjointed manner(even though helped by a ghost writer who obviously can't do much better)about the life of her famous parent. Totally uncritical, Lou comes over in these pages as somewhat of a saint, so good it is hard to believe...somehow I feel there is another book that can be written about this elusive character..but that was obviously not the goal of Chris Costello. She does tackle the strains on the family relations, particularly the problems between Lou's overbearing italian clan and her mother and the latter's alcoholism.
Still, it is a labour of love, and for all its faults and glossing-over it is in the end a catartic book for the author who hints at a paradise lost she all too briefly inhabited in the confines of the luxurious pleasure dome her troubled and much lamented parents provided for her....

It seems as though a lot of bios written by the children of famous parents run to the two extremes of villifying the parent or sugarcoating the parent. This book does neither, and fits nicely in between. Though Ms. Costello was only eleven years old when her dad passed on, and therefore didn't know or remember him in the same way as if he had passed on when she was an adult, she does still manage to be both loving and honest in her treatment of him. The Lou Costello who comes to life in these pages is largely a really nice generous guy, who was absolutely devoted to his parents, children, siblings, wife (even if he didn't show much physical affection around others, since that wasn't part of his upbringing), and friends, and who was also very generous and kind to the other performers he worked with, particularly the ones who were just getting started in the business and needed someone to look out for them and show them the ropes. And while it is true that some people really are so uniformly good, Ms. Costello does not paint her father as an utter saint either. There's not a lot of dirt to dig up, but not everything about him was perfect. Among the character/personal flaws she discusses are his habit of stealing stuff from Universal's movie sets, how he was quite the McCarthyist, and his bad gambling habits.

The book seems like much more of a personal bio than a career bio. It focuses on Lou and his family and friends, instead of rehashing a lot of stories most fans have heard already. Most of his movies aren't discussed in any detail at all, many of them just mentioned in passing, and while this might frustrate people who are looking for more in-depth information on that rather important side of his life, you can always find more thorough discussions of the movies in another book. This book is to tell the personal side of his life, as remembered and researched through the eyes of a daughter who loved him. I really enjoyed reading about things such as his early family life, the beautiful lavish mansion he had in Sherman Oaks, his family's life on the ranch they moved to after his problems with the IRS, his relationship with his parents, siblings, wife, and children, and his solo acting at the end of his career. With obvious notable exceptions such as the tragic loss of his only son days before his first birthday, the start of his movie career, and the version of "Who's on First" that he and Bud Abbott used on their debut radio performance of it, most of the stories and anecdotes in this book aren't to be found anywhere else. It goes beyond and doesn't dwell on oft-repeated statements such as "He was never the same after the loss of his son" and "He and Bud Abbott didn't get along off-camera." The truth is so much more interesting. Overall, it's the complete and personal picture of a very talented, funny, giving, sweet man, delving beyond simplistic stereotypes and myths.