Published by Bloomsbury, 2022, 386 pages. This is a book that keeps giving. The multi-talented Patti Smith—singer, songwriter, photographer, author, painter—has put together a collection of photographs (most of them taken by Smith with her 250 Land Camera), one for each day of the year. This book came from her Instagram account, which she started …
Category: Media / Film / Music / Photography
Me: Elton John
Published by Pan Books, 2019, 398 pages. “I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do, or even what I could do. I knew I could sing and play piano, but I clearly wasn’t pop star material. For one thing, I didn’t look like a pop star, as evidenced by my inability to carry …
The Liar Tells the Truth: Irshad Panjatan
2021, 287 pages. “In pure mime, the artist has to depend entirely on his body on an empty stage to create an atmosphere around him, plus the characters he depicts, to tell the story without any dialogues, music, or songs, and without any external aids like props and decorations. He has to fill the stage …
The Measure of a Man: Sidney Poitier
Published by Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins, 2001, 272 pages. “... I decided that I wanted to write a book about life. Just life itself. What I’ve learned by living more than seventy years of it. ... “I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I've suddenly come up with the …
Walking with Ghosts—A Memoir: Gabriel Byrne
Published by Picador, 2020, 224 pages. “How many times have I returned in my dreams to this hill. It is always summer as I look out over the gold and green fields, ditches foaming with hawthorn and lilac, river glinting under the sun like a blade. When I was young, I found sanctuary here and …
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My Name is Gauhar Jaan! The Life and Times of a Musician: Vikram Sampath
Review by Sadhana RamchanderPublished by Rupa & Co., 2010, 346 pages. I have been fascinated by Gauhar Jaan's life ever since I came to know about her. I bought this hard-bound book in the bookshop A A Hussian some years ago but it sat on my shelves for a long time. I finally read it, …
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A Broken Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen’s Secret Chord—Liel Leibovitz
Published by Sandstone Press, 2014, 256 pages. “Lots of writers have dared walk up to the edge of reason and stare into that great chasm, into the abyss. Very few people have got there and laughed out loud at what they saw. It’s the divine comedy.” —Bono, on Leonard Cohen You either love or hate …
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Going to the Movies: A Personal Journey Through Four Decades of Modern Film—Syd Field
Published by Bantam Dell, 2001, 336 pages. What makes a movie great? Why are some movies memorable while others disappear into obscurity? The foundation underlying the performances and the directing is the screenplay. A screenplay can make or break a film. Going to the Movies is a combination of memoirs and a lesson on the …
Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch—Nick Davies
Published by Chatto & Windus / Vintage, 2014, 448 pages. “If you shut up truth and bury it in the ground, it will grow and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through, it will blow up everything in its way.” Emile Zola Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. …
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Meena Kumari: Vinod Mehta
Published by HarperCollins India, 2013, 252 pages. For many years, I’ve enjoyed the writing of Vinod Mehta, the editor of the Indian newsmagazine Outlook, so I was looking forward to reading his biography of Meena Kumari, an iconic Indian actress who died in 1972. But the biography was written on a commission soon after her …
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