Friday, 11 May 2012
Monday, 7 May 2012
Front Row: Anna Wintour by Jerry Oppenheimer
They say the best and most inspiring stories are true ones and which better true story to pick to read this May Bank holiday than Jerry Oppenheimer's book on Anna Wintour OBE - the American Vogue's Editor-in-Chief since 1988 - where he gives us candid and objective insights into the life of the most influential woman in fashion.
(from the hardcover) Anna Wintour is ambitious, driven, insecure, needy, and a perfectionist - and she's considered the most powerful force in the more than $100 billion global industry.
With her signature Louise Brooks bob, trademark sunglasses, Manolo Blahnik stilettos, Chanel suits, and glamorous furs, she's a sexy international diva, gossiped about from New York to Milan, from Paris to Tokyo.
As famed designer Oscar de la Renta raves, "...She is a star. There has never been a Vogue as important as Vogue is now."
How did Wintour, who quit school over disputes regarding her miniskirt's length, and who had no real writing or communication skills, rise to the pinnacle of the fashion magazine world?
Based on scores of interviews with present and former friends and colleagues, Front Row is the scrupulously researched, often shocking story of the cool life and hot times of this enigmatic icon - a candid portrait of a fashion-obsessed teenager in Swinging Sixties London who claws her way up the ivory tower in New York, always artfully crafting and reinventing herself.
Front Row is also an intimate examination of Wintour's personal passions and needs, her loves lost and won, and her feuds and achievements. It is an inside look at one of the world's most influential women as well as at the catty, competitive, bitch-eat-bitch world of fashion.
About the author: Jerry Oppenheimer has been writing definitive, bestselling unauthorized biographies of American icons since the mideighties. He has worked in all facets of journalism, from national investigative reporting in Washington DC to producing TV news and documentaries. His other books on public figures include Martha Stewart, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Bernie Madoff. Front Row was published back in 2005 and is the first and, as far as can be ascertained, only biography of Anna Wintour.
Vogue was founded in 1892.
Saturday, 5 May 2012
Skinnydipping by Bethenny Frankel with Eve Adamson
Beloved by countless fans (including me!) for being devilishly dishy, outrageously funny, and always giving it to us straight, three-time New York Times bestselling author Bethenny Frankel now makes her fiction debut with the story of Faith Brightstone.
Faith is an aspiring actress just out of college, who moves to LA determined to have it all - a job on the most popular TV show, a beach house in Malibu, and a gorgeous producer boyfriend. But when reality hits, she finds herself with a gig as a glorified servant, a role that has more to do with T&A than acting, and a dead-end relationship. Finally, Faith decides she's had enough of La La Land and moves back to New York with just a suitcase and her dog, Muffin.
Five years later, Faith has finally found her groove as an entrepreneur and manages to land a spot on a new reality TV show hosted by her idol - the legendary businesswoman and domestic goddess Sybil Hunter. Diving into the bizarre world of reality TV, Faith's loud mouth and tell-it-like-it-is style immediately get her in trouble with her fellow contestants - the delusional socialite; the boozy lifestyle coach; the moody headband designer; and her closest friend, the ambitious housewife who eventually betrays her. Even Sybil is not what she appears.
As the show comes to a dramatic close, Faith discovers that the man of her dreams may have just walked into her life. Will she choose fame or love? Or can she have it all? (from the hardcover)
About the author: Bethenny Frankel is the three-time bestselling author of A Place of Yes (2011), Naturally Thin (2009), and The Skinnygirl Dish (2000). She is the creator of the Skinnygirl brand - which extends to cocktails, beauty, fitness, and health - and the star of her own Bravo TV show. In 2011, Bethenny won a Glamour Women of the Year Award and was named one of the Top 100 World's Most Powerful Celebrities by Forbes magazine. She is a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. Bethenny lives in New York with her husband, daughter and dog. Skinnydipping (5 January 2012) is also available on Kindle and audio.
About the co-author: Eve Adamson is a professional writer and has authored and coauthored more than forty books. She lives with her family in Iowa, where she cooks, gardens and writes about food and holistic health.
Frankel introduces her fiction debut Skinnydipping:
Rating: 5/5
Friday, 4 May 2012
A Florentine Death by Michele Giuttari
(from the paperback) Meet Michele Ferrara. Lover of a good bottle of local Rossi di Montalcino, smoker of Antico Toscano cigars - and head of Florence's elite police force, the Squadra Mobile. With a rising murder rate and high levels of Mafia activity, Ferrara has an unenviable job.
The first novel by real-life police chief Michele Giuttari, A Florentine Death (2007) offers a fascinating insight into both the beauty and the darkness of everyday life in Florence, Italy. I highly recommend the Michele Ferrara mystery series to all.
The translation from the Italian into the English by Howard Curtis reads very smoothly and retains an Italian lilt and sensitivity.
Rating: 5/5
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Stay Close by Harlan Coben
Global bestseller Harlan Coben Coben is well known for writing about the intricacies and hypocrisies of human nature in his thrillers. He returns with a new standalone novel, Stay Close (29 March 2012) - a powerful psychological thriller that explores how our decisions define us and how our present selves are inescapably shaped by our past. Three people. A second chance to put things right. However, they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper thin as a heartbeat. (from the hardback)
About the author: Harlan Coben is the author of twenty-one previous novels, including the No 1 New York Times bestsellers Live Wire (2011), Caught (2010), Long Lost (2009), and Hold Tight (2008), as well as Play Dead (1990) and the popular Myron Bolitar series. He is the first author to win all three Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. His novel Tell No One (2001) was turned into the smash hit French film of the same name, and received the highly coveted Lumiere (French Golden Globe) for best picture as well as four Cesars (French Oscar). He lives in New Jersey with his family. Visit Harlan Coben's official website for more information.
Rating: 5/5
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Inspector Singh Investigates: A Curious Indian Cadaver by Shamini Flint
Portly Inspector Singh is back and is stopping in India this time, his fifth outing into Asia to bust crimes. Well, bust crime he is not as he has been dragged to Mumbai to attend a wedding of Mrs Singh's well-connected relative but no sooner had he stepped upon Indian soil, he is brought short with the apparent suicide of the beautiful bride-to-be on the eve of her wedding. When a corpse is found, burnt beyond recognition except for a pair of glinting ruby earring which more or less identified her, her family is baffled and doesn't believe that their beloved daughter would have killed herself in such a dreadful way. They inevitably suspect foul play. Thus, Inspector Singh, in a private investigator capacity, sets out to uncover the truth and rattle a few skeletons but not without some intervention from his formidable wife. Yes, it's never going to be easy especially when family's involved.
Witty and thoroughly entertaining with lots of references to India's diverse culture, A Curious Indian Cadaver (5 April 2012) is a compelling page-turning whodunit read. I look forward to Inspector Singh's next foray.
Visit Shamini Flint's website at www.shaminiflint.com for the other books in the Inspector Singh Investigates series.
Rating: 5/5
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Two Years On The Blog
Happy second anniversary to Choose and Book. Has it been two years already? It has been another exciting ride with discoveries of new authors, new books, book purchases, visits to bookshops in Europe and most of all, plenty and plenty of front-to-back reading. Thank you to those who dropped by religiously or sporadically. Here's to another year of abundant reading and discoveries.
Cheers and happy reading and booking!
Blood On The Altar: In Search of a Serial Killer by Tobias Jones
This book is a combination of a true crime that took place almost twenty years ago and also an exploration into the heart of a small town's ills where the simplest thing becomes extraordinarily corrupted and perverse. Some of the following are taken from the hardback blurb.
Years ago there was a young man in Potenza, Basilicata, the rugged and remote land in south Italy, who had an odd habit of cutting young girls' hair on the back of buses. Later on, because of his fetish, he became known as the Barber of Potenza. Who is he? Why did he do what he did? Let's go back to the beginning.
On 12 September 1993, a sixteen-year-old girl went missing in a church in the centre of Potenza. Elisa Claps, a much loved, responsible and only daughter of a good family, had met a young man, Danilo Restivo, one Sunday morning but had then vanished without a trace. Her family were convinced that Restivo, a strange boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair, was responsible. He was said to suffer from mental problems and had a morbid behaviour towards girls. When questioned by the authorities, Restivo produced a far-fetched and a well-rehearsed alibi. A tiny cut on his hand between the thumb and the index finger without any bruises and other injuries looked absurdly incompatible with what he told the investigators as a rolling-head-over-heels fall down an entire flight of steps at a building site.
But Restivo was inexplicably protected by local big-wigs: by his powerful Sicilian father, by the priest of the church who had vices of his own, and by a magistrate in charge of the case with rumoured links to organised crime.
Years went by, but Elisa's family could only find false leads. There were sightings and tip-offs and attempted extortions. Clearly, the investigation had no direction - the church where Elisa was last seen at was never searched - and Elisa's older brother, Gildo, summed it up tersely, "It's a joke...how is it not possible to single out the person responsible when we had so many elements and certainties about the case?"
By 2002 Restivo had moved to Bournemouth, Dorset in England. On 12 November that year, his next-door neighbour, Heather Barnett, was found brutally mutilated with strands of hair in both of her hands. Four months before that inhumane murder, in the early hours of 12 January 2002, twenty-six-year-old Jong-Ok Shin, an English student from South Korea, was stabbed. Before she succumbed to her injuries, she told the police that the attacker had worn a mask. But once again, the police could pin nothing on Restivo. Even the FBI in Virginia could not come up with a profile of the killer. It was only on 17 March 2010, seventeen years after her disappearance, when Elisa's decomposed body was finally found, that the pieces of the jigsaw finally began to fit together.
In May 2011, Restivo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Heather Barnett by the court of Winchester.
In November 2011, Restivo was sentenced in absentia to thirty years for the murder of Elisa Claps by an Italian court.
Blood on the Altar (1 March 2012) is more than just a gripping true crime story. It's a portrait of Basilicata, the most remote and fascinating region in Italy; it's an investigation into why Italy appears to offer impunity to the powerful; it's a hunt for a serial killer; and most of all, it's an appreciation of one courageous and determined family who refused to accept the injustice of Italian society. It is beautifully written and expertly researched, at once a haunting yet evocative piece of writing by a very fine writer. Anyone hoping for a modicum of justice in a mad, mad world where wealth, connections and power can escape punishment despite murder and other atrocious crimes would want to read this book.
About the author: Tobias Jones is the author of two travel books, The Dark Heart of Italy (2003) and Utopian Dreams: In Search of a Good Life (2007), and two novels, The Salati Case (2009) and White Death (2011). He currently runs a woodland shelter in Somerset with his wife. Do visit his websites for more information: www.tobias-jones.com and www.windsorhillwood.co.uk
A quick take of the author on his book:
The Salati Case by Tobias Jones
More Italian crime fiction, this time featuring Castagnetti or known informally as Casta, a bee-keeping private detective who is based in an unnamed city but which from the descriptions and names of places in the book sounds like Parma, Italy. According to the book blurb, fourteen years ago Silvia Salati's son went missing while waiting for a train. When Silvia dies, the mystery of her son's circumstances becomes an obstacle to disposing of her estate. Her other heirs demand action, and so Castagnetti is commissioned by a notary to change the son's status from 'missing' to 'presumed dead'.
But Castagnetti, who lost his parents and optimism long ago, isn't the sort to content himself with presumption. He likes certainty, and wants justice. Before long he is reopening wounds, exposing family secrets and uncovering a plot as thick and chilling as Italian fog.
The Salati Case (2009) is the debut in the Italian PI Castagnetti series. Another highly satisfying read of an ever-changing Italy with its juxtaposition of the past and the modern which I highly recommend.
About the author: Tobias Jones studied at Jesus College, Oxford. He was on the staff of the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday before moving to Parma in Italy in 1999. Since the publication of his bestseller The Dark Heart of Italy (2003), he has written and presented documentaries for BBC TV and radio and for RAI 3. He is the regular contributor for the British and Italian press and is a columnist for Internazionale. Do check out his website for more information on his other books.
Rating: 5/5
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