Biography Books > Mother Teresa & Brian Kolodiejchuk Biography Books

The man who 'just got stuck in traffic'

Advantages: Fascinating biography of a very likeable eccentric
Disadvantages: None, if you're interested in the subject matter

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tom Waits probably enjoys a status comparable to our own wonderful Richard Thompson. He has never sold out to a mass pop audience, preferring instead to sustain an engagingly low-key career for over 30 years, feted by critics, fellow artists and a cult following though he only achieved modest record sales. While his 80s albums 'Swordfishtrombones' and 'Rain Dogs' are regarded as among the finest of the decade, most ...
...songs. Two of them, 'Downtown Train' and 'Tom Traubert's Blues', have been Top 10 hits for Rod Stewart, who once said that they paid for the swimming pool in Tom's garden, while in his early days the Eagles gave him a boost by recording 'Ol' 55' on their third album. 'On The Border'. I only had a slender knowledge of Tom and his music before this book came my way. Thanks to youtube for a much-needed crash course, not least for a wonderful clip from ...

JOHNV 22.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits - Barney Hoskyns

Life at the Sharpe end

Advantages: Joyous read for a footy biog
Disadvantages: More juice please

...books I have read on my beloved Man United it seems Alex detest posers and southerners and life should be as staid and tough as his West Glasgow dockland upbringing to get any sort of success and meaning in life. A brief over view. Born to a well meaning and comfortably well off Brummie family, it was Lee’s granddad and Nana that he would spend the best time with him in his youth, the old boy once dressing little Lee as a dwarf to sneak him into ...
...sweetheart as soon as it was legal, Lee’s first move in pro football was to Torqay of all places, a team that had just managed to stay in the league with a last minute goal in the first ever relegation season of 86-87, his devastating pace and ability to get a cross in with his sweet left foot the big attraction that could keep them up the following season. Amazingly, after just six games in Cornwall, Manchester United came in for him for £180,000; ...

thedevilinme 21.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of My Idea Of Fun - Lee Sharpe

Story of A Dream

Advantages: Interesting , Honest
Disadvantages: None!

Leona Lewis is probably my favourite singer. To me , she stands out from the rest because she is real ; she is a 'popstar' because she has the voice , and not just the looks like some artists who are good looking but can't sing! I am really excited , because yesterday , I booked tickets to see Leona on her tour next year! I cannot wait. Leona Louise Lewis was born on April 3rd 1985 (she is currently twenty four years old) in Islington , London. ...
..., Italia Coni Academy and The Brit School. In 2006 , Leona auditioned for the British television programme ' The X Factor' , which sets out to 'find the next biggest star' ; popular throughout the show , Leona went on to win the series. To date Leona has eight singles (A Moment Like This , Bleeding Love , Better In Time/Footprints In The Sand , Forgive Me , Run , I Will Be , Happy and I Got You) and two albums (Spirit (which went to number one in ...

xdonzx 18.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Leona: Dreams - Leona Lewis, Dean Freeman

High and mighty

Advantages: Fascinating look at a man whose achievements are little remembered
Disadvantages: Perhaps not the most inviting or 'nice' subject for a book (but life's not always nice!)

Sometimes, the title of a book is so uninviting at first glance that you are compelled to investigate further. Such is the case with this work, a biography-cum-history of a man who was rightly feted as one of the great benefactors of his age but has since been almost forgotten. Born in London in 1819 of French extraction, Joseph Bazalgette was not only one of London's greatest builders, but his engineering and sanitation schemes are said by some ...
...than either. In the mid-19th century, two million people were pouring their sewage directly into the river, where it was carried to and fro by the tides. Crunch time came in the sweltering summer of 1858, when 'the Great Stink', as it was called by The Times, drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons. As Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works, London's first metropolitan government, from 1856 to 1889, Bazalgette ...

JOHNV 18.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Great Stink of London - Stephen Halliday

The End of the Piers Show?

Advantages: We vote for the politicians who will do our dirty work
Disadvantages: Most left book in hotel rooms.

Piers Morgan, like the ridiculous ‘Jordan’, is one of our most iconic and inflated tabloid tits, ridiculed not only for the way he ran the News of the World and the Daily Mirror but for the weasel he appears to be, an essential requirement to run a British tabloid it seems, men that puke up what they write after ten pints. So why would anyone want to read a book about his life running those tabloids? Well the answer, of course, is access. This is ...
...pretty much anyone else’s in the Labor party, a close alliance with the paper formed many decades ago. He was there from day one when Blair came in to number ten and also covered the sad Princess Diana decline and 911, two of the biggest stories of the second half of the twentieth century, and Morgan intimate with many of those bigger events in the lest decade. You may not like the guy but he was there at the heart of it when it happened and so that ...

thedevilinme 15.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Insider - Piers Morgan