BOTW
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06p7b7n
Hammersmith Palais, his father’s old stomping ground[and mine]
Early childhood in 50s London
Leaving Liverpool to seek fame in London
A persona is created
Infamy in US and protest songs at home.
Read by Greg Itzin 16:12:31
Description: A true American rebel, Dennis Hopper s amazing life was a roller-coaster series of triumphs and failures. Hopper acted in more than 115 movies, directed seven himself, and passionately pursued an artist s life as a photographer, creator and art collector. This book explores Hopper s life from his lonely childhood in Kansas, to his drug-fuelled days and nights in Hollywood and his spiritual home in Taos, New Mexico. From Hopper s early days in Hollywood, where he had an affair with 16-year-old Natalie Wood and took acting lessons from James Dean, his 60s head trips and the making of Easy Rider, his lost years in Taos, to his recovery and political right-turn in the 80s, this book unsparingly documents his journey from self-destructive bad boy to iconic survivor of the counterculture. It also delves into Hopper s tumultuous personal life, including his dramatic attempt to divorce his last wife while he battled terminal cancer. This is the first book to cover the entire life and career of the man who hung out with James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Jack Nicholson, co-starred in and directed Easy Rider, and returned to form in Blue Velvet, overcoming years of alcoholism and drug addiction. This is a must-have for Hopper fans, film buffs, and readers hooked on celebrity scandals.
Natalie was nothing like the innocent Maria from West Side Story
James Dean
Nick Ray
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076qkb
Revisiting, via BBC R4x, all the books in remembrance, our world has altered too.
Description: Marcel discovers the staggering gulf between the fantasy and the reality of childhood enchantments.
Stars James Wilby.
Shifting back and forth between childhood and his teenage years, between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this is a mosaic of memories, a simply told, affecting look back into the author’s boyhood: the tragic death of his older brother at the age of four; his mother pawning the family’s blankets every spring and buying them back in time for winter; his beloved grandparents bringing the weaker piglets into their bed on cold nights; and Saramago’s early encounters with literature, from teaching himself to read by deciphering articles in the daily newspaper, to poring over an entertaining dialogue in a Portuguese-French conversation guide, not realizing that he was in fact reading a play by Molière.
Written with Saramago’s characteristic wit and honesty, Small Memories traces the formation of an artist fascinated by words and stories from an early age and who emerged, against all odds, as one of the world’s most respected writers.
Opening: THE VILLAGE IS CALLED Azinhaga and has, so to speak, been where it is since the dawn of nationhood (it had a charter as early as the thirteenth century), but nothing remains of that glorious ancient history except the river that passes right by it (and has done, I imagine, since the world was created) and which, as far as I know, has never changed direction, although it has overflowed its banks on innumerable occasions.
I love that he cared about the homeless lizards.
This was the right book at the right time, a breath of fresh air, beautifully written (natch), of ideal length, and a charismatic slice of rural Portuguese life from a time past.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06p56zj
Description: Tod is a young scene designer in 1930s Hollywood trying to earn an honest buck and still maintain his artistic integrity. He falls in love with Faye, an aspiring actress and gets sucked into the toxic periphery of Hollywood. A caustic satire on the flipside of the 1930s dream factory.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076qgd
Revisiting, via BBC R4x, all the books in remembrance.
Description: Marcel recalls the awakening of passion and his painful transition from boy to man.
Stars James Wilby and Imogen Stubbs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076qc0
Revisiting, via BBC R4x, all the books in remembrance.
Description: A writer journey’s back into his childhood recalls the sad affair of Charles Swann.
Stars James Wilby and Imogen Stubbs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06p4t0g
Description: Dame Harriet Walter has curated a season of dramas for Radio 3, all drawn from the theatre. The first features two of Harold Pinter’s later plays, each providing her with a challenging role she has never taken on before. In ‘A Kind of Alaska’, she is Deborah who has lost the last 29 years to sleep; and in ‘Ashes to Ashes’, Rebecca is haunted by an altogether different kind of loss.
Gruelling fayre.
Description: This beautifully illustrated edition of the home-bartending bible by world-renowned bartender Salvatore Calabrese includes 50 new recipes along with instructions for preparing virtually any cocktail. With encyclopedic information about every liquor, here are 830 of Salvatore’s personal favorites, from classics like the Negroni to exotic modern reinventions like the Cosmopolitan. Stir in a sparkling blend of insider info and gorgeous color photos, garnish with live-action pictorials of dozens of techniques, and you’ve got everything necessary to become a master of mixology.
About the Author: Salvatore Calabrese is an international award-winning expert on cocktails. From his position as bar manager of the Library Bar at the prestigious Lanesborough Hotel at London’s Hyde Park Corner, Calabrese has been elected Vice President of the Bartender’s Guild of the United Kingdom. Among his many awards are The Campari Bartender of the Year, winner of the Lea & Perrins International Healthy Cocktails Competition, and holder of the Chevalerie du Verre Galant and the Chevalier l’Ordre des Côteaux de Champagne.
Love the layout and photography, this is a handsome book and useful for the midwinter holidays in mind. Recommended.
Six months later, she had quit her job, sold the house, graduated seamanship school and was living aboard a 40-foot, 30-ton steel trawler. Despite South’s total lack of experience, the maiden voyage of the rechristened Bossanova was to be a journey up the eastern seaboard. Along with her crew (the dogs and her buddy John—her odd-couple opposite in politics, lifestyle and pretty much everything except a love of the open ocean), she set off on a fifteen-hundred mile odyssey from Florida to Maine. But what began as the fulfillment of an idle wish became a crash course in navigating the byways of the self.
Opening: Not long ago, I was probably a lot like you. I had a successful career, a pretty home, two dogs and a fairly normal life. All I kept were the dogs. Then one day in October 2003, I quit my good job and put my sweet little house on the market. I packed a duffel bag of clothes and everything else I owned went into storage. Within weeks I was the proud owner of an empty bank account and a 40-foot, 30-ton steel trawler that I had no idea how to run.
This woman is a snarky malcontent and a complaining ingrate – what’s with the dissing of PA, some of the finest people I know live there. I suppose we all wriggle and squirm when feeling like a square peg in a round hole. So, having put the personality to one side, the factual adventuring is wonderful.
Tugboat definition: a small, powerful boat for towing or pushing ships, barges etc. Roll ‘tugboat’ across your palate and see if it doesn’t fill your senses with the power of small efficiency – that middle ‘g’ is exhilarating, and the lingering end ‘t’ sealing in the strength.
**gasp** I have just found out that a Mary South was Tom Cruise’s mam, however let me qualify, that woman (Tom Cruise Actor’s mother goes missing, Scientology blamed ) has nothing to do with this woman.
‘Burrells Inlet, South Carolina. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, stop by. Tucked back behind a strip of shoreline north of Pawley’s Island and south of Myrtle Beach, it was one of the friendliest places we visited.’
– 69/133
I found a Murrell’s Inlet – so maybe this is a typo in the book.
A quick read which should have front-ended more feel-good-factor to let readers buy in.
Bettie's Books 