Bookstealer Books

Google
Other Categories
Biography
  Family and Childhood
  Memoirs
  Sports and Outdoors
  Women
  Special Needs
  Audio Books
  Historical
  British Historical
  Canadian Historical
  United States Historical
  Civil War
  Holocaust
  Large Print
  Military Leaders
  Political Leaders
  Presidents
  Religious Leaders
  Rich and Famous
  Royalty
  Prime Ministers
  Ethnic
  Black-African American
  Australian
  Chinese
  Hispanic
  Irish
  Japanese
  Jewish
  Native American Indian
  Native Canadian Indian
  Scandinavian
  Careers
  Astronauts
  Business
  Criminals
  Doctors and Nurses
  Journalists
  Lawyers and Judges
  Military and Spies
  Philosophers
  Scientists
  Social Scientists and Psychologists
  Sociologists
  Teachers
  Sports
  Baseball
  Basketball
  Explorers
  Football
  Golf
  Hockey
  Soccer

Search Now:

Biography - Ethnic books

Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Elizabeth Lightfoot. By The Lyons Press. The regular list price is $16.95. Sells new for $11.53.
Read more...

Purchase Information

No comments about Michelle Obama: First Lady of Hope.




Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Russell Duncan. By Univ of Georgia Pr. The regular list price is $22.50. Sells new for $12.50. There are some available for $12.50.
Read more...

Purchase Information

No comments about Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedman.




Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Howard White. By Atria Books/Beyond Words. The regular list price is $14.95. Sells new for $3.84. There are some available for $3.50.
Read more...

Purchase Information

3 comments about Believe to Achieve: See the Invisible, Do the Impossible.

  1. Howard has written a magnificent book that inspires young and older alike. Howard pulls from great fundamentals of positive thinking and behavior that has been the foundation of many successful people. When I meet a young person that wants or needs some direction, I give him or her a copy of the book so they can see first hand how a foundation is established and why it is so important.


  2. "H" White did a wonderful job of putting his "life lessons" on paper to share with the world. I would recommend this book to young and old. If Howard White was able to impart knowledge into some of the greatest athletes of our time (Jordan, Malone, Barkley, Cooper) surely he has something for you.


  3. This book is a wonderful tool to help you establish your goals and provide you with realistic steps to getting there. The format of the book is very intuitiave. I'm having my 12 year old read it next!


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Bertice Berry. By Scribner. The regular list price is $11.00. Sells new for $13.94. There are some available for $1.89.
Read more...

Purchase Information

2 comments about IM ON MY WAY BUT YOUR FOOT IS ON MY HEAD: A Black Woman's Story of Getting Over Life's Hurdles.

  1. Ok. Don't laugh. This was one of the best books I have ever read. Granted, I read this book during a time in my laugh where I needed to hear some "woman-power" words. Dr. Berry *wowed* me with her insight into womanhood and society issues.

    I loved her writing style. She was so funny and equally...so deep and perplexing. AFter reading this book I felt like I wish I could sit down and have a long chat with Dr. Berry.

    She talks about Alice Walker in the book and quotes her as saying "sometimes even greif becomes absurb and that's when laughter gushes up to retreive the sanity". Wow.

    I loved her insights on being beautiful. She says that she made herself the measure of beauty and suddenly everyone around her paled in comparison...Woman Power!

    I loved this book and I have recommended it to everyone I know. It was recommended to me by a WHITE MAN! Nevertheless...it is a must read.


  2. This is the best book I've read this year. Dr. Berry gave a real insight to the 'black experience' . I had the pleasure of hearing her speak at a conference a couple of days ago and she is one of the most marvelous people that I have heard. Her words go far beyond that of John Grisham, or Stephen King. She is truly an inspirational person. I can't wait to read her other books


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Louis E. Lomax. By Holloway House. Sells new for $5.99. There are some available for $19.28.
Read more...

Purchase Information

2 comments about To Kill a Black Man: The Shocking Parallel in the Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr..

  1. It's not that I disagree with a review of this book, "an excellent read for the black youth of today". I just feel that whatever useful tools and social benefits this book presents, and there is literally a truckload of them, they cannot be segregated.


  2. The late Louis E. Lomax (1922-1970) wrote this book shortly after Dr. King's assassination. He traces the path of both leaders. He shows the forces that brought the 2 leaders together on many issues. He also show the opposition forces to these men that materialized into assassins. I recommend that you read this book.


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Marvin S., Sr. Arrington. By Mercer University Press. The regular list price is $29.00. Sells new for $17.79. There are some available for $13.14.
Read more...

Purchase Information

5 comments about Making My Mark: The Story of a Man Who WouldnÆt Stay in His Place.

  1. Marvin's book is very inspirational. He shows us that with hard work and determination you can conquer any obstacle. He grew up in a poor family a child of a truck driver and a domestic worker, but he managed to graduate from high school, college, graduate school and became a lawyer, city council president and a judge. He was faced with racial discrimination in his early years growing up in Atlanta. He discusses his involvement with the civil rights movement and how that shaped who he is today. He was one of the first black men to attend Emory Law School in the 1960's. My favorite quote in his book is "I believe that all children given appropriate guidance and instruction from their families, teachers and communities can achieve success." I believe he is a great example of that belief. I think this book is a great read for a young adult and anybody else who wants to be inspired by Marvin's success.


  2. Marvin Arrington has crafted a lucid and accessible narrative that details his experiences growing up in Jim Crow Atlanta. In addition to describing his rise to the presidency of the Atlanta City Council, he offers many anecdotes from his childhood that give an idea of just how painful racism can be through the eyes of a young boy. Throughout, he encourages his readers to learn from his example of hard work, which is fortified by his experience growing up in public housing projects, attending segregated schools, and working a wide variety of jobs. Then, having integrated Emory Law School's full-time division along with his friend (current U.S. District Court Judge) Clarence Cooper in 1965, he carries forth the lessons of his youth to the legal profession. He would later partner with famed civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell to form Arrington & Hollowell, one of the top 10 black law firms in the nation. He is currently a Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia, having been elected in 2003.

    Arrington's book is both the story of one man's personal odyssey through hardship and success, as well as a short history of the city of Atlanta.
    Thanks to his involvement in politics, his book sheds light on other major figues in Atlanta life with whom he had frequent contact, such as Q.V. Williamson, Maynard Jackson, and Andrew Young. Thanks to his wealth of experience, Arrington also gives an impressive insight into the duplicitous nature of city politics, culminating in his loss to Bill Campbell in the 1997 Atlanta mayoral election. In October 2008, Campbell will be completing a stint in federal prison for tax evasion.

    The lessons that one can glean from his autobiography are just as relevant today as they were more than four decades ago. Arrington's recent collaboration with Bill Cosby in addressing the myriad problems plaguing urban communities has only helped to buttress his timely message. I agree with other reviewers that this book should be required reading for middle school and high school students thanks to its power and relevance.


  3. I first met Marvin Arrington when I was a college senior and editing the Emory Wheel and he a second year law student, though I doubt he remembers that. We had many encounters after that and I had the opportunity to follow quite closely his legal and political career for many years. Yet as close as I felt I knew him, it was not until reading his memoir that I better understand the inner soul of this gentle and committed man. I thanked him for writing it, because as a son of the south and as a white man who had many friends who were Black Georgians, it wasn't until I heard or read the stories Maynard Jackson, Vernon Jordan,
    Andrew Young, and Marvin Arrington told in their personal memoirs that I felt I had understood my own time with them. Whether a reader knows him personally or not, I enthusiastically encourage people to read this well-told narrative of growing up in the Jim Crow and post-Jim Crow south. That Marvin has brought his unique and heartening experiences to the courtroom and has had children follow him into the law is an evolution that could have been expected, but nonetheless still very gratifying.


  4. This book should be assigned reading for every fifteen year old. The story of Marvin Arrington is proof that poverty and apparent lack of oppuritunity can be overcome.

    Martin L. Fierman
    Madison, Ga


  5. Judge Marvin S. Arrington has been fixture in Atlanta, GA legal and political circles for more than thirty years. I expected his autobiography to be another in a long line of inspiring tales about tough warriors in the AFrican American quest for dignity, respect and inclusion. The title should have been my clue that it is much more. It is a saga of how his extraordinary life mirrors that of his beloved and iconoclastic city. Just as Atlanta rose from its ashes to become an international hub that defies its southern roots, Arrington forged his path from obscurity to a place of honor on the right side of Atlanta history. From the early chapters, where he offers a riveting picture of his early life in the neighborhood fictionalized in Tom Wolfe's Atlanta-based novel, to the later ones, he builds on the theme of refusing to stay in the place unjustly assigned to him by his city, his circumstances and his culture. A virtual who's who in law and politics endorsed this book including Pres. Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Ambassador Andrew Young, and Gov. Douglas Wilder. Tom Wolfe also lent his name. This book has been added to my collection of African American biographies. It is written in a narrative style that makes it accessible to a wide range of audiences, informative to multiple disciplines and enjoyable for re-reading over time.


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Armond White. By Da Capo Press. The regular list price is $14.95. Sells new for $2.00. There are some available for $0.78.
Read more...

Purchase Information

5 comments about Rebel for the Hell of It: The Life of Tupac Shakur.

  1. this book was not well thought out. it was just an attempt to sound intelligent, but failed. the purpose of a book the should be to enlighten your readers not with big sounding words but with good ones that best describe the situation you are trying to get across. to me the book had nothing to do with tupac, it dealt with the author's lack of ability to put words together to form a sentence that could capture his audience. he just used the icon's name to sell his book, and true we fell for it, the true fans of tupac. we try so hard to grasp hold on anything and anyone that can give us more facts than we already have, so it pains me when people do things like this book which was so so so poorly written. i would hate to have a face to face conversation with him. PAC will always be in our hearts, thoughts and thanks to the real Gs he will be on our radios, TVs, VCRs & DVDs. as PAC would say, "NEVER IGNORANT GETTING GOALS ACCOMPLISHED."


  2. A great x-ray of Tupac and a much better book than Michael Eric Dyson's foolish cashing-in on a dead rapper's tattooed body. A lot of stupid stuff has been written by the VIBE and Village/Stone people who just want to make money off 'Pac. REBEL makes you understand Tupac's confusion and the analysis of the rap lyrics are the best I've ever read about a rap star. (The chapter on "Dear Mama" should be included in every school literature class.) I recommend this book to anybody who loves 'Pac and loves hiphop. When Dyson's stupid book goes the way of the dodo, REBEL will still be read. It's the most serious and amazing Tupac book anyone could want.


  3. a dude like pac only come around once (maybe twice) a life. get this book. it have pictures too.


  4. Ever since the first time I heard 2pac rapping with Digital Underground. I feel in love with the lyrics he put out from Brendas got a baby, to Got keep your head up! And so many more. No matter what people though of him as being the THUG N***** he was somebody real. When others never understood where 2pac was coming from he made music that everybody could groove to and understand. He's the one who put potery to its most. The day he passed a way felt like I had lost some one I knew and loved. I'am a true Tupac lover and only wish he was still here blessing everyone and even ME with his True words of wisdom. It's been almost six years since his death and no matter if he's dead or alive he'll continue to put out the music he so muched loved to do and the music everybody loved. This is a man that should've e still been here and listening to his new ablum makes me think if he is still alive and if you are may GOD be with you and you with him in your deepest glory. Bury me as a "G" RIP I LOVE YOU TUPAC. L-Boogie and S Loc OKC


  5. Ever since the first time I heard 2pac rapping with Digital Underground. I feel in love with the lyrics he put out from Brendas got a baby, to Got keep your head up! And so many more. No matter what people though of him as being the THUG N***** he was somebody real. When others never understood where 2pac was coming from he made music that everybody could groove to and understand. He's the one who put potery to its most. The day he passed a way felt like I had lost some one I knew and loved. I'am a true Tupac lover and only wish he was still here blessing everyone and even ME with his True words of wisdom. It's been almost six years since his death and no matter if he's dead or alive he'll continue to put out the music he so muched loved to do and the music everybody loved. This is a man that should've e still been here and listening to his new ablum makes me think if he is still alive and if you are may GOD be with you and you with him in your deepest glory. Bury me as a "G" RIP I LOVE YOU TUPAC. L-Boogie, OKC


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Louise DeSalvo. By Bloomsbury USA. The regular list price is $14.95. Sells new for $8.57. There are some available for $4.71.
Read more...

Purchase Information

4 comments about Crazy in the Kitchen: Foods, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family.

  1. I felt compelled to write this after reading the other reviews because I believe that a book should be judged in accordance with it's own intentions and not by what other people think it should have been. This book is not the typical happy-family-eating-meatballs memoir, nor is it a light, breezy, funny foodie memoir. It is an exquisitely-written, ultimately loving remembrance of a family in pain. It contains great insights into the Italian immigrants' experience-- and a sober, unromanticized look at "The "Old Country" conditions from which many fled in the early 20th century. This book is highly recommended for people struggling with their own family's past, anybody who appreciates beautiful prose and memoir/autobiography, or Italian Americans wanting to explore that part of their past. Ms. DeSalvo uses food as metaphor to great effect in conveying the texture of the immigrant family's experience.


  2. This is not a book for those wanting a light read or those who haven't honestly looked at their own growing up experiences as second-generation Americans.

    Louise De Salvo courageously portrays what life was really like for many us. This is not a happy spaghetti and meatball memoir. It's gritty and at times uncomfortable reading, but well-done. Brava, Louise.


  3. I found this interesting, but somewhat depressing. With the living conditions in Italy years ago and living in the States with a grandmother, mother, father and daughter was totally different than my family as I was growing up. The cooking in later life with the author and her husband were interesting.


  4. I got this book to read on a trip to Europe. However, I didn't bring the book home with me, because I didn't deem it worthy of the space in my bag. It reads as though its writing was a cathartic experience for the author, to clear the air between her and her family memories. Unfortunately, this does not make for enjoyable reading. The writing itself is technically solid, but the subject matter left a bad taste in my mouth, as though I'd eaten something disagreeable. I came away with an overwhelming sense of disgust and hate, the same senses that pervaded the author's home as she's described it here. This book did not leave me happy or satisfied.


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Ronnie Spector and Vince Waldron. By Onyx. The regular list price is $6.99. Sells new for $59.99. There are some available for $4.76.
Read more...

Purchase Information

5 comments about Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette.

  1. Ronnie Spector is more interesting when she was young and a Ronnette as opposed to when she got older. The first half of the book was fascinating, especially from the music history point of view. Once she seperated from Phil Spector, it was not that interesting.

    Since the book was updated, I would have liked to hear a lot more about the homicide at Phil Spector's hosue as well as how Joey Ramone's relationship with her.

    If you are a fan of Ronnie SPector than this is an enjoyable read.


  2. I've been in love with this woman and her music ever since I saw The Ronettes live at The Brooklyn Fox Theatre in 1964. I was only 15 years old at the time. If you love Ronnie Spector as much as I do, then do yourself a favor and buy this book. It isn't only about music. It is about courage, and the ability to overcome barriers. Very inspirational. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.


  3. Like so many other baby boomers I grew up listening to the likes of many girl groups, doo wop, early British and American rock as well as buble gum pop of both East and West coast origin. In high school I fell in love with the sound of one of these girl groups. The voice, the smooth moves and grooves of the greatest of these groups kept me longing for more. I couldn't buy enouph of anything relating to The Ronnets. When I stumbled on this book by accident, some 7 years ago, I thought hmmm, no accident, I am destined to read and know more about my musical Lady heroine.
    In this read, I learned more about Ronnie than I ever dreamed I might. I took a trip back in time and found it difficult to put this book down. I felt her pains and gains, and I grew to know more about her than I probably wanted to, after all I had been in love with the likes of this Fabulous Ronnet for so long, that it was often cause for discomfort. I learned so much about other musicians and singers from that era as well, to think that Ronnie hung out with the likes of some of them.
    This is a must read for someone who thought they knew a thing or two of a time gone by and its musical influence and the people who helped make it what it was. If ever Rock-101 were taught in any format, this book need-be included.


  4. This book is even more timely to read now that Ronnie's ex-hubby Phil Spector was arrested the other day for the murder of a woman in his house. It gives great insight not only into Ronnie's life story and rise to stardom but also into Phil's personality and temperament. While there is absolutely no doubt of Phil's musical genius, the man was(and possibly still is)mentally unstable(he claims to be bipolar and does not like to take his meds). I first bought and read this book when it first came out years ago but it is still a great read, one of the very best rock-bios around. It is also a great companion piece to Darlene Love's autobiography. If you are a fan of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, both books are essential reading. Very highly recommended.


  5. For Ronnie Spector fans everywhere, this book has it all. Her early days in New York City, the beginning of the Ronettes, their spectacular number 1 hit BE MY BABY, her nightmare of booze and obsession while married to that creep Phil Spector, and her triumphant return to her first love of music and singing. If you want a fascinating look at the girl groups in Rock and Roll history, then you want to read this book. She writes in a down-to-earth way that makes you feel like a good friend is telling you a heart-wrenching story of pain and loss, of fear and courage. Good going, Ronnie! We love you.


Read more...


Posted in Biography (Sunday, September 7, 2008)

Written by Adam Gussow. By Pantheon. The regular list price is $25.00. Sells new for $44.09. There are some available for $12.12.
Read more...

Purchase Information

5 comments about Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir.

  1. I read this book from cover to cover and only set it down when I got tired. Each night I would set aside some time to join adam on his adventures growing up playing the harmonica. He talks about love gained and lost and how he first became a harp player, including some of his influences. He has a captivating writing style and brings alot of imagery to his writing. I really felt he poured his soul out onto the page and you really kind of get to know who Adam and Satan are. Not the Prince of Darkness but Sterling "Satan" Magee. The overall story really is about the awkward white boy putting himself out there to play a soulful style of music and how he went through pain and heartache to pay his dues with with his friend and bluesmate, Mr. Satan. I would highly recommend this piece of work by Adam. You should also check out their 3 albums: Harlem Blues, Mother Mojo, and Living on the River.


  2. It is an amazing thing when an artist (in this case, Gussow, a writer/blues harp player) can somehow manage to make their mark despite all the confusion and hard knocks life throws at them- and they sometimes throw at themselves. This is a moving story about a burgeoning blues musician captured with excellent dialogue... Gussow has made his characters come alive and jump off the page the way writers are supposed to.

    Not only is it Gussow's personal memoirs of his early years in music, but a riveting biography of one of the most unique and original blues acts in recent years- Satan & Adam. Gussow's accounts of his early music/life mentors (such as the underexposed harpist Nat Riddles) with sincerity and genuine emotion is fascinating. The telling of Mister Satan's story is a valuable contribution to blues history that could well have been lost in obscurity.

    There are issues explored in this book that have rarely been expounded upon with any meaningful insight in any musician interview or book I can remember. The passages in the book where Gussow is in the middle of Harlem grappling with the rift and misunderstanding between black and white is especially poignant, particularly from his perspective as a young, white, Princeton educated "bluesman".

    Although this book isn't an instructional course on technique or musicianship- for those who aren't aware- Adam Gussow is considered by many blues afficionados to be one of the best harmonica players alive today. So he's paid some dues and he knows what he's talking about.

    Adam Gussow had the good fortune, the talent, street smarts and the heartfelt focus to get out there and live it- become an apprentice to a bluesmaster- just like most traditional art is passed down from accomplished teacher to eager student. I admire him for it. Mister Satan's Apprentice is a must read for any struggling musician or blues fan- it just might get you thinking about your own life's journey.


  3. In "Mister Satan's Apprentice," street musician extraordinaire Adam Gussow has left in just about everything, and it's about 40 percent too much; the book would have read far better at a sleek 250 pages. But the good stuff is really good, and the book is well worth reading despite its distractions and digressions. In his early 40s, Gussow is currently a doctoral candidate in Princeton's English department. But thousands know him as the harmonica-wielding half of the "progressive gutbucket blues" duo Satan and Adam -- three-CD recording artists, photogenic subject of any number of newspaper and magazine features, and cameo stars of the U2 movie "Rattle and Hum."

    In his autobiography, Gussow gets deep inside blues, and his relationship to it, and manages to successfully translate the music into language. "Blues harmonica played well was a miniature tongued slalom, a tornado swallowed and contained," he tells us, and his words capture every bit of excitement that the grooves and notes have to offer. "Mister Satan's Apprentice" is about much more than the blues, though -- it's a provocative meditation on race from a white man immersed in a traditionally black genre, neighborhood and world. Playing around with his first harmonica, in 1974, Gussow contemplates the subtleties of playing blues. "It had something to do with being a black guy," he muses.

    As the protagonist in his narrative, Gussow pales (no pun intended) next to two marvelous characters: his two mentors, Nat Riddles and Sterling "Mister Satan" Magee. Twenty-two years older than his protégé, Mister Satan is as colorful as they come. He's a visual artist and apocalyptic numerologist with a murky music-industry background, and a font of, if not wisdom, then brilliantly idiosyncratic aphorisms and soliloquies. A Harlem fixture when Gussow approaches the guitarist to jam along, he shouts and hollers, runs hot and cold, towers over other men. Mister Satan looms larger than life, but harmonica player Nat Riddles is entirely real, an odd-job taxi driver with a dazzling smile and soulful tone. "He was perpetually on the verge of becoming the blues world's Next Big Thing," Gussow writes. "A young black harp-player with the Sound." Riddles flits in and out of fortune, showing up unexpectedly to astound a New York club, phoning from somewhere in the South, destitute and desperate, surviving gunshot wounds only to eventually succumb to a cruel wasting disease.

    It's the music, finally, that counts most -- Gussow gives his story its own soundtrack, one of restlessness and yearning, of his struggle to capture the Sound: "The Sound was Southern-bound, it was cocky, playful, manic, chucking, resentful, edgy, comforting, relentless. It took incredible lip strength and finesse to produce. It was sexual. It was the haunted, restless feeling of a guy's apartment late at night after the woman who used to live there had moved out. It was whatever nasty things she was doing with the other guy-a virile sensitive soulmate-this very minute. It was the best way of beating those visions back into the ghoulish cave they had crawled out of. Working hard at the Sound was a socially acceptable way of sobbing, raging, and primal-screaming from a hot heart while pretending merely to be practicing." A little of this kind of writing goes a long way, and there's an awful lot of it here. Granted, it's a real challenge to maintain a level of excitement in writing about music page after page, particularly about blues, a genre built on the same few chords locked in a repetitious groove. So it's forgivable that Gussow often leans out a little far: "The sidewalk scene dissolved; I was wandering in a garden of earthly delights, hands cupped against the sweet cold fluid air. Every bent note was a pitch-perfect arrow puncturing the gray dusk. You only live now. Blue notes danced and spun, lines endlessly unfolding like so many wrapped gifts laid bare." You have to remind yourself that he's talking about a harmonica, one of the more prosaic of instruments.

    For all Gussow's breathless adjectives and action verbs, he's frustratingly vague about the technical aspects of the duo's "huge raw perfect sound." The book's photos show Gussow with effects pedals at his feet, but he makes no mention of them; he doesn't mention the basic information that he plays in "cross harp" style until page 386; Mister Satan's "phase-shifted guitar wash and deafening clatter" is described pretty much only in metaphorical terms, as, for instance, "an endlessly unrolling Persian carpet with gristle and clanks added." Gussow is so good at getting inside his playing that the narrative sags whenever it moves to other topics. A hefty amount of the bloat deals with his failed relationships. We meet mercurial crackhead Robyn and inconstant ex-fat girl Gail, but mostly there's erratic, irritable hyperfeminist Helen. Gussow tells us on page 30 that Helen left him back in 1984, so we're predisposed to dislike her, and we indeed do. "Most men had a girlfriend," he writes. "I had Aphrodite crossed with Kali the Destroyer, She of infinite ravenous limbs." Worse, the book's artfully jumbled narrative, with short sections ordered sort of sequentially on several tracks, dooms us to read about Helen over the entire course of the book. We think we're finally through with her, and then: "1983. Things with Helen had turned out surprisingly well . . ." Enough already!

    In the late '80s and early '90s, a period when racial violence kept flaring up in the outer boroughs of New York City, Satan and Adam's young-old, white-black novelty made a splash, but momentum slipped away. "Minor celebrity beckoned, then faded," Gussow writes. And despite the book's vibrant cover photo of the pair, they no longer perform, according to an e-mail Gussow sent me. "[I]t's impossible to keep the act together," he wrote, noting that Mister Satan now lives in south-central Virginia and has no telephone. That's a real shame.



  4. I could hardly put this book down to perform activities of daily living, let alone going to work. "Mr Adam" has created a masterpiece of American musical literature. Being a blues lover of many years, I was bored to death by the almost clinical approach of most writers on the subject. Not so, Mr. Gussow! He delivers a passionately honest and heart felt memoir filled with wonderfully alive and vibrant individuals, sharing with us the one true American music, the blues.


  5. Recently it was my privilege to see author and harmonica player Adam Gussow at my local huge independent bookstore here in the Eastern US. I rarely do commercials, but if you can't catch Adam, you can check out his new novel "Mr. Satan's Apprentice". Adam calls it "a blues memoir", and so it is. The guy is a no-shit, kick-butt, street-smart harp player! FYI, I have fairly high standards in this realm. If you've seen or heard the New York duo "Satan and Adam", you'll know what I mean. The guy is ALSO a juicy and creative, energetic, sexy writer - something I'm also picky about. Princeton Ph.D. candidate - English.

    Adam's book describes a journey that a few of us know, but most do not. The musician in you will relate to the tale of the emergence of deep and powerful music from the little instrument - and the romantic in you will throb with the ways the emerging harmonica player and boundary-crosser discovers the things he needs to grow musically and personally - and then sometimes fearlessly, sometimes not, sets out to acquire them. You'll meet his teachers and mentors, and like it or not, you'll see life through the eyes of this seeker of musical and personal connection. You'll go with Adam on the romantic roller coaster as loves come and go - and you'll travel with him to Paris to play in the Metro and on the street; to the American South, and to other places exotic and otherwise - including a hitch with the road company of Broadway show based on Mark Twain's Sawyer and Finn. Later we get into the recording studio with Mr. Gussow and Mr. Satan - the Harlem street mystic and one-man band who becomes Adam's main-man mentor and muse, the Mr. Satan of the book's title. Throughout the book you'll find Adam the street intellectual examining his position as a white man among black men (and black women) in this blues-filled world - an examination in which Mr. Satan plays a key role.

    A book for players and lovers - of the spirit of the music, of the street; of the endless forms of beauty and love, as they are found ALL over the place. The author is one who knows, and magically, describes, many of the gut experiences we players know; to my knowledge no one's ever written quite this way about these things before. Like the performing moments, the pulling out of all the everything you've got and then some, when the audience is on it's very EDGE, right there with you; when you are truly and purely the great IT! Blowing and drawing deep, and deeper, and then high and higher; and the room is all whoops and smiles, and all there in your hand. A good player knows these things, and believe me, in a blues band, nobody gets that kind of juice but the harp player.

    OK, so maybe you don't know the peak of performance grace and light - but you know your peaks, and Adam's telling can stir it back into view...

    Adam Gussow writes of music, romance, conflict, and awakening in an intimately physical and heart- connected way. As a player, I'm rocked. -"Harmonica Jack" Merrylees (JMerrylees@aol.com)



Read more...


Page 117 of 482
53  85  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99  100  101  102  103  104  105  106  107  108  109  110  111  112  113  114  115  116  117  118  119  120  121  122  123  124  125  126  127  128  129  130  131  132  133  134  135  136  137  138  139  140  141  149  181  245  373  

Copyright © 2008
*Amazon.com prices and availability subject to change.
Last updated: Sun Sep 7 04:23:58 EDT 2008