Would That Be Funny? New Biographies and Memoirs in the Collection

Silhouettes of biography book covers against a sunlit backdrop with a person reading a book with a cup of tea

A new month means new items in the collection, and we’ve got a great batch of biographies and memoirs coming your way right now.  Here are some of them to explore:

Would that be funny? : growing up with John Clarke / Clarke, Lorin
“In this fascinating memoir, Lorin Clarke tells the story of growing up with her famous father, her art historian mother Helen, and her little sister Lucia. Much has been written about John Clarke, but this is the insider’s view-of his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his decision to leave New Zealand and live in Australia, and the choices he and Helen made to create a family life that is right out of the box. Would That Be Funny? is a story about the almost imperceptible things that make a family what it is, from long-told folklore, in-jokes, and archetypes, to calamities like world wars, deep-seated traumas, and sudden loss.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Jackie : public, private, secret / Taraborrelli, J. Randy
“From New York Times bestselling author of Jackie, Janet & Lee comes a fresh and often startling look at the life of the legendary former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Twenty-nine years after her death and sixty years after the assassination of President Kennedy, Jackie delivers the last word on one of the most famous women in the world.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

 

Everything / nothing / someone / Carrière, Alice
“Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. With gallows humor and brutal honesty, Everything/Nothing/Someone explores what it means for our body and mind to belong to us wholly, irrevocably, and on our own terms. In pulsing, energetic prose that is both precise and probing, Alice manages to untangle the stories told to her by her parents, the American psychiatric complex, and her own broken mind to craft a unique and mesmerizing narrative of emergence and, finally, cure.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Mortification : eight deaths and life after them / Watson, Mark
“Mark Watson is generally accepted to be alive. And yet he’s died. In fact, he’s died loads of times. On stage. It’s embarrassing. Excruciating. But dying on stage isn’t the only death Mark’s suffered. There’s also been the death of his innocence. The death of that absolutely brilliant project that everyone told him was really amazing. And that time he died inside. In this memoir, he takes you behind the scenes of a life in comedy and beyond.” (Catalogue)

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One of Them – New Biographies and Memoirs in the Collection

It’s a new month and that means a bunch of new biographies and memoirs hitting the shelves.  We’ve got a real mixed bag of goodies for you to dive in to, here are just some of them for you to check out:

One of them / Lal, Shaneel
“What would you do if you were told by the people you loved the most that the way you were born was evil and wrong? For Shaneel Lal, this was their reality from the time they were five. Growing up in a tiny, traditional village in Fiji, Shaneel always knew they were different. After escaping Fiji and moving to New Zealand as a teenager, Shaneel tried to keep their sexuality – and gender – to themself, but gradually found the courage to come out. One day, while Shaneel was volunteering at Auckland’s Middlemore hospital, a church leader came up to them and offered to ‘pray the gay away’. It was a lightbulb moment for Shaneel, who could not believe that the same practices that had scarred their childhood in Fiji were operating – and legal – in New Zealand. Determined to ensure others wouldn’t have to go through what happened to them, Shaneel founded the Conversion Therapy Action Group, which lead the movement to ban conversion therapy in Aotearoa.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Because our fathers lied : a memoir of truth and family, from Vietnam to today / McNamara, Craig
“Craig McNamara came of age during the political tumult and upheaval of the late ’60s. While he would grow up to take part in antiwar demonstrations, his father, Robert McNamara, served as John F. Kennedy’s secretary of defense and was the architect of the Vietnam War. This searching and revealing memoir offers an intimate portrait of one father and son at pivotal periods in American history. Because Our Fathers Lied is more than a family story–it is a story about America.  Because our fathers lied tells the story of the war from the perspective of a single, unforgettable American family.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

bell hooks : the last interview and other conversations / hooks, bell
“bell hooks was a prolific, trailblazing author, feminist, social activist, cultural critic, and professor. Born Gloria Jean Watkins, bell used her pen name to center attention on her ideas and to honor her courageous great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. hooks’s unflinching dedication to her work carved deep grooves for the feminist and anti-racist movements. In this collection of 7 interviews, stretching from early in her career until her last interview, she discusses feminism, the complexity of rap music and masculinity, her relationship to Buddhism, the “politic of domination,” sexuality, and love and the importance of communication across cultural borders.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

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Tell Me Everything: New Biographies and Memoirs in the Collection

The August chill is still with us and I don’t know about you, but all I want to do is curl up with a good book and a cat on my lap.  This month’s new biographies and memoirs in the collection are particularly inviting, including literary greats, world changing activists, stories of overcoming poverty and struggle, the glamour of Hollywood and everyday people who went on to make a difference.

Tell me everything : a memoir / Kelly, Minka
“Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The marriage question : George Eliot’s double life / Carlisle, Clare
“When she was in her mid-thirties, Marian Evans transformed herself into George Eliot – an author celebrated for her genius as soon as she published her debut novel. During those years she also found her life partner, George Lewes – writer, philosopher and married father of three. After ‘eloping’ to Berlin in 1854 they lived together for twenty-four years: Eliot asked people to call her ‘Mrs Lewes’ and dedicated each novel to her ‘Husband’. Though they could not legally marry, she felt herself initiated into the ‘great experience’ of marriage – ‘this double life, which helps me to feel and think with double strength’. Reading them afresh, Carlisle’s searching new biography explores how marriage questions grow and change, and joins Eliot in her struggle to marry thought and feeling.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Poor : grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self-belief / O’Sullivan, Katriona
“As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O’Sullivan making anything of her life. When she became a mother at 15 and ended up homeless, what followed were five years of barely coping. This is the extraordinary story – moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling – of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revived those seeds in adulthood. Now an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education, Poor stands as a stirring argument for the importance of looking out for our kids’ futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities.” (Catalogue)

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Grace and Gratitude: New Biographies and Memoirs in the Collection

We have really settled into the cold part of a Wellington winter and what better activities to keep you warm than getting cosy with a good biography or memoir.  This month we have a whole host of new books by and about women for you to delve into.  Check these out:

Olivia : grace and gratitude / Young, Miranda
“No matter how far she roamed, Olivia always called Australia home. From the UK to Melbourne and all around the world, Grease superstar Olivia Newton-John is one of the most beloved musical and acting icons in the world. Grace and Gratitude covers Olivia’s journey as a dedicated woman in music who conquered the international entertainment world.  With tributes from famous celebrities and public figures and exclusive insights from some of Australia’s biggest names in music, Olivia: Grace and Gratitude is the perfect tribute to an Australian and world-beloved icon.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Never shaken, never stirred : the story of Ann Fleming and Laura, Duchess of Marlborough / Reindorp, Christopher
“Glamorous, fun and packed with scandalous anecdotes, Never Shaken, Never Stirred tells the story of two extraordinary sisters, Ann and Laura Charteris, who made marrying well an art form. While Laura eventually became the Duchess of Marlborough, Ann became Mrs Ian Fleming, and the antics and attitudes of the two women inspired the writer to create the famous ‘Bond Girl’.   Indeed, the lives of the Charteris sisters are almost too extraordinary to believe, as they bagged husbands, bedded men, threw parties and travelled to some of the most glamorous destinations in the world, all at a time when such behaviour by aristocratic society women was unthinkable.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The last daughter : a true story of love, loss and reconnection / Matthews, Brenda
“When Brenda Matthews was two years old, she and her siblings were taken from their parents. For the next five years she was a much-loved daughter in a white family, a happy child in a country town on the outskirts of Sydney, unaware of the existence of her Aboriginal family or how hard her parents were fighting for her return-unaware of her Aboriginal identity. Then, she was suddenly returned to her Aboriginal family, the last daughter to come home.  It’s a story full of heartbreak, love, hope and healing, one that shows a way forward for all Australians.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

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Read by the Author: Entertaining Autobiographies in the Author’s Voice

One of the greatest inventions of our time is the audiobook.  Being able to listen to a book while you’re doing another task has opened up a world of reading to us in our busy lives.  Pop it on during your morning commute, or when on a roadie.  Fire up an audiobook while you’re gardening or doing chores around the house.  They’re great for keeping kids entertained on a rainy day or in the car.  I particularly love autobiographies in audiobook form when they are read by the author.  It gives the reader so much more insight into who the subject is than having the book read by someone else.

Here are some eAudiobooks available through Libby that have been read by the author that I’ve particularly enjoyed:

Overdrive cover Unprotected: a Memoir – Billy Porter,
From the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, art, and healing. It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic Emmy-winning performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the groundbreaking Tony and Grammy Award–winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed…young boy in Pittsburgh who was seen as different, who didn’t fit in. Porter is a multitalented, multifaceted treasure at the top of his game, and Unprotected is a resonant, inspirational story of trauma and healing, shot through with his singular voice. (Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride – Cary Elwes,
From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes the New York Times bestselling account of the making of the cult classic film filled with never-before-told stories, exclusive photographs, and interviews with costars Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Mandy Patinkin, as well as author and screenwriter William Goldman, producer Norman Lear, and director Rob Reiner. (Adapted from Overdrive description)

Overdrive cover And Away… – Bob Mortimer,
Although his childhood in Middlesbrough was normal on the surface, it was tinged by the loss of his dad, and his own various misadventures (now infamous from his appearances on Would I Lie to You?), from burning down the family home to starting a short-lived punk band called Dog Dirt. As an adult, he trained as a solicitor and moved to London. Though he was doing pretty well (the South London Press once crowned him ‘The Cockroach King’ after a successful verdict), a chance encounter in a pub in the 1980s with a young comedian going by the name Vic Reeves set his life on a different track.
Warm, profound, and irrepressibly funny, And Away… is Bob’s full life story (with a few lies thrown in for good measure.) (Adapted from Overdrive description)

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Operatic Highlights at WCL

NZ Opera’s production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the St James Theatre (14—18 June) seemed like the perfect time to display some of WCL’s collection of operatic treasurers at Te Awe Library.  Across our branches, and at Te Pātaka, there are many books, CDs, and DVDs concerned with the art form that Samuel Johnson famously called an ‘exotic and irrational entertainment’.  This blog introduces some well-known, and some less familiar, highlights that formed part of the Te Awe display.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393313956/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21 Mozart and the enlightenment : truth, virtue, and beauty in Mozart’s operas / Till, Nicholas
Nicholas Till examines Mozart’s operas through the lens of Enlightenment sensibility, drawing together the strands of history, theology, sociology, literary theory, and even some psychology to anatomize the motivation and vision behind Mozart’s operas. Mozart’s collaborations with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte —Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790) — each receive detailed contextual and musical analysis that considers Mozart’s own intellectual stance on philosophy and politics in that revolutionary decade. Till’s provocative hypotheses and detailed reasoning, combined with his clear fascination with Mozart’s operas, result in a stimulating and highly satisfying exploration of the significance of Mozart’s operas in the eighteenth century and in society today.

The young Kiri : the early recordings, 1964-70 / Te Kanawa, Kirihttp://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000E4LX/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21 A colour photograph of Kiri te Kanawa when young. She is looking to the left. Her hair is shoulder length, and she is wearing a red stole with a striped pattern, and smiling gently.
This two-disc set of Dame Kiri te Kanawa’s early recordings offers a compelling aural portrait of the young singer, at the start of an extraordinary career.  CD 1 is devoted to arias and art song, with Puccini especially well-represented in extracts from La bohèmeTosca, and Turandot, as well as showpiece arias from Johann Strauss’s Die Federmaus and Gounoud’s Faust among other treasures. CD 2 turns to musical theatre and popular song, demonstrating te Kanawa’s versatility in different styles of singing. A number of ensembles and collaborating musicians also make an appearance: the NZBC Orchestra, organist Peter Averi, singer Hohepa Mutu, and harpist Dorothea Franchi.

Fashion designers at the opera / Matheopoulos, Helena
Gianni Versace created a stunning dress for Kiri te Kanawa in Strauss’s Capriccio at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1990; Zandra Rhodes has designed costumes for Verdi’s Aida, Mozart’s Magic Flute, and Bizet’s Pearl Fishers; the bejeweled gown worn by Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt transformed the character into a source of golden light in a world of sinister, oppressive darkness. These are just a few examples of the work that leading fashion designers have produced for opera productions around the world, responding to the challenge of creating costumes in which performers can move and sing. Helena Matheopoulos profiles many many figures from the world in this collection of interviews, sketches, and resplendent full-color illustrations of the costumes in production.

Hänsel und Gretel : opera in three acts
When Richard Strauss conducted the premiere of Engelbert Humperdinck’s  Hänsel und Gretel at Weimar in 1893, he declared the piece a ‘masterpiece of the highest quality’. This 2011 production is a musical and visual feast, the action shifted from the terror-ridden Ilsenstein forest to a modern urban setting. Gretel and her brother live in a house of cardboard boxes, which they share with their loving but poverty-stricken parents. Rather than finding a gingerbread cottage, the habitation of  Rosine Leckermaul (the witch) is amid the aisles of a supermarket offering every alluring and mass-produced confection. This production is superbly cast, every singer inhabiting the style with energy. Of special note is Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s turn as a matriarchal yet terrifying witch. Humperdink’s music is a captivating fusion of orchestral opulence and gemütlich spirit that draws on more than a century of German Romanticism, from Schubert and Weber to Wagner and Mahler.

The only way is up : reflections on a life in opera / McIntyre, Donald
It is impossible to summarise the career of Donald McIntyre in a paragraph, but fortunately The Only Way is Up more than compensates. A page-turning memoir of life as an aspirant All Black, and then as one of the foremost exponents of Wagner’s music, The Only Way is Up charts the successes and surprises of working on the stages of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. McIntyre’s stories include appearances by leading conductors, directors, and fellow singers too numerous to mention here, but a particular highlight is McIntyre’s role in Patrice Chereau’s extraordinary ‘Centennial’ Ring Cycle at Bayreuth, a series of productions that revolutionized the staging of Wagner’s music dramas.

Dido and Aeneas : opera in three acts
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas brings together opera and dance in a collaboration between the Royal Opera, and Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. A musical and visual spectacle, Wayne McGregor’s contemporary choreography fuses with Purcell’s music, realising in the dancers’ movement many of the intricacies in the score. Sarah Connolly (Dido) and Lucas Meachum (Aeneas) imbue their roles with magnificence befitting their royal status, Dido’s descent into despair truly wrenches the heart as she is undone by the witches’ cruelty. Although this production met with mixed responses in 2009, mainly to do with the size of the stage in relation to the intimacy of Purcell’s opera, McGregor’s seems vision is more successful on screen, where the cameras bring us closer to the action.

The partnership : Brecht, Weill, three women, and Germany on the brink / Katz, Pamela
Although the partnership between Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is well-documented, Pamela Katz is the first author to bring to the fore the roles played by Lotte Lenya, Helene Weigel, and Elizabeth Hauptmann in the creation and performance of Weill and Brecht’s operas. Brech and Weill’s deconstruction and subversion of operatic conventions in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Threepenny Opera have been the subject of much research and discussion, but the significant involvement and influence of Weigel, Hauptmann, and Lenya in the creative process have never been adequately examined. This book does so, charting the development and early performance history of the operas in the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic, as well as their creators’ flight from Germany in 1933.

Southern voices : international opera singers of New Zealand / Simpson, Adrienne
Adriennehttp://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0790002256 /ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21 Simpson and Peter Downes dedicated this book to the singers it profiles. Southern Voices is a trove of insights into the careers and reflections of a succession of truly great artists. The singers reflect on their early training and the formative experiences in local choirs and competitions that set them on the path to the most august heights of their profession.  Malvina Major’s recollections of her triumph as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the 1968 Salzburg Festival, working with Claudio Abbado; Inia te Wiata’s creation of roles in operas by Benjamin Britten; Patricia Payne overcame homesickness and uncertainty at the Opera Centre in London to find musical fulfilment on the concert platform before becoming a soloist with Covent Garden’s permanent company, and a guest soloist in productions all over Europe and the USA; Barry Mora’s successes in many roles over several seasons at Gelsenkirchen, before joining the permanent ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera, where experimental and provocative productions made the company a provocative centre of Regietheater in the 1980s. These stories, and many more, make Southern Voices a fascinating source of history, reinforcing the remarkable achievements of New Zealand singers on the international scene.

The birth of an opera : fifteen masterpieces from Poppea to Wozzeck / Rose, Michael
Michael Rose slices through centuries of myth-making and romanticising to document the creation of fifteen operas, from Monteverdi’s Poppea (first performed in 1643) to Berg’s Wozzeck (1925). Rose examines the manifold complexities of making operas, including the composers’ selection of libretti and collaboration with librettists (for example, the partnerships between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, and Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal), the challenges and benefits of aristocratic patronage, grappling with censors, and parrying hostile critics and cabals. A rich array of primary sources, including exchanges of letters between composers and their collaborators, treatise extracts, and aesthetic manifesti, illuminate the making of FidelioOtelloTurandot among other works.

Pene Pati
Tenor Pene Pati is equally well-known here as an outstanding operatic tenor, and one-third of  Sol3Mio.In the last five years, Pati’s career has been spectacularly ascendent. Currently performing the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris — a role he will reprise in Toronto with the Canadian Opera Company later this year — Pati’s recent schedule has seen him perform in Monte Carlo, Naples, Prague, and Berlin. In 2021, Pati signed an exclusive recording contract with Warner Classics, and this, his debut album, includes extracts from some of the operas in which his recent performances have earned particular acclaim: Verdi’s Rigoletto, Gounoud’s Romeo et Juliette, and Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore

Opera, or, The undoing of women / Clement, Catherine
A foundational text in feminist musicology, Opera, or, The Undoing of Women (originally published in French as L’Opéra ou la Défaite des femmes in 1979) was contentious when it was first published in French 1979, and remains controversial today. As one of the first critical studies to apply feminist theory to the plots and texts of operas, considering specifically the situation of opera’s female characters, Clément unpicks the fates of Turandot, Cio-Cio San, Lucia, Tatiana, Violetta, Tosca, Isolde. Her analysis identifies several plot and character archetypes, to demonstrate how ’19th-century opera perpetuates a social order which requires either the death or the domestication of the female protagonist.’ Although Clément’s musical analyses are unsophisticated, her poetic language remains compelling, while her arguments remain relevant and provocative nearly 45 years after the book’s first appearance.