Great Reads, December 2019

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What's Hot on Your Bookshelf, December 2019

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‘THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING’ BY DEBORAH LEVY

Electrifying and audacious, an unmissable new novel from the twice-Man Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk.In 1989, Saul is hit by a car on the Abbey Rd crossing. He is fine; he gets up and goes to see his girlfriend, Jennifer. They have sex and then break up. He leaves for the GDR, where he will have more sex (with several members of the same family), harvest mushrooms in the rain, bury his dead father in a matchbox, and get on the wrong side of the Stasi.In 2016, Saul is hit by a car on the Abbey Rd crossing. He is not fine at all; he is rushed to hospital and spends the following days in and out of consciousness, in and out of history. Jennifer is sitting by his bedside. His very-much-not-dead father is sitting by his bedside. Someone important is missing.Deborah Levy presents an ambitious, playful and totally electrifying novel about what we see and what we fail to see, about carelessness and the harm we do to others, about the weight of history and our ruinous attempts to shrug it off.

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‘ACID FOR THE CHILDREN’ BY FLEA

Michael Peter Balzary was born in Melbourne, Australia, on October 16, 1962. His more famous stage name, Flea, and his wild ride as the renowned bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers was in a far and distant future. Little Michael from Oz moved with his very conservative, very normal family to Westchester, New York, where life as he knew it was soon turned upside down. His parents split up and he and his sister moved into the home of his mother's free-wheeling, jazz musician boyfriend - trading in rules, stability, and barbecues for bohemian values, wildness, and Sunday afternoon jazz parties where booze, weed, and music flowed in equal measure. There began Michael's life-long journey to channel all the frustration, loneliness, love, and joy he felt into incredible rhythm.

When Michael's family moved to Los Angeles in 1972, his home situation was rockier than ever. He sought out a sense of belonging elsewhere, spending most of his days partying, playing basketball, and committing petty crimes. At Fairfax High School, he met another social outcast, Anthony Kiedis, who quickly became his soul brother, the yin to his yang, his partner in mischief. Michael joined some bands, fell in love with performing, and honed his skills. But it wasn't until the night when Anthony, excited after catching a Grandmaster Flash concert, suggested they start their own band that he is handed the magic key to the cosmic kingdom. Acid for the Children is as raw, entertaining and wildly unpredictable as its author. It's both a tenderly evocative coming of age story and a raucous love letter to the power of music and creativity.

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‘LADY IN WAITING’ BY ANNE GLENCONNER

Anne Glenconner has been close to the Royal Family since childhood. Eldest child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, she was, as a daughter, described as 'the greatest disappointment' by her family as she was unable to inherit. Her childhood home Holkham Hall is one of the grandest estates in England. Bordering Sandringham the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were frequent playmates. From Maid of Honour at the Queen's Coronation to Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret, Lady Glenconner is a unique witness to royal history, as well as an extraordinary survivor of a generation of aristocratic women trapped without inheritance and burdened with social expectations.  She married the charismatic but highly volatile Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who became the owner of Mustique. Together they turned the island into a paradise for the rich and famous, including Mick Jagger and David Bowie, and it became a favourite retreat for Princess Margaret.  But beneath the glitz and glamour there has also lurked tragedy. On Lord Glenconner's death in 2010 he left his fortune to a former employee. And of their five children, two grown-up sons died, while a third son had to be nursed back from a coma by Anne, after having suffered a near fatal accident.  Anne Glenconner writes with extraordinary wit, generosity and courage and she exposes what life was like in her gilded cage, revealing the role of her great friendship with Princess Margaret, and the freedom she can now finally enjoy in later life. She will appear as a character in the new series of The Crown this autumn.

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‘THAT REMINDS ME’ BY DEREK OWUSU

This is the story of K.

K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love. He learns how to navigate the city. But as he grows, he begins to realise that he needs more than the city can provide. He is a man made of pieces. Pieces that are slowly breaking apart

That Reminds Me is the story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. It is a deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.

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‘A SONG FOR YOU’ BY ROBYN CRAWFORD

The life and legacy of Whitney Houston has fascinated and devastated her fans for years, from her rapid rise to fame, to her tumultuous marriage to Bobby Brown, and ultimately to her passing in 2012. In the past two years, two documentaries about her relationships and the demons she struggled have emerged; even now, people can't get enough of the story of the enigmatic superstar, her astronomical rise and highly publicized fall. But one major figure from Whitney's inner circle has remained largely a mystery: her closest friend since before it all began, Robyn Crawford. In her memoir, Robyn finally tells her story of life with Whitney, from their teen years in East Orange, New Jersey, to time spent traveling the globe with and working for Whitney at the height of her career. Deeply personal, heartfelt, and ready to set the record straight, Robyn Crawford's memoir is a vital story and a previously untold part of Whitney's life, from a women who knew her better than nearly anyone else.

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‘THE CASTLE ON SUNSET’ BY SHAWN LEVY

For nearly ninety years, Hollywood's brightest stars have favoured the Chateau Marmont as a home away from home. It is a place filled with deep secrets but is hidden in plain sight, and its evolution parallels the growth of Hollywood itself. 

Perched above the Sunset Strip like a fairy-tale castle, the Chateau seems to come from another world entirely. An apartment-house-turned-hotel, it has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: 1930s bombshell Jean Harlow took lovers during her third honeymoon there; director Nicholas Ray slept with his sixteen-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Anthony Perkins and Tab Hunter met poolside and began a secret affair; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies, once nearly falling to his death; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose in a private bungalow; Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months.

Much of what's happened inside the Chateau's walls has eluded the public eye - until now. With wit and prowess, Shawn Levy recounts the wild parties and scandalous liaisons, creative breakthroughs and marital breakdowns, births and untimely deaths that the Chateau Marmont has given rise to. Vivid, salacious and richly informed, the book is a glittering tribute to Hollywood as seen from the suites and bungalows of its most hallowed hotel.

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‘CHAOS’ BY TOM O’NEILL

In 1999, when Tom O’Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren’t the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they’d gladly complied. But when O’Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s narrative, long enshrined in the bestselling Helter Skelter. Before long, O’Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he’d never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career. He was obsessed.

Searching but never speculative, CHAOS follows O’Neill's twenty-year effort to rebut the ‘official’ story behind Manson. Who were his real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn’t law enforcement act on their many chances to stop him? And how did he turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O’Neill's hunt for answers leads him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from the Summer of Love to the shadowy sites of the CIA’s mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with cover-ups and coincidences.

Featuring hundreds of new interviews and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. In those two dark nights in Los Angeles, O’Neill finds the story of California in the sixties: when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia-or dystopia-was just an acid trip away.

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What Is.. Reviv IV Therapy

Traditional oral supplements are something of a mystery. Some say they’re crucial to obtaining optimum wellness yet three’s a a whole other school of though that considers the taking of supplements a farce and we should be getting the nutrients from the foods we eat. It’s wildly debated as to how much goodness we actually absorb in our daily search for ultimate health via supplements, not to mention how many dollah bills we in fact may perhaps be wasting in the hundreds we spend on vitamins and supplements. 

What if though.. just what if, there’s a way of getting the immediate boost we seek in the form of something just as conventional yet much more effective. Ok step in and let me introduce you to Reviv IV Therapy. Tried and tested, it’s one of the only ways in which we get immediate results that instantly allows the body reap the benefits of 100% absorption. Yes 100%. I mean, whaaaaat!!! Imagine all those electrolytes, antioxidants, good fluids, vitamins and nutrients going straight to work, doing exactly what they’re meant to do. Benefits of IV Therapy with Reviv are endless, from the restoration of your general vitamin and nutrient balance, major upgrades in terms of your skins ability to let take what it needs to glow and shine as it’s meant to and not forgetting the overall advantage of a very empowering energy boost. 

Reviv is the real deal. Founded by four emergency room doctors who saw the need for general health boosters, such as IV therapies, to be more widely available to people and at a more affordable price point, it’s something you have to experience to believe. While understanding the underlying need and knowing it needed to be in a beautiful spa like setting instead of the miserable vibes we tent to associate with needles and drips around us, they began with an initial opening in Miami Beach in 2011 and have sine grown to a global level with spas in over 30 countries. Reviv also do genetic testing via understanding your DNA to help measure your genetic risk of serious illnesses and how to best avoid such onsets. Sports and nutrition testing alongside beauty and anti-ageing tests are also available as part of their DNA investigations. We spend so much on frivolous things in life yet what if investing in your mood, health, energy and the potential longevity of our lifespan is as easy as a trip to Reviv.. 

To book your IV Therapy session, visit revivme.com

Who Is.. Cindy Sherman

Cynthia Morris Sherman was born in New Jersey on January 19, 1954 and is one of the contemporary art world’s most influential and consequential living female photographers. More widely known as Cindy Sherman, her career as an artist has spanned nearly 40 years and throughout she has exclusively created photographic self-portraits that explore, with a strong streak of feminist  messages, the construction of modern day life, drawing on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes. Socially critical and amusing, her work is never far from the truth; mirroring the realities of our time with a sustained and precise fabrication that forces the viewer to take a deep breath in personal recognition or perhaps a wider, more general appreciation of it’s greater meaning.

Sherman is an interesting and interested character. Upon graduating from the State University of New York in 1976 she moved away from painting and began what would become her life’s work beginning with Complete Untitled Film Stills (1977-1978) which would remain one of her most seminal series and consisted of 69 black-and-white images. In the 1980’s she moved on to colour film and larger more mammoth productions focusing slightly more on the use of lighting and facial expression. She has since, at different times, focused on directing motion film between her famous photographic series. But her photography remains her most celebrated and revered work. 

In every series of creations, Sherman works as her own subject while capturing herself in an endless range of pretences and guises. In the creation of one or any of her photographs, she is everything all at once, from makeup-artist and hair-stylist to creative stylist, creative director and of course, photographer. All of this means she stands alone in the industry, in which she is typically grouped within the era of the Pictures Generation, through her distinctive mix of performance and photography. Drawing upon film, fashion and a lot of influential and commercial advertisements, she ironically plays into with the cultural stereotypes that are massively supported and encouraged by such media portals and draws upon her belief that we must challenge them with a sense of sharpness and dark humour. In her processes, she uses wigs, prosthetics accessories, liberal amounts of makeup and set designs that all enable her visions to come to life. 

Sherman has been the subject of many major museum exhibitions, most recently at MoMA in 2019 and again at the National Portrait Gallery, in London which also showed this year. She lives in New York City where she also works in solitary in her Manhattan studio. 

Who Is.. Tracey Emin

Known for her autobiographical and self-revelatory work, Tracey Emin is one of Britain’s most respected and revered artists of the 21st century.  Using immense personal disclosure, Emin produces work using a variety of mediums from drawing and painting to photography and film, her infamous neon texts, sewn appliqué and her life-size installations. 

Born July 3rd, 1963, in Surrey, England Emin grew up in Margate with an early life that played out rather brokenly. Living in a seaside hotel with her mother and mother, Emin claims she was treated like a princess and it was only when her father, who was Turkish, stopped living with them for half the week and left to live permanently with his other wife and family, taking all their money and leaving her mother completely bankrupt that life began to show it’s darker side to her. Continuing from this devastating burden, the young Tracey along with her mother and brother lived in poverty. 

Emin left Margate to start her studies and chose fashion at the Medway College of Design where her intimate relationship with the avant-garde personality Billy Childish was the foundational beginnings that would play a very influential part in her maturing as an artist and creator. Following their breakup in 1987, she decided to move to London, where she graduated with an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in 1989. The few years following her graduation proved a difficult time for her and she went through an emotionally traumatic period which included two abortions. During this arduous stretch she destroyed her entire portfolio of work from her time at the Royal College in an impulsive act of self-rebellion. 

Her time in London gained her the reputation as a bit of a badass, befriending other artists of the time who would later become known as the Young British Artists, a group which included other majorly successful artists like Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas. This budding group gained massive recognition thanks to Charles Saatchi who is often credited with their discovery. He bought their entire collections from the beginning, showcasing them as a group at his gallery in March 1992 which he titled “Young British Artists”. Saatchi’s support played a major role in landing them in front of the contemporary art scene, with the value of their work instantly skyrocketing as a direct result of the Saatchi effect. Anything he supports becomes ‘valuable’ overnight. The Young British Artists - or the YBA’s as they were referred to - became so infamous that they are now understood as an actually historical reference for the time. 

Some of Emin’s most celebrated and remembered works are Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 which she created in 1995 as a shout out to everyone she ever a bed with, sexually or otherwise. For the piece she embroidered every name in her own handwriting on a sheet. Another of her greatest pieces was My Bed (1998) which she was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999 for - one of the art world’s most notable accolades. It was a turn of events seeing as just two years prior she had appeared on a television program about the Prize as an institution where she showed up on live TV drunk and aggressive, swearing on live British TV in front of a panel of art academics. The piece though was utterly important - inspire of it’s overt controversial nature. It was bed - as it stood during a depressive phase of her life in which she personally spent four full days in bed eating nothing and wrinkly heavily. It showed everything from sexual stains and pubes to empty bottles and a mess that that mirrored her mental state at the time. It was received with gravely critical reviews and the age old claim that “well anyone can make that”.. to which she cleverly responded “Well, they didn’t, did they?”.

Despite not winning, her nomination was something of a moment as her piece, portrayed the dire situation she found herself in personally and it played on emotions of a dark nature - something completely related to many who suffer with mental health. It played a huge part in catapulting her to fame and the piece’s notoriety has continued to this day. Another of her more recent pieces is a neon light sculpture at St. Pancreas International Station in London. The 20-meter long installation greets travellers with the words “I want my time with you” as they enter the station.

Tracey Emin has exhibited extensively including major solo shows at Château La Coste in France, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh among many others. She represented Great Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale, an honour in which she invited to show a commissioned body of work as a solo exhibitor at the British Pavilion, titled Borrowed Light. 

Marking her true arrival and finally gaining a seat at the table of high-brow British artists, she was made a Royal Academician at London's Royal Academy of the Arts in 1997, a moment in which she was undoubtedly and ultimately accepted by the establishment. Emin has also been named as one of the most powerful women in Britain and awarded a CBE for her services to the arts in 2013. 

From an impoverished childhood, smeared with experiences children should never be subjected to gaining recognition as one of the top contemporary artists of our time, Emin - intelligent and wounded - has settled slightly in her controversial ways. However, she continues to work with an astonishing sense of urgency and determined vision that continues to push the boundaries of society and what is deemed “normal” despite her personal life and appearances lessening in their sensationalist ways. She is represented by White Cube and will open another major solo exhibition, entitled The Loneliness in the spring of 2020 at Oslo’s Munch Museum. Following that she is set to unveil her permanent public commission The Mother for Oslo’s Museum Island. The exhibition will later tour to the RA, London in November 2020.  

Who Is.. Ellen Von Unwerth

Playfully erotic images of female pop stars and models have made Ellen von Unwerth’s photographic career a seriously sexy success. Born In Frankfurt, Germany in 1954, von Unwerth’s childhood was dotted with stints in foster care and was marred with unrest. Upon graduating from high school however, her vivid imagination saw her taking a job in the circus as an assistant. She regularly performed in the travelling show’s magic acts, it was her escape and she loved it. Soon enough though her great escape presented itself and her fashion career began to take shape when she was at university in Munich on her first day when she was spotted by a modelling scout. She modelled in Munich for some time before relocating to Paris where she signed with Elite and remained in front of the camera for 10 years, booking many prestigious jobs including the cover of Cosmopolitan.

It wasn’t until her boyfriend at the time gifted her a new camera on a shoot on location in Kenya that her inner passion and gift for being behind the lens came to light. She began taking her own photos and in no time she was shooting regular campaigns. In 1989 however she really found her footing, landing a monumental project, a Guess campaign in which she shot one of the era’s newly rising models, Claudia Schiffer. The two budding stars found major fame in the moment and von Unwerth became a hot commodity overnight. Just two years later she won first prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography earning her her place in the industry as one of it’s top fashion photographers. Her photographic style was a refreshing take on the provocative, portraying women in playful settings while drawing a seductive story in every shot; something that would continue to dictate Guess’ notoriously suggestive campaigns for over 30 years since. 

Opulently feminine and luxuriously sensual, von Unwerth’s work is instantly recognisable. She has said of her craft that “Technique undoubtedly helps make photography magical, but I prefer to work with atmosphere. I think that the obsession with technique is a male thing. I would rather search for a new model or location.” Her work has been published in major fashion publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, The Face, Arena, and i-D.  and she has shot some of the most prolific and sometimes controversial campaigns in fashion history for brands like Dior, Ralph Lauren, Uniqlo, Thierry Mulger and John Galliano. 

She understands the sexy and makes it somehow sexier, something perhaps only a female photographer can do so powerfully and without objectification. Her creative prowess has spawned many mediums including her directorial work on music videos and the creative direction of some of the past decades most famed album covers, including Duran Duran’s 1990 Liberty album, Pop Life by Bananarama in 1991, Saints and Sinners by All Saints in 2000, Blackout by Britney Spears, 2007 and Talk That Talk and Rated by Rihanna. She has also been director of commercial films for brands such as Revlon, Equinox and Clinique. No matter her way of delivering beautiful images however, you can be sure that Ellen von Unwerth will always maintain her sexy distinctive style, holding her place as one of her generations most celebrated image makers. 

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