About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Keith Richards
Rave Book Page Even in nearly 600 pages—and sometimes drawing on rare letters and diary entries—Richards can’t cover all the details, but he’s quite good with the essence ... The real miracle of Richards is his survival through serious encounters with hard drugs, especially as he watched many friends and colleagues succumb to their ravages. His reflections on substance abuse seem serious-minded as far as it goes, but the fact is that he partied like a monster and simply happened to be one of the lucky ones ... Later chapters find Richards rather tempered by concerns such as recipes for a favorite dish or two, family pets, a daughter’s wedding and other items on the domestic agenda. That situation guarantees a certain amount of laconic audience interest as the book winds down, but until then, Life is probably one of the best pop music books ever assembled. It’s informative, entertaining, crafted with style—and there’s something reassuring about knowing that its likable author has lived to tell the tale.
John Grisham
Positive BookPage John Grisham’s latest novel, Calico Joe, is something of a departure from the Arkansas-born author’s many bestsellers. Here, Grisham returns to a topic—baseball... The story toggles effectively between past and present, as protagonist Paul Tracey recalls the magical summer of 1973, when a rookie named Joe Castle joined the Chicago Cubs and proceeded to set the National League on fire with an astounding and unprecedented display of hitting ... Grisham deftly blends fact and fiction in his baseball accounts from the past, populating his story with real ballplayers from the era and neatly establishing a childlike fascination with statistics and heroic athletic feats as seen through Paul’s eyes as a youngster ... Yet beneath all the baseball lore and Grisham’s obvious affection for the game, Calico Joe offers a sad but real tale about fathers and sons and the difficulties family members can experience when attempting to re-establish severed bonds ...a smart, smooth read.