About Book Marks
Daniel De Vise
Recent Reviews
Positive Washington Independent Review of Books Reads more like a very good, book-length Vanity Fair profile. In it, Morrison tells us what makes Michaels tick, and that is no small feat ... The resulting book wields an authority most prior SNL books have lacked ... Morrison is a skilled writer. I think she writes a little too much on Michaels’ formative years ... A definitive profile of the SNL creator, deeply researched and adeptly written. All that’s missing is a cinematic flourish of narrative conflict.
Jann S. Wenner
Positive Washington Independent Review of Books The Jann Wenner story will resonate with those who grew up with Rolling Stone in its heyday ... Wenner is an accomplished writer himself ... Wenner’s affable account delivers lots of booze, a whole lot of drugs, an endless procession of yachts and private jets, and an exhausting quotient of skiing, but not much dirt.
Ron Shelton
Rave The Washington Independent Review of Books ... should probably wind up on the syllabus of every film school in the country. In it, Shelton delivers a primer on the absurdist business of Hollywood filmmaking and on the art of narrative storytelling. His book glides along its own narrative arc as Shelton overcomes one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another, each time leaving the reader breathless at the sheer improbability that Bull Durham got made at all. I highly recommend it for fans of the film, storytellers, and those who’ve thought of naming their children Crash and Nuke.
Jim Ruland
Positive The Washington Independent Review of Books A good history of SST Records is long overdue ... Ruland does a great job in charting the rise of SST ... The bands could not have been more different: no thousand-word review can do them justice. And this is where Corporate Rock Sucks gets frustrating. Ruland chose to fix his narrative eye on Ginn and Black Flag, documenting their intertwined careers in granular detail. Maybe that was the right play, but I wish he’d told me more about the great bands Ginn brought into the SST fold. Ruland might have devoted a full chapter to each of them, and I would’ve devoured every word. Instead, he takes pains to catalog dozens of releases from obscure SST artists that didn’t sell then and don’t matter now ... I would’ve liked to know more, too, about Ginn’s million-dollar ear: What, exactly, did he hear in each band when he first encountered its work on a beer-drenched stage or hand-delivered cassette? ... Ruland writes with an easy cadence and a clear mastery of his subject, especially when he dwells within the punk canon. No one is likely to carve a better portrait of Greg Ginn, the lanky gearhead at the center of the SST storm. Ruland’s book leaves \'plenty of room for further study of SST Records,\' as he acknowledges at the end.
Marc Eliot
Mixed Washington Independent Review of Books Marc Eliot...knows country music. With The Hag, I sense that he tried to write in a voice approximating Merle’s own. The resulting text reads like something written 50 or 60 years ago. It’s hokey in places, just like Merle, and pitched to male readers, especially in matters of sex ... it will be interesting to see if the author catches flak for invoking boys-club parlance in 2022. Then again, Merle himself used a lot of the same language in his two memoirs, both enjoyable reads ... But The Hag is a breezy read ... The Hag isn’t for everyone, but stick with it, and you may find yourself tearing up toward the end.
Bob Spitz
Rave Washington Independent Review of Books Revelatory ... Exhaustively researched ... The author smartly builds his narrative around Page, a wunderkind London session guitarist who reinvented himself as a blues-rock star in the legendary Yardbirds ... Led Zeppelin is an excellent book. Spitz tells his story masterfully. He seems not to have scored fresh interviews with surviving band members, but he tapped dozens of friends, roadies, fellow musicians, and groupies and amassed a busload of archival clips ... Still, many of his revelations sadden the soul ... Led Zeppelin is a compelling work, but one that may dim the Led Zeppelin legend. Gauzy Rolling Stone retrospectives and nostalgia-hued books and films would have us remember the arena-rock era as a pot-scented Eden, an unending singalong on a boozy tour bus. Bob Spitz gives us the facts, and they tell a darker story.
Dave Grohl
Mixed The Washington Independent Review of Books For reasons of his own, Grohl never delves too deeply into the Cobain saga ... That leaves the reader with a pleasant rock-star memoir, a portrait of a really nice kid from the DC suburbs who matured into one of the great rock drummers. That, I think, is Grohl’s signal accomplishment. He is easily the standout drummer of the era Nirvana ushered in ... Deathless fans of Foo Fighters and anyone with Grohl’s face tattooed on their arms are sure to enjoy Storyteller. But I think Grohl would be first to admit that the Foo story falls well below the top shelf of epic rock sagas ... the younger Grohl could have used a more intrusive editor ... Too often, Grohl lapses into industry glad-handing ... This heartwarming tale feels very Dave Grohl, but not very punk rock.
Adin Dobkin
Rave Washington Independent Review of Books ... for a narrative arc, the 1919 Tour de France presents an uphill battle ... But Dobkin is an elegant writer, and he makes a valiant effort with limited material. Readers will marvel at scenes of athletes setting off at three in the morning on stages that traversed 400-500 kilometers ... Here and there, Dobkin unveils poignant scenes of French fans reveling in the return of their beloved sport ... In brief and commendable digressions, Dobkin labors to introduce Black and female characters into an otherwise white and male narrative—another tough assignment, as none of the detours seems to intersect the main story ... Dobkin builds an eerie suspense near the end as the riders approach the Zone Rouge, scene of the bloodiest battles ... Dobkin himself seems never to have competed on a bicycle, and that is a strength. Many cycling writers are former racers, and books penned by cyclists tend to dwell on gear ratios and drafting tactics to an off-putting extent. Dobkin, by contrast, writes like an historian. The reader shares his wonderment ... that rare cycling book that will resonate with non-cyclists, and Adin Dobkin’s eloquent reportage will engage aficionados of the Great War.
Daniel Barbarisi
Positive Washington Independent Review of Books In this lively read, a journalist sheds objectivity and searches for riches alongside his subjects ... Sadly, as Barbarisi painfully illustrates, most hunters drawn to Fenn’s puzzle lacked the skill set to solve it. Parsing a literary text for hidden meaning was a task for an English major, not an army of retired soldiers with inflatable rafts and rappelling gear ... Chasing the Thrill illustrates the creeping narcissism in today’s selfie-taking, blog-publishing, Instagram-posting society. Barbarisi’s hunters twist Fenn’s clues to suit their fancies ... Chasing the Thrill leads the reader on an engaging armchair treasure hunt, a welcome escape in these waning days of covid. Daniel Barbarisi’s bold gamble — inserting himself at the story’s center — pays off. The writer emerges as a sympathetic protagonist, and his participation buys him entrée into a secretive and mistrustful club.
William Cash
Positive The Washington Independent Review of Books William Cash is an ambitious and talented writer ... It’s hard to pull the whole truth from a memoir, but Cash attacks Restoration Heart with admirable journalistic remove. He quotes verbatim from letters to paramours rather than attempt to recall his feelings a decade or two later. He crafts vivid, cinematic scenes. He guesses at the motivations behind his own fateful decisions but does not presume to know them for certain. His writing is elegant and self-effacing, sometimes to the point of false modesty. (If Upton Cressett doesn’t qualify as a mansion, as Cash asserts in chapter two, then I’d like to know what does) ... celebrates the redemptive power of love and renovation. It’s a good read for a certain breed of Anglophilic American, those of us who still remember the Reagan-era PBS spectacle of Brideshead Revisited and who treasure our dogeared The Lord of the Rings paperbacks and our dusty Four Weddings and a Funeral DVD.