Category: Books

Klosterman hailed as top pop critic
NEW YORK (AP) – Chuck Klosterman is flabbergasted that some consider him – like many of his subjects – a celebrity.
“I haven’t sold that many books! I’m living in a very normal apartment! I don’t own a helicopter!” exclaims the writer during an interview at said apartment. The spare Manhattan space, highlighted by a big-screen TV tuned to ESPN Classic and a large, framed poster of Radiohead’s Kid A, does indeed meet the standards of “normal.”
But by delving into The Real World and Britney Spears with as much intellectual gusto as a philosophy professor examining Wittgenstein, Klosterman has emerged as one of the country’s most distinctive pop critics.
Though he has his detractors (like Gawker.com, which has made him a target), Klosterman has inspired over-the-top praise that often includes “voice of a generation” superlatives.
“I’m always interested in the question of why does something become big,” he says.
So, why has Klosterman (in a relative sense) become big? What generational vein has he tapped?
“That’s the thing!” he responds. “Everyone knows that – no one knows what it is!”
Now releasing his fourth book, a collection entitled Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, the author of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is still more accustomed to being on the other side of a reporter’s tape recorder.
Klosterman, 34, grew up in Wyndmere, N.D. and cut his teeth for eight years as a journalist in Fargo and in Akron, Ohio before moving to New York in 2002 after the success of his first book, Fargo Rock City.
Subtitled A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota, the memoir chronicled what it was like growing up in the Midwest with a love for Guns N’ Roses. It found rave reviews and was aided by a thumbs-up from David Byrne of the Talking Heads, who said the book was “about how music feels, how media-saturated culture feels, and how it’s all in the details.”
In New York, Klosterman soon became ubiquitous in magazines. Until earlier this year he was a senior writer at Spin, he maintains a column at Esquire, and regularly contributes to the New York Times Magazine and ESPN.com.
It was his second book, though, that made his name. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of essays and a self-described “low-culture manifesto” has spent seven weeks on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list – including this week, two years after the book’s release.
Cocoa Puffs even made a cameo as a book Seth Cohen is seen reading on The O.C. – Klosterman’s thoughts on pop culture had officially become part of pop culture.
A sampling of those musings includes how John Cusack has ruined the romantic perspective of a generation of women, why Billy Joel rocks, and the reality of Saved By the Bell.
The book’s introduction offered Klosterman’s overarching, sociological approach: “In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever ‘in and of itself.’ ”
“If you’re reading Ulysses or watching Saved by the Bell, you’re trying to find meaning,” says Klosterman. “I don’t know why you can’t do that in the present tense.”
Klosterman says Cocoa Puffs will be a much more interesting book 25 years from now, when it will be a period piece, a view of what people were actually thinking about in the present tense at the turn of the 21st century.
Klosterman took to the road for his next book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, where he chronicled his trip to the places many rock stars died. His goal: to figure out “why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing.”
Chuck Klosterman IV is a collection of mostly magazine profiles and opinionated columns. His populist approach is reflected in a column he wrote in 2002 after the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone (of the Ramones) and Robbin Crosby (of Ratt).
Klosterman sees an unfair balance to how Ramone’s death received far more attention than Crosby’s (“the first major hair-metal artist from the Reagan years to die from AIDS”). He concludes that the “concept of good taste” is nothing more than “a subjective device used to create gaps in the intellectual class structure.”
“My view has always been there are lots of people in America that want to think critically about the art that engages their life,” he says. “Now, there are places that definitely do that, like the New Yorker, NPR, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s.
“The problem is that a lot of the subjects those publications cover, a lot of society has no relationship to. They’ve never listened to Yo La Tengo records. They haven’t seen the films that are supposed to be important.”
In profiling pop stars and rock bands, Klosterman’s general approach is to seek out what someone “represents.” Britney Spears, for example, “is not so much a person as she is an idea, and the idea is this: You can want everything, so long as you get nothing.”
On Steve Nash, the Phoenix Suns point guard, he writes: “Nash plays basketball in a deftly metaphoric manner.”
Of course, Spears and Nash both appear to have little idea what Klosterman is talking about when he asks them about their metaphoric meaning. And ironically enough, Klosterman can’t figure it out, either, when it comes to himself.
“I do feel like in a very big way, I’ve totally lost control of my life,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what I write, because people seem to be addressing either this idea of me . . . or they’re just writing about the perceived success of my career.”
IV also contains Klosterman’s first published fiction, a short story he wrote several years ago about a man who is driving when a woman falls out of the sky and lands on his car.
He’s now working on a novel that he describes as about “small town mythology,” and which is clearly a new challenge for him.
“I’m predisposed to see meaning in things that might seem meaningless,” Klosterman says, “but that doesn’t mean I can make meaning clear to people in a narrative sense.”

15 THINGS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW
Forget “The Rules.” When women are looking for tips, they don’t want to know how to play hard to get – they want to know how to avoid having a double chin in pictures. Luckily, we have “How to Walk in High Heels: The Girl’s Guide to Everything,” a new book by British fashion journalist Camilla Morton that collects useful advice for women. Like how to send food back in a restaurant without coming across like a raving lunatic, or how to poach an egg.
She even enlisted some bold-faced friends: Manolo Blahnik tells you how to go shoe shopping, Vivienne Westwood explains how to appreciate art, and Heidi Klum gives tips on how to enhance your finer, umm, assets.
Here are 15 ways Morton says you can get ahead. And none involves making him wait to have sex.
1 How to look good in a photo
By supermodel Gisele Bundchen
The most crucial thing is lighting – you don’t want it below you or above you, you want it to shine directly on you.
Learn what angles work with your face. You can practice in a passport photo booth. Tip your neck to elongate it, try different directions. Always make eye contact with the camera.
For long legs, point one leg toward the center of the frame and get the photographer to shoot looking up at your body. Keep your shoulders back.
Always have your mouth slightly open – enough to put a penny between your lips, as this will make your lips look fuller. Tilt your eyes down and look up just as the shutter is clicked for full eyes.
And, of course, delete any less-than-perfect photogenic moments – everyone has off days.
2 Dishes and scenarios to avoid on a first date:
There are the obvious ones – spaghetti, slurpy soup, corn on the cob and drenched racks of ribs. Also, try and avoid snails and other potential flying objects, blood-dripping meat and baguettes, bananas and anything that could be construed as a double entendre.
3 How to fit everything in your handbag:
It’s preferable to have two bags – a Mary Poppins’-style bag that can carry everything you will need, and within it a dainty frivolous number that you can carry into dinner.
Always try to carry these bag essentials: cellphone, wallet and money (enough for coat check), a notebook (because inspiration can strike anywhere), pens or pencils for scribbling down someone’s number, lipstick, perfume, a compact which can also be used for an unplanned escape (“I’m just going to powder my nose.”)
You should also always have lip gloss, safety pins, sewing kit, road map, address book, diary or agenda, business cards, spare pair of shoes, Band-Aids, comb, tissues, aspirin and mints.
The evening bag can only accommodate a fraction of the all-purpose one, so streamline the contents- lipstick, mobile and keys will do.
4 How to pick a shoe by shoe designer Manolo Blahnik:
“I think you must always show some toe cleavage. Toe cleavage is very important, as it gives sexuality to the shoe. But be careful you only show the first two cracks, you don’t want to give too much away – you’re not that type of girl. As for the heel, honey, it’s got to be high. The transformation is INSTANT. The height of the heel should depend on how dangerous you are feeling.”
5 How to swim in shades:
Wearing sunglasses while you’re swimming means you don’t have to worry about your mascara, plus you look glamorous in the pool. To make sure they don’t fall off while you’re in the water, wrap an elastic band around each arm of the shades. Twist and twist and then, just before the last twist is too tight to take any more, thread a strand hair through the loop. This will “superglue” the shades to your ears and will, in theory, leave you looking like a modern-day Ursula Andress.
And, they might get wet, so don’t use one of your favorite pairs. Every girl should have a few options anyways: swim shades, beach shades, shopping shades, posing shades, morning-after shades, etc.
6 How to use toilets at concert venues:
First, try to sweet-talk your way backstage and into the VIP toilets. If that doesn’t work, take a deep breath, open the port-a-potty door and do not breathe in. Don’t touch anything, get a friend to stand in front of the door so you don’t have to lock it and risk getting trapped in the toxic coffin. And, as unladylike as this sounds, squat and pray – you’re still not breathing, so be as fast as possible. When you leave, disinfect and slip your shades over your eyes as you recover from this dignity loss. Pretend it never happened.
7 How to hold court from your sickbed:
Depending on what you have, you don’t always have to disappear from society. Visitors bearing gifts – like magazines, flowers and news from the outside world – can stop by if you aren’t contagious.
Wear a nice, covering nightie; negligees are not suitable for receiving when sick. Light a scented candle, because even if you can smell nothing you always have to think of others, and the flickering dim light can add to the overall effect of your sick setting. And, keep the guests at a distance – you don’t want to pass on the flu, nor do you want them to see how red your nose is.
8 How to dress for a funeral:
Wear black daywear; not eveningwear and never too tarty. Think demure rather than black widow- soft makeup and waterproof mascara work, too. Hats are always good but better still, a black tulle veil. Look to Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral or Princess Di at Versace’s funeral for style advice. And take tissues – if you don’t need them, someone will and handkerchiefs are unhygienic and disgusting to share.
9 How to take a decent picture:
by fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski
Consider the whole frame; try to put the head near the top of the photo, and fill the whole shot. A head in the center of the picture could lead to images with large expanses of ceiling.
When taking someone’s photo, have them slightly tip their head down. Never have them turn their head up – it’ll give them a double chin. Also, don’t get too close, you do not need to see every pore. And be careful of hands and feet, fold them in delicately, especially on women – anything nearest to the camera will be largest.
Always keep a camera handy. If you just take picture at Christmas or to capture a view from your window, you will never have an exciting variety of shots.
10 How to apply red lipstick and get it to stay:
First, always keep lips well moisturized and conditioned.
For extra durability, apply lipstick with a brush. Line and rim lips with a matching color lip pencil. Then, apply color to the bottom then to the top lip. Rub your lips together to ensure the color is even. Finally, blot with a tissue and softly kiss back of hand – if there’s a stain, blot again.
11 What to sing at karaoke:
Girls should try to sing “I Will Survive”, “Lady Marmalade” or “Baby Love.” Kylie Minogue, the Bangles and Destiny’s Child and other “girl” groups are also fine. Do not, however, sing any Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears tunes, which are surprisingly difficult. Basically, avoid anything with too many vocal Olympics.
12 How to be very busy doing nothing:
To come across as very hardworking, keen and efficient keep your desk tidy, paper sorted, Post-it notes updated, pens with tops on and your stationery drawer full.
To keep noisy people away from your desk so you have enough time to polish your nails properly, mutter under your breath (audibly) “Oh, I’ve got so much to do,” or “Won’t be able to take any time for lunch today.”
Use Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl” as your inspiration.
13 How to eat alone in a restaurant:
When dining alone, you should always have a book, a notebook, a magazine and a mobile phone in your bag. You may be able to gaze off in to the sunset happily, but always have tools of distraction. The book is for pre-order and pre-food only; there’s nothing more frustrating than a piece of sticky rice concealing a vital bit of vocab.
While eating, read the magazine or the paper and it will also act as a shield, protecting you from strangers who may want to catch your eye and talk to you. And, try not to drink too much. It’s a horrid sight to see a lonesome diner losing clarity.
14 How to blend in at Home Depot:
Here’s the deal- if you teeter in wearing the latest trends you will be in danger of alienating the staff who could assist you. In this context, high fashion can make one appear to be merely a Barbie doll. Being thought of as a bimbo is never to be encouraged. A pair of jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt should do. You don’t have to look horrid, but there is no point snagging a favorite cashmere on a shelving unit to an unappreciative audience.
And, if you’re painting wear a hat or bandanna. You do not want a crown of white emulsion after the money you’ve invested in your cut and color. A bandana is more stylish than wearing a shower cap, which frankly will look (and feel) so dreadful you won’t be able to concentrate.
15 How to talk to your tailor
by fashion designer Stella McCartney
The most important thing when going to see a tailor is to know that if you are ordering a suit you can have anything you like. You are the designer, if you like, and the suit is tailored to your mood and personality.
Ask questions and follow your fitting- does it fit under the bust? Are the shoulders tight enough or too tight? Can you move your arms? What part of your silhouette do you want to enhance? And what do you want to conceal?
After you get your suit, and if you aren’t happy with it after three fittings, a tailor will keep going till it is perfect.
I recommend that you get a single-breasted jacket with two varieties of trousers, say a low-slung hipster pant and a more classic style. Women can look powerful as well as sexy in a suit; think Bianca Jagger in her white pantsuit, or Madonna.

Sean Connery never says never to autobiography
A book by James Bond actor Sean Connery that combines his autobiography and the history of Scotland is in the works and will be released in September, according to a publishing house in Edinburgh.
Canongate Books announced Wednesday it has secured the rights to publish the film star’s first major book, beating out hundreds of other publishing houses.
“Our goal is to produce a very readable, visually stimulating and hopefully intriguing history of Scotland, with personal discoveries,” said the 75-year-old actor in a statement released through Canongate.
The announcement came after the actor abandoned efforts earlier this year to finish writing his biography following fallouts with two ghostwriters.
Canongate officials say the book is being released to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be publishing Connery’s Scotland,” Jamie Byng, Canongate’s publisher, said in a release.
“Not only is it going to be a fascinating and revelatory book about Scotland, but Sir Sean is a natural storyteller with his own great story to tell.”
The actor, who was knighted by the Queen in 1999, will co-write the book with Murray Grigor, a director and writer. Grigor has produced documentaries, including one called Sean Connery’s Edinburgh, as well as television series for American and British networks.
Life before Bond
Connery was born Aug. 25, 1930, to a working-class family in Edinburgh. His various careers have included a stint in the Royal Navy, delivering milk, modelling and finishing third in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest.
Connery hit it big as super-agent James Bond in 1962’s Dr. No. The actor has made more than 75 films, including seven Bond movies, such as Goldfinger, Thunderball and Never Say Never Again, as well as The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Connery has been working on his memoirs for years and has been courted by numerous publishers. In 2004, he walked off the set of a film in Prague after declaring that he wanted to spend time writing his memoirs.
The actor announced earlier this year that he was quitting the movie life and wanted to retire from acting altogether.
Conner recently received the American Film Institute’s annual lifetime achievement award, bestowed on film luminaries such as Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

Rowling: Some characters won’t survive
LONDON (AP) ó Author J.K. Rowling said two characters will die in the last installment of her boy wizard series, and she hinted Harry Potter might not survive either.
“I have never been tempted to kill him off before the final because I’ve always planned seven books, and I want to finish on seven books,” Rowling said on Monday’s Richard and Judy television show.
“I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, ‘Well, I’m gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author written sequels. So it will end with me, and after I’m dead and gone they won’t be able to bring back the character.'”
Rowling declined to commit herself about Harry, saying she doesn’t want to receive hate mail.
“The last book is not finished. But I’m well into it now. I wrote the final chapter in something like 1990, so I’ve known exactly how the series is going to end,” she said.
Some characters might die, but the blockbuster movie franchise lives on. Warner Bros. Pictures has announced that the fifth installment will be released in U.S. theaters, including IMAX screens, on July 13, 2007.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, directed by David Yates, the teenage Harry continues to battle the evil Lord Voldemort (again played by Ralph Fiennes) and his followers. Daniel Radcliffe is returning as the title character, and Emma Watson and Rupert Grint reprise their roles as Hermione and Ron. Oscar-nominated actress Imelda Staunton plays the malicious, frumpy Professor Dolores Umbridge, who tortures Harry.
Rowling said people are sometimes shocked to hear that she wrote the end of book before she had a publisher for the first book in the series.
“The final chapter is hidden away, although it’s now changed very slightly. One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I didn’t intend to die,” she said. “A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here. They don’t target extras do they? They go for the main characters. Well, I do.”
Rowling is the richest woman in Britain ó wealthier than even the queen ó with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine last year at more than $1 billion.
Whatever she writes next, Rowling is sure of one thing: It won’t be as successful as Harry Potter.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to have anything like Harry again. You just get one like Harry.”

$6M first edition Shakespeare to be sold
A rare book of Shakespeareís plays, deemed by Sothebyís ìthe most important book in English literature,î will be put up for auction in London.
It is the first complete folio of the playwrightís work, printed in 1623, seven years after his death. It is one of a print run of 750, only a third of which have survived, most incomplete.
The book being auctioned is in remarkable condition and is expected to fetch more than £3 million ($6.1 million) at Sothebyís in London on July 13.
ìShakespeare has had a more profound and widespread impact on the artistic imagination, on language, literature and all the performing arts, than any other writer who has ever lived,” said Peter Selley, Sothebyís English literature expert.
“Relatively complete copies of the Folio in contemporary or near contemporary bindings very rarely come to the market. This sale will be a truly exceptional event.”
The folio was assembled by John Heminges and Henry Condell, actors who performed with William Shakespeare in the Kingís Men, the company he wrote for. It contains 36 plays and it was the first time that 18 of them ñ including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It ñ had been printed.
At the time, the folio sold for 20 shillings, the equivalent of about $200 today.
The book has annotations and markings from its readers. Some parts are highlighted and other times, texts are corrected.
The book is being sold by Dr. Williamsís Theological Library in London, which bought it from the library of another preacher in the early 18th century. The library is selling the book to secure its finances.
The book will be displayed at Sotheby’s offices in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Beijing and Hong Kong in April and May, ahead of the auction.

‘Jaws’ Author Peter Benchley Dies at 65
NEW YORK – Peter Benchley, whose novel “Jaws” made millions think twice about stepping into the water even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday.
Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, N.J. The cause of death, she said, was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs.
Thanks to Benchley’s 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple pastime of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.
“Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased,” Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.
“But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia.”
Benchley, the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and son of author Nathaniel Benchley, was born in New York City in 1940. He attended the elite Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, then graduated from Harvard University in 1961. He worked at The Washington Post and Newsweek and spent two years as a speechwriter for President Johnson, writing some “difficult” speeches about the Vietnam War, Wendy Benchley said.
A 1974 article in People magazine described Benchley as “Tall, slender and movie-star handsome, with eyes like the deep blue sea.” The author’s interest in sharks was lifelong, beginning with childhood visits to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts and heightening in the mid-1960s when he read about a fisherman catching a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island, the setting for his novel.
“I thought to myself, `What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn’t go away?”‘ he recalled. Benchley didn’t start the novel, for which he received a $7,500 advance, until 1971 because he was too busy with his day jobs.
“There was no particular influence. My idea was to tell my first novel as a sort of long story … just to see if I could do it. I had been a freelance writer since I was 16, and I sold things to various magazines and newspapers whenever I could.”
The editor of “Jaws,” Thomas Congdon, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he had been impressed by some articles Benchley wrote for National Geographic and arranged a lunch at a French restaurant in New York √≥ “a second-class restaurant, not first class, since he was an unknown.”
“The lunch didn’t go very well,” said Congdon, an editor at Doubleday at the time and now retired. “His nonfiction ideas did not seem very promising, but at the end of the meal, I said, `Have you ever thought of writing a novel?’ And he said, `Well, I have an idea about a great white shark that marauds an Eastern coastal town and provokes a moral crisis in the community.'”
Congdon loved the idea, but said Benchley was reluctant to start the book because he couldn’t afford time away from his journalistic work. So Congdon got him $1,000 as a down payment, in return for an initial submission of 100 pages.
“Ninety-five percent of it was jokey stuff, because he thought that was the way you do it,” said Congdon, who dismissed a longtime publishing legend that the book was heavily edited and as much his triumph as Benchley’s.
“But the first five pages were wonderful. There were no jokes. I wrote heavily in the margin: `NO JOKES.’ He went out and did it again, and it generated whole industries √≥ the movie, amusement park rides. It changed the way people looked at sharks.”
While Peter Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for “Jaws,” and authored several other novels, including “The Deep” and “The Island,” Wendy Benchley said he was especially proud of his conservation work. He served on the national council of Environmental Defense, hosted numerous television wildlife programs, gave speeches around the world and wrote articles for National Geographic and other publications.
“He cared very much about sharks. He spent most of his life trying to explain to people that if you are in the ocean, you’re in the shark’s territory, so it behooves you to take precautions,” Wendy Benchley said.
The author did not abide by the mayhem his book evoked. In fact, he was quite at ease around sharks, his widow said. She recalled a trip to Guadeloupe, Mexico last year for their 40th wedding anniversary, when the two went into the water in a special cage.
“They put bait in the water and sharks swim around and play games,” she said.
“We went at a time when the females came in and the females were much larger than the males. And at times we would have 4 or 5 of the most gorgeous female torpedoes drifting by the cage. We were thrilled, excited. We’d been around sharks for so long.”
Besides his wife, Peter Benchley is survived by three children and five grandchildren. A small family service will take place next week in Princeton, Wendy Benchley said.

First paperback of “Da Vinci Code” due in March
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dan Brown’s publisher will bring out the first U.S. paperback edition of his blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” on March 28, ahead of the May release of the film adaptation starring Tom Hanks, the company said on Monday.
With sales of the hardback edition still booming nearly three years after it was first published, the tale of church conspiracy and murder is expected to see another spike in sales linked to the eagerly awaited Columbia Pictures movie, directed by Ron Howard.
Random House imprint Anchor Books said it would publish 5 million paperback copies in mass market and trade editions, as well as trade paperback version of the special illustrated edition. Doubleday will also publish a book about the making of the film on May 19 to coincide with its opening.
Originally published in March 2003, “The Da Vinci Code” is one of the most successful, and controversial, books in U.S. publishing history.
The novel has been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church because the plot is based on the theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children, whose descendants are alive in the present day.
Despite more than 40 million copies in print worldwide in 44 languages, the novel’s literary merits have been questioned by critics and it has attracted lawsuits, so far unsuccessful, claiming it was plagiarized.
“The Da Vinci Code” has spent 144 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, 54 of them at number one. The book currently has 12 million copies in print in North America.

Fab Four uncovered in hefty tome
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – In the beginning there was John, the scruffy rebel who dazzled the good burghers of Liverpool with song and story. Then came Paul, the doe-eyed champion of all things bright and chirpy. Then there were George, the quiet one, and Ringo, who was — well, Ringo.
The four looked out onto the world and saw that it needed righteous noise, and they provided it in great abundance so that all could be well.
Nearly half a century after the Fab Four first came together, the story of the Beatles has passed into something like mythology, a hero cycle for moderns, legendary history from the distant days before the iPod.
Bob Spitz’s vast biography of the band, called, simply enough, “The Beatles,” has its worshipful moments as befits a story with its world-changing moments and larger-than-life players. It also ventures into iconoclasm at times, so much so that some of the faithful in blogland may be calling for his head. George not a saint? Paul an egomaniac? John a junkie? Is this guy a Blue Meanie or what?
At its best moments — and there are many good ones — Spitz’s book focuses on moments that everyone of a certain age can remember and adds depth and detail to them, reminding us that pivotal events often are born of accident. The band, for instance, had good reason to be tired of touring when they quit the road in summer 1966. The official explanation that they did so to concentrate on mastering studio recording doesn’t acknowledge their close brushes with death at the hands of deranged fans and detractors, malfunctioning aircraft and Imelda Marcos’ soldiers, all of which Spitz covers in detail.
Everyone knows, too, that the Beatles were rebels who changed the world; Spitz lends a few particulars to the trope, noting that, for another instance, the pre-Fab Quarrymen braved howling mobs of traditional jazz fans when they dared play rock ‘n’ roll at the Cavern — a place now enshrined in their tale but up until then hostile to anything that smacked of a rock-steady beat.
Everyone might not know what Spitz reveals: that the band was on the verge of breaking up many times before the foursome finally got around to doing so, the result of titanic power struggles that make the whole Beatles enterprise all that much less innocent.
Spitz, a veteran of the business side of entertainment, has a learned appreciation for matters of the bottom line. The Beatles’ arrival in New York in 1964 has come to be seen as a triumph of transnational culture, of the moptops’ conquering a needful America; it puts the moment in a somewhat different perspective to know that the 707 crossing the water was full of merchandisers who “had booked seats on Flight 101 in order to corner the Beatles with far-fetched pitches” and to ink exclusive deals to manufacture more junk — lunchboxes, bobblehead dolls, fright wigs — to cash in on Beatlemania. John Lennon, Spitz writes, may have been the worst of the four in handling money — the working-class hero spent it without regard for consequence — but he also was quick to sign off on such income-producing embarrassments.
“The Beatles” has a few puzzling moments, mostly when Spitz crosses from commerce into criticism. How, one might wonder, is “Baby’s in Black” a “pretentious, image laden-song?” (“Eleanor Rigby,” maybe, but . . .) Were the band’s pre-1965 compositions characterized by “standard progressions, rheumy lyrics, and simplistic arrangements?” Does it really serve no purpose “trying to dissect the songs to determine who contributed what?” (If so, what will legions of Beatleologists do with their free time?) And why pick on Yoko Ono, anyway?
Readers wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place might be better served by first looking into Hunter Davies’ there-at-the-time biography “The Beatles” and Mark Hertsgaard’s “A Day in the Life,” which focuses on what really matters — namely, the music. But for collectors, completists, latter-day Beatlemaniacs and students of recent cultural history, Spitz’s book — though debatable at points — is a welcome arrival.

Armstrong Says His Celebrity Puzzles Him
CINCINNATI – Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has never felt comfortable with the celebrity he achieved. In fact, it puzzles him.
“Friends and colleagues, all of a sudden, looked at us, treated us slightly differently than they had months or years before when we were working together,” the Apollo 11 astronaut told “60 Minutes” in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. “I never quite understood that.”
Armstrong, 75, rarely grants interviews. He agreed to one last month just before his only authorized biography, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” hit bookstores.
The interview will air on CBS, which, like the book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, is owned by Viacom.
Author James R. Hansen, an Auburn University professor and former NASA historian who wrote the biography, was allowed more than 50 hours of recorded interviews with Armstrong in his suburban Cincinnati home.
On July 20, 1969, Armstrong, then 38, stepped onto the moon with the famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
In the years since, he has taught at the University of Cincinnati and served on corporate boards, all the while rejecting interview requests.
In an e-mail response to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Armstrong said he reluctantly agreed to the book deal.
“Many individuals whose opinions I value have urged me to find a way to put my story in print,” Armstrong said. “I concluded a biography would be superior to an autobiography.
“I believed the author should have access to my recollections and thoughts although he would not be bound to use or accept them.”

Amazon to serve up books by the page
Book buyers will soon be able to buy books by the page in a new service from Amazon.com.
The Amazon Pages service will let customers buy portions of a book online, as little as a single page.
The cost for most books would be a few cents a page, though it might be higher for more specialized works.
Amazon’s announcement came on the day that Google Inc. began creating online links for entire contents of books that are in the public domain.
Google is involved in a copyright battle with writers and publishers over how much material can be scanned and indexed from major libraries.
Amazon also plans to offer a second program, Amazon Upgrade, with access to the full text of traditional works.
Under Amazon Upgrade, anybody purchasing a paper book could also look at the entire text online, at any time, for a “small” additional charge.
Both services are expected to begin next year.
“We see this as a win-win-win situation: good for readers, good for publishers and good for authors,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday.
Because it plans to show only snippets from copyrighted books, Google argues its scanning project constitutes “fair use” of the material.
Amazon had statements of support from some publishers and an expression of confidence from the U.S. authors’ guild.
The Amazon programs are the way copyright is supposed to work,” the guild’s executive director, Paul Aiken, said Thursday. “You provide access to readers and some compensation flows back to rights holders. It seems like a positive development.”