Category Archive: Biography
Gold Dust Woman : The Biography of Stevie Nicks
(by Stephen Davis) That “The” in the title is pretty rich. This is not a definitive biography of Stevie Nicks. This is a pedestrian grab for cash. Davis didn’t interview Nicks – he’s taken his material from published interviews, the music, quotes, interviews with friends and colleagues. He may have spoken to Nicks when working with Mick Fleetwood on the latter’s 1990 memoirs, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac (which Davis says was “an international best seller (and the foundation text for almost every book written since about this band).” Gold Dust Woman isn’t a bad book, it’s just that…
Continue Reading →Workshy by Dave Graney
(Adelaide launch, 10 November 2017) At Imprints on Hindley Street, The Varnished Culture attended the launch of Workshy: My Life as a Bludge, the modestly titled autobiography by the undisputed Funky King of the Lounge Lizards, Dave Graney. Mr Graney read excerpts with verve and wit and then thrilled the crowd with a couple of acoustic numbers, including “Night of the Wolverine.” Graney’s songs insinuate themselves into the brain till they become giant, lurid earworms. Think “Rock ‘n’ Roll is Where I Hide.” His prose is similar. His account starts with his childhood in Mount Gambier at the bottom of South Australia….
Continue Reading →Being Wagner
(by Simon Callow) (2017) Wagner was the Richard Nixon of Art: Revered, and reviled. Hugely accomplished and hugely flawed. Shining Knight and Scaly Dragon. So many words have been written by him, about him, for him and against him that when our literary friend Janelle sent us this book as a gift, it evoked a wan sigh – another Wagner book by an enthusiastic amateur, you might say! Quelle Horreur you might say! Well, you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves! This is a lovely book, full of sound insight and as easy to slip between its sheets as…
Continue Reading →Pride With Prejudice
Jane Austen (16 December 1775 to 18 July 1817) “Her acute sense of character, her bland irony, her exquisite powers of organisation and presentation, turned the uneventful lives of well-fed people in quiet corners into enchanting novels.”* She may have belonged, as Edward Said claimed, ‘to a slave-owning society,’ but Jane Austen was a great writer – one of the very greatest – of small things, and the interior of the provincial English mind. She wasn’t so fussed about ‘themes.’ She wrote about girls looking for a man to marry, which was of prime importance then; today, 200 years after her premature…
Continue Reading →Rockin’ All Over the Place
Launch of Beyond the Rock by Janelle McCulloch The Avenue Bookstore, Albert Park, Victoria (4 April 2017); Matilda Bookstore, Stirling, SA (6 April 2017) The Varnished Culture schmoozed in Albert Park at the Avenue (honourably mentioned in our summary of Melbourne bookstores) for the launch of Beyond the Rock (reviewed here). Bob Sessions recalled the modest success of the book on its publication by Penguin in 1967, and its stunning re-boot upon release of the film in 1975. (It is their second biggest Australian sell after A Fortunate Life). Author Janelle McCulloch gave a talk and afterwards, a Q & A, in…
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