Eminent jazz journalist and critic Stanley Crouch will present his new biography of Charlie “Bird” Parker, Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker, at 6 p.m. this Friday, Nov. 8, at the Community Book Center (2523 Bayou Road). Crouch’s new biography—the first half of what will become a two-part project—has been roundly … Stanley Crouch on Charlie Parker this Friday at the Community Book Center
The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King By Rich Cohen Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Reviewed by Nathan C. Martin Samuel Zemurray, former president of the United Fruit company and history’s most ambitious banana magnate, has a lot in common with Daniel Plainview, the antihero of P.T. Anderson’s 2007 … THERE WILL BE BANANAS: If Samuel Zemurray is Daniel Plainview, why doesn’t Rich Cohen treat him like it?
Here at Room 220, we’re still stuck in a state of awe over Ben Sandmel’s fantastic biography of Ernie K-Doe, published recently by the Historic New Orleans Collection. We’ve recently posted a whole slew of archival photos of the book along with Wesley Stokes’ review of it. Is that Quintron in the pool, and Miss … K-Doe Photos from the K-Doe Bio
Seven years after the publication of Ignatius Rising: The Life of John Kennedy Toole–which I seem to vaguely remember picking up, leafing through, and putting down, underwhelmed–Da Capo Press and author Cory MacLauchlin have brought us the hipper-sounding and -looking Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story … Another John Kennedy Toole biography, this one with a cooler cover
