Marie Clayton (1)

Starting out 2011 and looking through my “read” list to see which books I missed reviewing last year I was surprised to find out that this one missed any comments from me. Marilyn Monroe: Unseen Archives was one of my top three favourite books in 2010 so I am here to rectify it’s neglect immediately!

This is a book I settled on after deciding I needed to read more biographies of famous “culturally significant” people. I didn’t know anything about Marilyn Monroe (hadn’t even seen show more any of her movies) and wanted to see what it was about her that so captivated people when she was alive. I wasn’t sure what books were out there but when I picked this one up I knew it would be perfect. Not knowing anything about her, I knew I would be missing out big time if I didn’t read a biography with photos included.

Marie Clayton has done a stunning job with her biography. Each chapter starts out with a summary of a period in Marilyn’s life. She explains what was going on in her personal life (family, relationships, and career) and then dives into more specifics with the photo captions. And what photos! Marilyn certainly knew how to strike a pose and the photographers certainly knew how to take advantage of her charisma. I was captivated by her immediately just with the opening couple of pages. Then reading the captions and getting to know the context behind these photos certainly kept me captivated.

But even though I credit much of my love for this book in the photography chosen here, what really makes this book shine is the love for Marilyn that comes through so brightly in Clayton’s words. She gives a wonderful portrayal of a person’s life. Marilyn was not just a star but also a real life human that deserved the world’s love. Not just because of that stardom but because of that humanity. From what I have read, Ms. Monroe had a really tough life and I really appreciated the beauty of what Clayton has done for Marilyn here.

In conclusion: stunning photography, fascinating life, beautiful woman, thoughtful biographer. I would not read another biography any other way!

Note: this review was originally published on my blog, 100 Stars or Less. Go there (www.100starsorless.blogspot.com) to see this and other reviews. show less

This was kind of an odd collection of photos of the Beatles. A lot of them were quite interesting, but since they were only taken from one source (the Daily Mail archives) the content is actually quite limited. The book could have been improved by tighter editing choices, since there’s no reason to print a whole run of photos rather than the best image or two from the set. By trying to tell the story of the Beatles using a single source it often felt like the captions were stretching it a show more bit, and that a lot of the important parts of the story (their early years, international performances, behind the scenes family life, etc) were missing entirely, even though I will concede that it is interesting to see the depth of reportage on the Beatles from a single news source. show less

The photographs are wonderful but the substance behind them just isn't there in all the chapters. The first chapter rushes to get the group together and the post band chapter rushes through the last thirty years. The best chapters are probably the ones up through 1967 with the death of Epstein. The band members clearly overworked themselves. It was sad to see the break-up in the making.

Nice photographs, well-written biography of his life.