CULTURE VULTURES
Canadian icon content plus a little straightahead rock ’n’ roll — and books, of course.
Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell, by David Yaffe (HarperCollins)
She’s one of the singular voices of this country, and she’s led a singular life.
In this book, David Yaffe gives us a comprehensive look at the life and times of Mitchell — growing up in the Prairies, her love affairs, her daughter who she gave up for adoption — and her considerable influence on the musical world around her and the respect she continues to garner.
Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, by Joe Hagan (Knopf Canada)
Jann Wenner didn’t particularly like this book by Joe Hagan — in which he chronicles the creation of the magazine that defined and cap- tured rock ’n’ roll for a couple of generations.
Replete with interviews with Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen among dozens of others, Hagan fully captures the coming of age of a musical form and the culture around it, and of one of the big characters at the centre of it.
Lightfoot, by Nicholas Jennings (Viking)
An honest and authoritative — he was given full access to Lightfoot — look at the life of Canada’s legendary troubadour.
This biography by well-regarded Canadian music writer Jennings includes stories from his initial success — and jamming with Bob Dylan at Gordie’s Rosedale mansion — and the stories behind many of his most beloved songs.
The Great Gould, by Peter Goddard (Dundurn)
While pianist Glenn Gould was an international star, he was also very much a Toronto denizen.
Here, former Star journalist Goddard uses his own interviews with the star and new sources of information to give us an insight into the influences that formed Gould’s life and art.
Bookshops, by Jorge Carrion (Biblioasis)
We all know that the best book stores are the ones that bring together a community; Jorge Carrion spent more than 25 years visiting and discovering bookshops around the world and vividly brings them to life here. San Francisco, Paris, New York, Lisbon — it’s a travelogue of sorts with the shops as the destination.
The Book Lovers’ Miscellany, by Claire Cock-Starkey
This is one for the trivia nerds, cocktail party small talk and book club impressionistas. What’s the world’s most mysterious book? What was the first book ordered on Amazon? What is the history of: chapbooks? Ink? Dust jackets? A fun little stocking stuffer.