
Natural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music, and Books by Gary Giddins
By Gary GiddinsNatural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music, and Books by Gary Giddins
Long recognized as America's most brilliant jazz writer, the winner of many major awards--including the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award--and author of a highly popular biography of Bing Crosby, Gary Giddins has also produced a wide range of stimulating and original cultural criticism in other fields. With Natural Selection, he brings together the best of these previously uncollected essays, including a few written expressly for this volume.
The range of topics is spellbinding. Writing with insight, humor, and a famously deft touch, he offers sharp-edged perspectives on such diverse subjects as Federico Fellini and Jean Renoir, Norman Mailer and Ralph Ellison, Marlon Brando and Groucho Marx, Duke Ellington and Bob Dylan, horror and noir, the cartoon version of Animal Farm and the comic book series Classics Illustrated. Giddins brings to criticism an uncommon ability, long demonstrated in his music writing, to address in very few words an entire career, so that we get an in-depth portrait of the artist beyond the film, book, or recording under review. For instance, Giddins offers a stunning reappraisal of Doris Day, who he terms "the coolest and sexiest female singer of slow ballads in film history." He argues eloquently for a reconsideration of the forgotten German-language novelist Soma Morgenstern. In a section on comedy, he offers fresh perspectives on the three great silent film stars--Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd--while resurrecting the legendary Jack Benny and reevaluating the controversial Jerry Lewis. There's also a memorable look at Bing Crosby's film career (he calls Crosby's blockbuster Going My Way "a neglected masterpiece") and a close examination of Marcel Carne's beloved Children of Paradise. Of course, Giddins also supplies excellent commentary on jazz: major and underrated figures, and especially the uses of jazz in film.
A wonderful gathering of little-known treasures, Natural Selection will broaden the perception of Gary Giddins as one of our most important cultural critics.
Book details
- Hardcover
- 432 pages
- English
- 019517951X
- 9780195179514
About Gary Giddins
gary giddins was Read More about Gary Giddins
More Books By Gary Giddins
People who bought this also bought
Making Nonprofits Work: A Report on the Tides of Nonprofit Management Reform
Used Book
Reader's Digest Live Longer Cookbook - 500 Delicious Recipes For Healthy Living
Used Book
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language book by Steven Pinker
New Book
Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success book by Sean Ellis , Morgan Brown
New Book
The Contented Baby's First Year: The Secret to a Calm and Contented Baby book by Gina Ford
New Book
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect book by Jonice Webb
New Book
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America book by Nancy Isenberg
New Book
I.Am.Relevant: A Generation Impacting Their World with Faith
Used Book
Letters to Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles
Used Book
The Biggest Loser: The Weight Loss Program to Transform Your Body, Health, and Life--Adapted from NBC's Hit Show!
Used Book
The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself book by Yrsa Daley-Ward
New Book
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence book by Michele Filgate
New Book
Past Forgetting : My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower
Used Book
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy book by Thomas J. Stanley
New Book
The market for hedging services : A marketing - finance approach with special reference to rights futures contracts
Used Book
Ego is the Enemy : The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent by Ryan Holiday
New Book
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism book by Ha-Joon Chang
New Book
How to Be a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living book by Massimo Pigliucci
New Book