William Knoedelseder

Although I was afraid this would be something of a throwaway puff piece, Knoedelseder gives one an effective life and times of Harley Earl, the man who, for better or worse, made styling as important as engineering to mass-market American automobiles. As for the subtitles, for there to be a rise of General Motors, there had to be a fall of the Ford Motor Company, and business strategy is a strong secondary element of the story being told. As for the glory of Detroit, that barely lasted a generation, and justifies some of the sociological angles that the author explores in this book. If nothing else, I find a lot of car books undercut by their authors' uncritical enthusiasm for their subject, whereas Knoedelseder comes both to praise and critique in equal measure, as required. I really have no salient complaints about this work. For those who want more nuts and bolts, well, other books exist for that.… (más)

The Busch family (and the Bush family, but that is a different book) are rich, spoiled, and entitled. No surprise there. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy your way out of a couple of manslaughter charges, so there is that. This is a really interesting history of the Busch family, and the iconic company that founded the famous beer company. The history is interesting, the family drama reads like a soap opera you would never believe is actually true, and the insight into how the beer was made was interesting too.… (más)

A history of the mid-1970s stand up comedy scene at Mitzi Shore's Comedy Store in LA (including Jay Leno, David Letterman, Richard Lewis, Elayne Boosler, Robin Williams, and many more), written by a journalist who covered the comedy beat for decades and knows the comics from that scene well. This is very readable, although sometimes a little scattered as Knoedelseder tries to capture the antics and personalities of a whole stable of comedians. The book gets better as it focuses in on the organization of a group to protest the lack of payment for comedy "showcases" even when the Comedy Store and other clubs were bringing in thousands of dollars in cover and drink money. The standoff between the young comedians and the stubborn Shore is interesting and (for the most part), well told, there are some great digs at strike-buster Garry Shandling, and the death of one of comedians at the end of the strike is really moving. Knoedelseder has some writing quirks (some of which are pretty sexist in an old white dude journalist clueless kind of way -- are all lesbians really "militant feminist lesbians?"), but he knows his stuff and any lover of the comedy scene will find something to love in this book. I'm still trying to figure out why we the lives and careers of stand up comics and professional chefs are so super interesting, but that's probably a question for another venue....… (más)