Is there any subject David Remnick can write about without his customary verve and insight? In this collection of 11 profiles, Remnick explores the lives and talents of popular musicians ranging from Charlie Parker to Patti Smith to Luciano Pavarotti, and in each case delivers not just a convincing case for the artist’s work but an empathetic understanding of what it means to create and survive in an often unwelcoming world. From first page to last, Remnick holds the note.
Martin Luther King Jr. is not exactly an uncovered subject, so it is shocking to learn that Jonathan Eig’s book is the first full-scale biography in decades and that it succeeds in presenting King in such a nuanced and revealing light. This is no hagiography, but neither is it sensationalistic. Eig argues persuasively and elegantly that King’s flaws were very much part of what turned his personal struggles into the struggle for civil rights, and no one can come away from this book without a freshly realized appreciation for his bravery.
