Rating: 
Summary: Perverted
Review: There is no other word capable of describing how utterly pointless, random, and pretentiously written this book is. Wayne Koestenbaum has produced the single worst biography I have ever read. Not only is the writing style painful and full of semi-fancy language used as a subsitute for content, but the book skips over major parts of Warhol's career, concentrating instead on his many movies. After mentioning the Velvet Underground, Koestenbaum writes "Their music has many admirers, but it may be the aspect of Warhol's world with which I have least sympathy, and so I will beg off any attempt at analysis." The utter ridiculousness of this sentence speaks for itself.One of the most infuriating things about this book is that Koestenbaum repeatedly attempts to make connections between Warhol's works that do not exist, and to analyze his art in ways that don't make sense. Do not make the same mistake I did and waste time and money on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible
Review: There is no other word capable of describing how utterly pointless, random, and pretentiously written this book is. Wayne Koestenbaum has produced the single worst biography I have ever read. Not only is the writing style painful and full of semi-fancy language used as a subsitute for content, but the book skips over major parts of Warhol's career, concentrating instead on his many movies. After mentioning the Velvet Underground, Koestenbaum writes "Their music has many admirers, but it may be the aspect of Warhol's world with which I have least sympathy, and so I will beg off any attempt at analysis." The utter ridiculousness of this sentence speaks for itself. One of the most infuriating things about this book is that Koestenbaum repeatedly attempts to make connections between Warhol's works that do not exist, and to analyze his art in ways that don't make sense. Do not make the same mistake I did and waste time and money on this book.
Rating:
Summary: A major disappointment
Review: This book got the treatment reserved for about one in every two hundred books: didn't finish it, though I made it through six of the nine chapters and the bibliography.
Every book in the Penguin Lives series (and I've read them all) concerns someone of lasting interest, and the question each biographer should answer is why this is so. In this book, the only answer the author has is that Warhol was gay. It's his answer to every question about Warhol. Why did Warhol start the Factory? He was gay. Why did Warhol move to NYC? He was gay. Why did Warhol live with his mother? He was gay. Why did Warhol paint soup cans? He was gay. Why did he make weird, pointless films? He was gay. Sort of like all the answers to a test on creationism would be God.
It was also rather disorganized, sort of like a cross between a gossip magazine and a laundry list. And it seemed chatty.
I've read many of the favorable reviews and if you liked the book, good. Don't hate me because I didn't. And I'm not a homophobe: a sibling I love dearly is gay.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes You Care Again
Review: This book makes you care again for Andy Warhol. In too many books and articles about Warhol, the authors seem to have some sort of vendetta against him and just want to tear him and his work down. Wayne Koestenbaum cares a great deal for Warhol, and his work. It is his work that is central to this look at his life, though from the start there is no denial of his homosexuality which Warhol himself desperately tried to keep somewhat hidden. You should have something of a familiarity with Warhol's work and life, this isn't really a good introduction to it, but it is the best interpretation of it that I have ever read. It is written with a great deal of sympathy for one of the 20th Century's greatest artists, who most critics - both hetro and homo - try to denigrate and destroy.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Up There
Review: This is an important book, the first biography of Warhol to put his films at the center of the vast project that was Warhol's life and work, life transformed into work. Rather than rely on received ideas, Koestenbaum has availed himself of the overwhelming Warhol archive (from time capsules to scrapbooks); actually watched and considered all the Warhol movies currently restored and available for viewing; and looked at the paintings and sculptures--which is how he can, in lightning bright prose, provide a new beginning for thinking about Warhol. No familiar folksy "Andy" but an artist as strange and daunting as any other this country has produced. Few writers on Warhol ever bother to LOOK AT (and READ) what Warhol did; Koestenbaum does look, and his looking becomes the basis for his illuminating, trenchant commentary. (The electric chic of his sentences is as theoretically bracing as his critical observations.) Too many think they know who or what Warhol was/is. Bravely, Koestenbaum allows his thought as writing to be as new, estranging and probing as Warhol's art. "Ur-sexual" Warhol working non-stop to negotiate the glamourous nothingness and Ronellian stupidity called being or "life": this is the Warhol Koestenbaum pushes, star-like, into the klieg light, finally ready for his close-up.
Rating:
Summary: I really, really want to like Wayne Koestenbaum
Review: Wayne Koestenbaum's biography of Andy Warhol offers an interesting overview of the artist's life and work, focusing primarily on his creative efforts during the 1960s, when he first achieved fame. The book seems to lay a foundation for Warhol's sexual orientation and experiences as a child being the basis for not only his creativity, but also his perspectives and "quirks" throughout his life. Indeed, in some aspects the biography seems a psychoanalysis of Warhol the man, and sometimes takes liberties with that analysis that go beyond what might be prudent. But that notwithstanding, the biography is very interesting, informative and well-written, given the somewhat unique character and lifestyle of the subject. In the aftermath of his untimely and negligent death, Andy Warhol's star continues to rise as one of the greatest and most creative artists of modern times, surpassing even the creative genius of Picasso, Dali, Escher and such like . The intrigue grows when one recognizes that much remains to be discovered about Warhol the artist--many of his works, film efforts and other dalliances remain unseen by the public to this day. For a quick and fascinating study of Andy Warhol's life and work, Wayne Koestenbaum's biography is indeed worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: An intriguing study of an eccentric modern master
Review: Wayne Koestenbaum's biography of Andy Warhol offers an interesting overview of the artist's life and work, focusing primarily on his creative efforts during the 1960s, when he first achieved fame. The book seems to lay a foundation for Warhol's sexual orientation and experiences as a child being the basis for not only his creativity, but also his perspectives and "quirks" throughout his life. Indeed, in some aspects the biography seems a psychoanalysis of Warhol the man, and sometimes takes liberties with that analysis that go beyond what might be prudent. But that notwithstanding, the biography is very interesting, informative and well-written, given the somewhat unique character and lifestyle of the subject. In the aftermath of his untimely and negligent death, Andy Warhol's star continues to rise as one of the greatest and most creative artists of modern times, surpassing even the creative genius of Picasso, Dali, Escher and such like . The intrigue grows when one recognizes that much remains to be discovered about Warhol the artist--many of his works, film efforts and other dalliances remain unseen by the public to this day. For a quick and fascinating study of Andy Warhol's life and work, Wayne Koestenbaum's biography is indeed worth the read.
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