The Andy Warhol Diaries

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Summary: Gossip and More Gossip about the fabulous 70s and 80s
Review: Fascinating tales from the horses mouth. Andy dictated his diary to Pat Hackett at 9:30 am daily from whereever he was in the world. It started out as an expense account diary, but it turned into gossipy dish about the wild times in the Warhol world of the 70s and 80s. One can almost hear Andy speaking the words in his low, whiney voice. Some parts are very very funny, other parts make you want to cry. Andy was a lost soul and it comes through very clearly in his quest for acceptance. This book is large, trimmed down from 20,000 original diary pages, but still too large for a quick read. It almost takes extra time to read the diaries, a lot cannot be absorbed all at once. It is best ingested and enjoyed in small doses. It is really a delight and full of naughty fun

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Summary: A Priceless Insight Into The World of a Superstar Artist
Review: For centuries, the world of visual art was filled with mythical giants, people whose genius was not revealed to the world until long after said person's demise or people whose genius so overwhelmed others that no one dared get close to the figure. Thankfully, Andy Warhol was neither of those two types of artists. And the world knows this due to the IRS, a woman who originally just wanted a little excitement in her life, and a man who refused to censor himself.

Andy Warhol was a lifelong Democrat who criticized the Nixon administration, thus sparking a series of intense IRS audits. To help make these audits easier, he and his then-assistant Pat Hackett began cataloguing his daily expenses and saving every single receipt he received. This grew into a routine that lasted long after Hackett stopped officially working for Warhol, through phone conversations and taped recordings. Warhol would inject bits of his everyday life into the financial chatter and he and Hackett became close friends and confidants. Approximately two years after Warhol's passing, Hackett compiled all of her notes together, made it into a cohesive whole, and published it as The Andy Warhol Diaries. And the Warhol fan should silently thank Hackett every day for this.

Because of the intimate friendship these two people enjoyed, the reader is able to get a more personal, more vulnerable view of one of the art world's most original and celebrated figures. By devouring the pages of this easily readable text, one can understand that for all the glitz and glamour associated with this artist's public persona, his private life was actually not that much different from that of the "average" American. He went to work, he paid his bills, he interacted with his friends, he tried to navigate the tricky world of love and romance, and experienced the same level of disappointments, setbacks, rejection, and confusion as that of any other human being in the post-industrial world.

Though that isn't to say that Warhol's life was completely devoid of the glitter that seemed to shine on the surface. To delve into the diaries is to escape into the celebrity-filled world of Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s, where one could bump into Jacqueline Onassis, Bianca Jagger, Diane von Furstenburg, or a massive array of other celebrities, all of whom Warhol had at least brief encounters with. Warhol did live what some might describe as a jet set lifestyle, flying off here and there to do promotional work, to attend various events held in his honor, to work with some new art patron of his, or on occasion to just relax and interact with his friends, both famous and non-famous. But he was by no means a spendthrift; indeed, many passages in the diaries indicate his desire to save money or to invest it, not wishing to squander his money away and return to the life he had as a child in a poor immigrant family. So his jet-set lifestyle did have its limits and he did end up spending a tremendous amount of time in and around his NYC home base, choosing to do most of his lounging at his vacation home in Montauk.

One might think that all of the above might tell the full story of The Diaries, that this means The Diaries are no longer worth checking out. One would be wholly incorrect, there, because The Diaries are so much more than just a chronicle of an artist's life. They give the reader an insight into the artist's personality that only his own words, lovingly preserved by his former assistant, can give. They make the reader fall in love with Warhol, make the reader forever protective of him, make the reader wish he or she could've gotten a chance to know the late artist before his untimely and unfortunate demise in 1987. For this and many other reasons, this publication is an absolute must-read for anyone even remotely interested in "that guy who painted Campbell's soup cans" and is worth every single penny of its list price and then some.

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Summary: The best book ever!
Review: I recently bought this book on a whim and it has got to be the best book that I've ever read. I read Bob Colacelo's book as a starting point and I'm glad that I did even though it was sour grapes on Andy.
This book is so chatty, sad, funny, insensitive and revealing about Andy Warhol and his role as the most public man on the New York Party scene of the 70's and 80's. It's a real time capsule of world events as well, and it will bring back alot of memories for people who lived through the political and social turmoil of those decades.
It's a huge book and you really get your moneys worth on Andy Warhol's psyche in all of it's positive and negative glorious-ness. It's taking me a few weeks to read it and I can't put it down, except that I have to to go to work every day. I'm really enjoying it alot!

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Summary: Stream-of-consciousness, Warhol-style
Review: If you ever wanted to know what the New York state of mind was in the 1970s and 1980s, then this book is for you. Andy Warhol lived at the center of the "beautiful people" in the New York club/celebrity scene, from his Factory to Studio 54 and seemingly everywhere else. From hustlers and porn stars to the Hollywood glitterati and political movers and shakers, Warhol dictated it all to his diarist, Pat Hackett, who distilled it from 20,000 pages into this huge book. You will be shocked, you will be amused and you will see why there was only one Andy Warhol -- the artist and pop culturist who took a "New York" minute and turned it into 15 minutes of bizarre fame. Don't miss out on this book!

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Summary: Great Gossip and picture of the times
Review: If you want a great picture of the New York scene in the 70s and early 80s you can't go past this book. Andy Warhol was the ultimate party animal, and his observations of the people he partied with and the places he partied at are witty and insightful.

But hey the gossip is great! Lots of people were uncomfortable when this was published, and with good cause. It is really quite revealing!

If you are interested in the arts scene of the times this is a really revealing book. If you like a good gossip this is for you. Enjoy Mr Warhol's 15 minutes of fame! He appeared to.

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Summary: Dear Diary....
Review: This is my bring along on a long plane/train ride- boring seminar- wait in the doctors office- slow day at the business-tedious guided tour book. I love this "diary", actually the transcripts of Andy Warhols morning ramblings, via phone, to good friend and editor, Pat Hackett, usually pertaining to the events of the night before. She also edited this book down from its original 20,000 page manuscript, and, though there was talk of "embellishing", this still is a fascinating read. Andy is here, his observations filled with all his candor, humor, bitchiness, kindness, etc...the man who many said had little to say actually had alot to say. He leaves almost no celebrity unturned, and is sometimes un-hypocritical and scathing in his appraisals of them. Though honest, it is not in any way intentionally mean-spirited, and the man who many considered a huge phony is astutely precise in his observations of the phoniness around him. A great daily chronicle of a not so every day life, that was alot of things, but was never boring. This is a great book to put down and pick up a month later, as there is no plot to worry about, just the very entertaining and honest opinions that started out as just personal daily conversations between two people, and ended up being a record of an era. As Andy would haltingly say: "Oh....just....greeeeaaatttt."