Rating: 
Summary: Brooklyn Gothic
Review: Here is a pretty great book. Jeez, what a book. And what a subject, what a person. RUNNIN' WILD is a readable readable book about a great crazy person, a person who came of age in an age when there were no other people like her to come of age alongside her. She is the modern woman, before there were modern women, suffering from the wild range of modern problems, before there were modern problems, and, hence, before there were modern solutions. David Stenn has written a stylish, memorable and heartfelt-feeling book about Miss Clara Bow, of Brooklyn. He has made a dead person alive with his book, and isn't that the great thing that biography can do? I read this book cover to cover and then back again.
Rating:
Summary: DAVID STENN IS AN EXPERT RESEARCHER
Review: I am always amazed at the lengths Mr. Stenn goes to in his research for all his books, articles and film scripts. If he can't confirm everything he writes as fact he will let the reader know. He presents completely researched facts. No speculation. If you are interested in knowing the true story of the complex star, Clara Bow, here it is!
Rating:
Summary: Great book! Highly Recommended!
Review: I can't wait for David Stenn to hopefully do another biography. This one is excellent. Clara Bow was a strange character that it was hard to get a definite feeling for her. It was difficult to sympathize with her at all through much of the book. And yet, Stenn does reveal some of the tragedy in her life that helps explain to the reader perhaps why she had such a penchant for self-destruction. When I think of somone in my grandmother's age, I think of someone pious and chaste, but Clara's sexlife would make most of the modern generation blush! It was not as innocent back in the 20's as we would have liked to believe. I try to learn morals from every biography I read and this is filled with plenty of mistakes not to make in one's life. Fascinating woman, but very sad! Genius writing!
Rating: 
Summary: clara bow- runnin' wild
Review: i could not put this book down. the story of clara bow, both entertaining and shocking, sad and wasted. her life is very well recorded in this book, along with a few pages of photographs. when you get done reading this book, you feel like you've been there, and learned from her many mistakes and weaknesses. i did not know anything about clara bow before reading this book, but now that i have, i can't wait to view her old movies, and learn everything i can about the jazz era. highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A simply excellent biography
Review: I just bought another copy of Runnin' Wild, because mine had gotten worn out from being loaned to my friends. People who told me they don't normally read biographies told me that they enjoyed this book. Mr. Stenn does a remarkable job of making Clara Bow, and a rare period in Hollywood history, come to life on the page. If you enjoy a well written story, you will enjoy this book... if you enjoy a well researched bio, you'll like it even better... and if you love movies and the people who make them, it's one you'll like for sure. One of my favorite books. Mr Stenn, please write more!
Rating:
Summary: Immaculately researched and engagingly written
Review: I read this terrific book when it was first published, and then as now consider it one of the finest movie-star biographies ever written. Immaculately researched and documented, it is at the same time vividly and entertainingly written -- a difficult combination that's seldom achieved in this genre of mostly-mediocre cut-and-paste works. I find it impossible to believe that "another reader in ny" read the same book that I did -- the alleged "inconsistencies...prissiness and homophobicness [sic]" can only be explained as figments of this reader's imagination, no more accurate than his/her statement that the author thanks Daisy DeVoe "profusely" in his acknowledgments. (Here is the complete text of Mr. Stenn's "profuse thanks": "Daisy DeVoe broke fifty-five years of self-imposed silence to discuss 'the blackest period of my life' in unsparing detail.") I sense no "bizarre defensiveness" in that statement, nor in his treatment of Ms. DeVoe throughout the book. In any case, far more significant to the book's success was the cooperation of Clara Bow's son, Rex A. Bell (who provided the author with "unrestricted access to his mother's psychiatric, medical, and financial records; professional and personal correspondence; and private photographs"--and who IS thanked "profusely" for same), and the more than eighty friends, professional associates and family members also interviewed by the author. That, coupled with his diligent research in dozens of archives around the world, has resulted in a detailed, accurate and compassionate account of Clara Bow's troubled and tragic life -- in no way a "sugar-coated portrait."
Rating:
Summary: CLARA IS REAL TO ME NOW
Review: If you are an intelligent, feeling person who has more taste than just the average Hollywood Babylon smut lover, this is the book for you. Isn't a biography supposed to make you fall in love with the protaganist? My heart aches for Clara and all of her trials and tribulations. Anyone who reviews this book badly doesn't have the soul or the sense required to understand the complexity that is Clara. A complexity that is fully grasped by David Stenn. I am grateful that Mr. Stenn has introduced me to the real Ms. Bow, not the B.S. Kenneth Anger (Hollywood Babylon) untrue character assasination. Read it for yourself and fall in love with poor, sweet, doomed Clara. Being a 24 year old, I can fully appreciate her fight and find her gumption inspirational. This book makes me wish I knew her, then again after reading it, I think I do. Thank you Mr. Stenn for your care with such a lovely, delicate creature.
Rating:
Summary: A deserving book for an American Icon!
Review: Just a fantastic read from beginning to end. A truly facinating story.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST READS OF YOUR LIFE
Review: Of all the critics writing of this book on Amazon, all are 5-star except one person giving it a 4....why a 4 is beyond me as this bio grabs you on page one and doesn't let go 'til the last page. Whatta life!Here is another example where a human being overcomes incredible obsticles just because of her innate abilities. Her lack of education gets her in a lot of trouble, but she overcomes most of the time...until close to the end. This story is one that is lovely, cruel, put-upon, and puzzeling. It points out the complexity of humans and many of their foibles. I read this book because of the 5-stars I noted on Amazon when I found the title elsewhere. Clara Bow was before my time, but if you want to learn about the early years of Hollywood and how a nobody became a somebody...this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST READS OF YOUR LIFE
Review: Of all the critics writing of this book on Amazon, all are 5-star except one person giving it a 4....why a 4 is beyond me as this bio grabs you on page one and doesn't let go 'til the last page. Whatta life! Here is another example where a human being overcomes incredible obsticles just because of her innate abilities. Her lack of education gets her in a lot of trouble, but she overcomes most of the time...until close to the end. This story is one that is lovely, cruel, put-upon, and puzzeling. It points out the complexity of humans and many of their foibles. I read this book because of the 5-stars I noted on Amazon when I found the title elsewhere. Clara Bow was before my time, but if you want to learn about the early years of Hollywood and how a nobody became a somebody...this is the book for you.
|
