The Man Without A Face : The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
by Masha Gessen

If you are looking for an in-depth portrait of Vladimir Putin, you won't find it within this book. He's definitely an enigma and paints himself as being a thug. It's supposed to be a biography of him but most of what is written is about political events that happened in Russia while he was around but not doing much of anything.
The writing is quite poor and boring. Gessen is more of a journalist than an author because everything that is presented is factual and there's not much substance. I got halfway through and had enough.
Not recommended.

The Lady In Gold : The Extraordinary Tale Of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer
by Anne-Marie O'Connor

Adele Bloch-Bauer was one of the reigning Jewish society figures in Vienna. Her husband was a sugar-beet baron and the two of them were art patrons. Gustav Klimt painted her portrait after making one hundred sketches and it sat in the Bauers' palace until the Nazis confiscated it.
Alas, I didn't get too far with this book (thirty-eight pages). The writing is plodding there's too many names constantly thrown at you. It is not riveting and suspenseful as the front flap says. I found it dull and irritating.
Not recommended.

The Tender Hour Of Twilight
By Richard Seaver

Richard Seaver was a magazine/literary editor for Grove Press and he would be responsible for demolishing U.S. censorship laws. He and his partner introduced Lady Chatterly's Lover, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and others to the American public.
Before all of this began, though, Seaver went to Paris in the 1950s and started up a magazine. He introduced Samuel Beckett (then an unknown writer) to thousands of readers, Eugene Ionesco, William Burroughs, and many more.
The book started out promising. I had never heard of Seaver (he's well-known in the publishing field) and it was really interesting reading about Paris in those days and what went on behind the scenes in creating a magazine and promoting authors. Halfway through, I quit reading it. The whole thing just fizzled out for me. Some of the details just were not that fascinating; in fact, they were boring.
Nothing to get excited about here.
Not recommended.

Below Stairs : The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs And Downton Abbey
by Margaret Powell

There are so many requests for this book at different public libraries that I wish I could alert these people not to bother. I got to page 180 and called it quits. By rights, I probably should have finished the bloody thing with 32 pages left, but I could no longer stand it.
For those of you who are hooked on "Downton Abbey," just stick with the show. I'm sure there's more depth than there than you get with this tale.
Margaret Powell came from poverty and at fifteen went into service as a kitchen maid. The work was extremely hard (up at 5:30 A.M. and finished well after dark) and it was totally different from what she was used to. She would scrub vegetables, the front steps, polish shoes, iron bootlaces, on and on. The homes were magnificent but not so the owners. The help worked their butts off for measly pay and certainly were not appreciated.
The most interesting thing that I can say about the book is reading about the difference in the classes. (This all took place during the 1920s.) Unfortunately, the writing is not the best (there are numerous errors) and all of the jobs became tedious and repetitious to read about. It just fell flat for me.
Not recommended.

Good Living Street : Portrait Of A Patron Family, Vienna 1900
by Tim Bonyhady

Hermine and Moriz Gallia were a prominent Viennese family and great patrons of the arts during the early part of the twentieth-century. They amassed a huge collection of paintings, furniture, silver, glass, etc. In order to avoid anti-Semitism, they all converted to Catholicism. When Kristallnacht reared its ugly head, they were able to pack up all of the contents of their apartment and flee to Australia. It was probably the best private collection that was able to be saved: a Steinway piano, diaries, chandeliers, furs, books, you name it.
Amazingly, I read this entire book thinking that it would be placed on the book-a-holics blog. By the time I finished the damn thing, I knew that wasn't going to happen. The author is the great-grandson of Hermine and Moriz Gallia. On the back flap of the book, it says that he is an award-winning art historian, curator, and environmental lawyer. Believe it or not, he has written five other books each of which must be as equally boring as this one is. Between the listings of every painting, types of furniture, names galore, every incessant detail of anything and the plodding, dull, deadening prose, why would anyone want to read this awful mess?
Not recommended.

A Slave In The White House : Paul Jennings And The Madisons
by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolly Madison. He would become Madison's personal manservant. It's ironic that both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (great friends) had hundreds of slaves since the two of them were proponents of individual freedom. Much of the information for the book was taken from Jennings' own memoir about living with the Madisons.
Unfortunately, I didn't get very far because I found the writing dry and plodding and there's an excessive dropping of names. The author is no writer. Her background is a scholar and lecturer and had a career in museums and historical research. One of the most annoying things is her constant use of supposition. She's guessing at what Jennings might have done or said or who was with him for many instances. So much for being a researcher.
The book is not really for the general public because of its academic slant.
Not recommended.

Coco Chanel : An Intimate Life
by Lisa Chaney

It seems like in the past year or so, there has been an onslaught of books written about Coco Chanel. I have read two one of which was reviewed on the book-a-holics blog and the other one was on this blog.
What started out to be promising (I actually raved about the writing) ended at page 186. Lisa Chaney has unearthed a multitude of information that has never before been revealed so Coco's character is much more fleshed out than in previous biographies and so are all of the people who were involved with her. Unfortunately, I believe there is too much stuff that most of us really don't want to plow through. And it's because of all this excess that I became annoyed with the author. She kept on saying that she is the one who had more information than any other biographer and they didn't get their facts straight or they were just plain wrong. Well, she ruined it for me. A significantly better book to read is The Secret of Chanel No. 5 by Tilar J. Mazzeo (see the review on 1/11/2011 in my book-a-holics blog: www.book-a-holics.blogspot.com).
The Chaney book strives way too hard and is tedious.
Not recommended.