This book reveals a great deal of information that relates Margaret Mitchell, the woman, to "Gone With the Wind", the book. Sadly, this could have been a wonderful book but the author's lack of sympathy with the subject is a noticable. The author's disrespect for a courageous and talented woman only made me think less of the author and more of Peggy Marsh. Perhaps if there had been a better editor......

I had an image of Margaret Mitcell as a very cool person. But reading this book, I was greatly surprised to find that she was an alcoholic,a flirt(as stated explicitly in the book) and had two marriages and seemed to be very non-traditional. She reformed herself after becoming famous with GWTW, but she couldn't cope up with the recognition and the crowd always surrounding her. I admire her second husband for inspiring her to write a novel which she had no idea of publishing since she always felt she was only an amateur because of not having completed her study in the university. Yes, she is a complex character and it seems that she was always in two minds. Gone With The Wind is the novel which I have liked the most.

Much of Gone With the Wind was taken from Margaret Mitchell's own life experiences.

I though Anne of Green Gables and Anne of avonlea was a book that brings alot of joy and Anne, with all her imagination, is the best fictionnal character an author could imagine. I could read and re-read this book. I couldn't let it down

The author has previously published works on Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, and Countess Tolstoy -- but also on Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, and P.T. Barnum, so the reader may be forgiven for unfounded suspicions of tabloidism. The second half of this workmanlike narrative does, in fact, concern itself mostly with the lively affairs of the current younger generation but the reader may ignore all that (or the reader may try).

For the first half details in sweeping prose the adventurous history of the Grimaldis, "an ambitious, hot-blooded, unscrupulous race, keen to plunder, swift to revenge, and furious in battle." The harbor at Monte Carlo has been strategically important since the Carthaginian fleet anchored there. The Lombards, Arabs, Guelfs, and Genoese all had their strongholds and the Grimaldi family arrived in 1162 as Genoese consuls. One night in 1297, Francesco Grimaldi (known as "the Spiteful") climbed the cliffs with his followers, disguised as monks, and overpowered the small garrison, and the family has ruled the Rock ever since. Edwards makes clear the necessary nerve and tenacity and the willingness to fight, as well as the diplomatic balancing act the princes of Monaco have had to perform in order to survive as a more or less independent state.

This Margaret Mitchell biography is very good. Ms. Edwards knows her subject and manages to supply the reader with interesting details, both on Margaret Mitchell herself and on the writing of her only novel as well as the making of the film and Ms. Mitchell's involvement in that project.

The book is easily read and written in a very entertaining and descriptive style, making the reader feel as if he or she were really there.

An excellent place to begin a study of the enigma that was Margaret Mitchell.

This is an absorbing story about Sonya Andreyevna Tolstoy, the wife of the novelist Leo Tolstoy. It details the few years of her life before her marriage and after the death of Tolstoy, but mostly deals with their incredibly difficult relationship during their 48 years together. The reader gets all the inside information through the author's use of diaries, books and articles written by family members (everyone these two people knew or were related to kept a diary or wrote a book!), and quotes from letters. Anne Edwards did an excellent job of using all these sources to write a book that will get your attention and keep it. Women, especially, will feel Sonya Tolstoy's pain, frustration, hope, joy, and despair as they read her story. Leo Tolstoy was an extremely gifted artist and thinker but apparently wasn't easy to live with. Through the years his wife was portrayed as the difficult one and the blame for their troubles was placed mostly at her feet. This book casts her in a more sympathetic light and lets readers understand the reasons behind some of her well-documented actions, yet doesn't paint her as a saint or a martyr. I started reading a copy of this biography 15 years ago and had to return it to its owner before I could finish. I had looked for a copy of my own since that time and could never find one until I looked here (thanks Amazon!). It was well worth the wait!

I truly enjoyed this book. Ms. Edwards eloquently and unbiasedly told a historical story in a way that entertained and educated me. The saga is captivating and interesting to anyone, even those who are unfamiliar with the "scandal".

This book has been lionized as a labor of love, and I suppose it is-- a certain fondness approaching idolatry appears in every chapter. For all that, and despite a promising first chapter where we're introduced to Vivien as she meets David Selznick at the "burning of Atlanta" and he realizes he's found his Scarlett!-- this is a dull book.

but worse than that for anyone really interested in her life, it's a book missing very important facts. That's not Edwards' fault-- of all the people she acknowledges at the end of the book, Laurence Olivier, Viv's second husband and the man who was there as her manic-depressiveness began to take over, is not listed. Olivier did not speak much about Vivien until after he'd written his won two volumes of autobiography, in the 80s. (On Acting and its companion).

So, the notorious affair with Peter Finch, for example, is not described, or worse-- described as just a mild flirtation. Far too much is missing from the biography.

Alexander Walker's book VIVIEN, published after both Olivier and Leigh were dead, is a much better choice, and its style is also far more comprehensive. Walker spends less time speculating and more time grounding his ideas with citations and sources. There's also a book coming out in the spring of 2003 which promises to be complete.

In short, this must have been a very welcome book in 1977, 10 years after Viv's death, but it's obsolete now. I gave it two stars because in its time it did represent a great deal of labor and research, and the writing style works hard (unsuccessfully, for me) to keep the reader engaged. But for anyone who really needs to research her life and the lives of the many famous people in her life, it's missing too much.

"Gone With The Wind" is my all-time favorite movie, which I've seen probably a million times now. I "blame" Vivien Leigh for the movie's success and for being so strong in my heart. Besides being the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, Vivien's acting is so wonderful, you really believe she IS Scarlett O'Hara. At least, she always will be for me. BUT, little did anyone know Ms. Leigh's hidden secret -- her mental illness, which made her success all the more enthralling. Despite bouts of "craziness" and bouts of fear so great she hid in corners, Leigh became America's sweetheart. Her portrayal of Scarlett was one of a woman you love and hate. Folks note in the biography that after Vivien got over one of her "crazy" spells, she was so kind to everyone and quick to apologize that everyone just loved her and felt the need to protect her all the more. This book is wonderful in its portrayal of mental illness while describing the star's romantic life with star Laurence Olivier -- who later leaves her because he can't handle her mental instability. This was all before medication could have brought some dignity back to this diva's life. Author Edwards sure did her homework in describing a true lady who struggled to succeed while struggling for her life.

Poor job indeed. It's not just that one wouldn't find anything new in this biography (it's hard to expect anything really new about Callas after all that has been written) but it's not even the story told from a new angle... This book is like a patchwork of things cut and pasted from different sources and lacks consistency in style etc as if Ms Edwards couldn't decide whether she wanted to write just a "documentary" or something more "personal". Anyway, it is a waste of time to read this, if you want a Callas biography get Galatopoulos and Jellinek ones.

Edwards' bio of Callas borders too much on the tabloidish side, hardly on her career. Certain sections reads like she was pulling an alnighter in writing it, and the last two pages had serious editing problems. Try Callas works by John Ardoin, Henry Wisneski and Michael Scott

Not having read any biographies on Maria Callas before, I can't judge against other authors' works on the subjects. ...I really enjoyed this version of Callas' work and art. I will second the ... opinion ... of Anne Edwards omitting dates/years when recounting major events--it did make it difficult to place these events in their proper context/chronology.

However, overall I found the book's emphasis on Callas personal life as well as her artistic life to make for a very well-balanced view. I would recommend it to anyone interested not only in opera, but in the life of a great legend! One other shortcoming would be Edwards' lack of attention to the details of Callas' performances--this is not a technical look at her voice, but a general overview of her unique gifts of displaying real emotion through her voice and gestures, both on the stage and in the recording studio.

Viva La Divina...

Upon reading this book, one gets the unmistakable impression that Edwards has gone a lot further than just trying to demystify Hepburn with "objective" opinions. While it never explicitly ridicules Hepburn, I think the tone is subtly anti-Hepburn. Indeed, praise for the great actress comes almost reluctantly, and often after the author has already expressed her own negative opinion, which permanently detracts from the Hepburn persona. (For eg, (1) The author's reasoning for Hepburn's defiance of contemporary fashion, (2) The strange correlation of the presence of (girlish?) stuffed toys in Hepburn's house with the idea that Hepburn might not have thought of herself as a strong woman.

It is quite clear that Hepburn has not been interviewed for this book. The title "A Remarkable Woman" itself seems contrived and shallow, when we read the last paragraph of the book, where the title is (unsatisfactorily) explained. I fear that a reader with no prior information about Hepburn, will come away with an incorrect picture of Hepburn as just another Hollywood actress, (with some redeeming quirks) who had her share of ups and downs. In my opinion, Andrew Britton's work (Katharine Hepburn, Star as Feminist), though not biographical, is the best critical appreciation of Hepburn's film roles and, by extension, of Hepburn, who was often described as transferring her own qualities to her roles, rather than completely adapting herself to them.

I found this book to be quite an in-depth view into the life of Katherine Hepburn, an elusive star. It offers a back-stage view of the life of an icon and the struggles and triumphs that are associated with that responsibility. I would definitly recommend this book to those interested in the genre.

This book is an interesting exploration of the life of Ronald Reagan from childhood through the time he becomes Governor of California. It is well-researched, balanced, and complete in its scope. I had always wondered how a person might go from B actor to President, and this book helped fill in the blanks.