Customer Reviews

Piaf

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Even though Edith Piaf herself faded into a history and became less famous in our generation, most of her songs are still alive in people's heart. Her songs like "La vie en rose" or "Autumn Leaves" have been sung by many famous artists in many different ways. If you still don't know who Edith Piaf was, think about recent Intel's TV commercial which a college kid boils water on a empty pot and takes a digital photo of it, then sents it to his mother for asking some money. The background music of that commercial was one of Piaf's songs "Non, je ne regrette rien". Even her songs and her career were like life of roses, her personal life itself was awful. This book introduces you almost forgotten French legend who was once known as a queen of French music industry...Great book. m.o.

I started reading both the Margaret Crosland and Simone Berteaut biographies simultaneously, and quickly gave up on the Crossland. She's not an interesting writer, did not know Piaf especially well, and takes pains to dismiss Berteaut as a writer and a person, which sounds like sour grapes to me given the previous success of Berteaut's book. The Berteaut biography, in contrast, is a very rich piece of storytelling from start to finish (and there was no shortage of stories to tell), written by Piaf's closest companion for essentially Piaf's entire life, and a marvelous read.

No comparison.