The Coffee Table Book
I've never been a big fan of coffee table books. They're kind of like a box of chocolates: real appealing, but when you start tasting, it turns out that much of it isn't very good.
Nonetheless, I keep trying the chocolates and I always flip open the coffee table book. The Washington Post has run a list of 13 good "gift" (i.e., coffee table) books this season. A measure of political correctness notwithstanding, it's worth checking out. Excerpt: Number Two on the list:
Measuring a whopping 15 by 17 inches (attach four legs and you have an end table), The King (Black Dog & Leventhal, $75), by Jim Piazza, announces itself with turquoise rhinestones on a shiny black field. That cover could have come from Lansky's, the Beale Street haberdasher that put the raw and raunchy young Elvis in his earliest, vaguely pimpish threads.
The co-author of books about the Academy Awards, Piazza has assembled hundreds of pictures, dozens of lists and enough dishy prose -- some of it in metallic silver type -- to quicken the pulses of die-hard Presley fans while teaching the uninitiated just how this mama's boy rocketed from poverty in a Tupelo shotgun shack to global stardom.
The missile was his voice -- "I don't sound like nobody," he once said -- fueled by smoldering good looks, blatant sexuality and mastery of the blues, ballads, rock-a-billy and gospel. His throbbing 1954 version of "That's All Right, (Mama)" launched a 23-year career that included hysterical fans, sold-out concerts, gold records, a mansion, a fleet of cars, a private jet, the manipulative and shady manager Col. Tom Parker, a string of mostly forgettable movies and a roller-coaster love life. His marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu produced his only child, daughter Lisa Marie Presley, now also a singer, who was briefly wed to Michael Jackson.
In 1977, at 42 -- in a state of bloat that made his signature jumpsuits look like jeweled sausage casings -- Elvis died in a Graceland bathroom. Today, his legend -- and a merchandising empire that still generates millions -- endures. . . . The King is a fitting tribute to The King.
