Madonna

Rating:
Summary: Pretty detailed information about Maddie
Review: If you are a Madonna fan, you already know most of what you'll read in here regarding Madonna's career history, but the material is presented in a nice, chonological format that makes for a good night of reading.

I think that the author must be a little "square" of a person, given such mistakes as the misspelling of Charles Barkley's last name (here, he spells it "Barclay"). I'm no basketball fan, or sports fan for that matter, but I picked up on that error right away.

In his updated editorial since the original printing, he seems to have soured his attitude towards Madonna. He is a lot harsher on her, and makes her every career move since the Like a Prayer era to be calculated and cynical.

There were a couple of items of Madonna trivia here that I didn't know, but I'll let you find that out for yourselves.

All things considered, this is a worthwhile read for a Madonna fan.

Rating:
Summary: How Madonna Rises To The Top
Review: Mark Bergo's updated edition -Blonde Ambition- book will guide you from Madonna's early beginnings all the way until the year 2000. The author takes you on a chronological timetable to help you learn more about how Madonna climbed to the top by describing the people she met, the choices she made, the ups & downs, her contributions, and how she dealt with it all.

What I most enjoyed was how he described all the different albums, movies, plays, concerts, and videos including their release date, success in the charts, and ratings-- The appendix also has a list of her albums, films, videos, concerts, plays, and movies to enjoy or gain knowledge of. There are great descriptions of all her producers, lovers, friends, childhood acquaintances, Hollywood contacts, grandparents, and family members.

There is even a picture of Mark Bergo on the inside of the book, which shows Madonna and him talking. There are other photos from her childhood, daily life, screen playing, films (A Certain Sacrifice), performances, videos, meeting with fans, posing with Jellybean Benitez, concerts, movies (Desperately Seeking Susan), pose with Sean Penn, with ex-Beatle George Harrison, paparazzi fight, a day with 1 of her trainers, a pose with Sandra Bernhard, "The L* Kiss", Madonna as Marie Antoinette, and other AIDS benefit events.

From all the books I've read I found this one to have a very nice description of Madonna--although making her look a bit too calculating and manipulating at times. There are lots of descriptions about how she was introduced into the music business, the struggles she underwent to be heard, and how she came up with her songs. Her collaborators were also mentioned as well as many of her close friends who died of AIDS. There are times in the book where you can sense Madonna's emotions, sorrows of her mother's sad death, struggles raising her brothers and sisters, conflicts with her step mother, fights with her dad, and even personal accounts of her first boyfriend.

There was a lot of stories on Sean Penn to make the reader know just how much Madonna was in love during that 3rd making of her album "True Blue". There were plenty of accounts on her different affairs throughout her life but not gory or scandalous like other books I've read. The author maintains professionalism, class, and quality. Guy Ritchie was only mentioned in the last chapter very briefly. This would be a great book for someone who isn't too familiar with Madonna. Already fans will enjoy this as an added compliment to there already collection of popular books. I like how the author ends saying, "Singer, actress, record company president, erotic sex goddess, mother, spiritual guru, and media icon, she never seems to tire of astounding the public." Excellent buy and highly recommendable!

**Note: There were a few spelling errors and 1 wrong year date (release of Like A Virgin says 1994 instead of 1984 in the appendix) on this book but it doesn't change the fact it was a fantastic purchase.