Home Page

Autobiography / Biography   Travel / Places   Cooking / Food   Other / General   Crafts / Home Improvement   Humor

Elvis
by The Presleys
Crown Publishers
ISBN 0-307-23741-9
Published May 2005 - Hardcover - 240 pages - $24.95

Who better to tell Elvis' story than his family and friends!  We'll never truly know the man he was, and neither will we stop trying, but I think this is about the closest we're going to get.  This is an intimate and anecdotal account of Elvis' life as told by Priscilla, his daughter Lisa Marie, his in-laws, among other family members.  There are pictures of Elvis' personal belongings (record player, comb, guitar, Bible, family photos, and more) and of his beloved home, Graceland.  There are "interviews" with family members (more like snippets of memory recall) like the little things that happened over the years, although Priscilla goes into more detail about their meeting, courtship, marriage, and subsequent break up.  Lisa Maria has her two cents worth as well.  They're stories we've heard before (or bits of them anyway) and loads of pictures of Elvis when he was just being himself and away from the limelight.  The Presley's have opened the vaults for this book and it shows, letting us further into the very private world that once belonged to The King.  It's a concise "life of Elvis" that I found interesting and I loved the pictures.  Of course, there was no mention that he might still be alive - he'd be in his 70s by now and probably not a pretty sight.
CBS aired a two-hour special on TV in May 2005 and there is a four-hour DVD available.
Conclusion - A great tribute to a great entertainer.  A must-have for Elvis fans.