A Book I Want to Read

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones will be released by Touchstone Books (Simon and Schuster) on Tuesday, July 3, 2012.   Jones is an award-winning rock journalist and author who has crafted a 350-page portrait of Mercury: the complex man and the myth.   She has toured widely with Queen and has had full access to the band members.   In Mercury she makes use of more than 100 interviews conducted with those closest to the late Freddie Mercury, many of whom are just now speaking, twenty full years after his tragic death.   Mercury was the first major rock star to die from AIDS.

Meticulously researched, sympathetic and yet not sensational, Mercury offers an unvarnished, revealing look at the extreme highs and lows of life in the musical fast lane.   Jones details it all from Queen’s slow yet steady rise to fame, to the creation of ground breaking songs like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, to the decadent, raucous after parties Queen became quite infamous for, to the band’s creative process and their ongoing quest to challenge themselves musically.

To gain a better understanding of Mercury’s early life and his somewhat difficult relationship with his troubled, conservative past Jones traveled to Zanzibar, his birthplace, and India, where he attended boarding school.   She also provides new insights into the great loves of Mercury’s life — long-time girlfriend Mary Austin, chef Joe Fanelli, German soft-porn star Barbara Valentin, and live-in lover Jim Hutton — and what these relationships meant to him.   Mercury provides a compelling, full-screen portrait of this enigmatic performer-entertainer-artist whose magnetic performances once thrilled audiences around the world.

Joseph Arellano

Adapted from information provided by the publisher.   Adam Lambert, a lifelong fan of Mercury’s, will reportedly join Queen in concert at the Sonisphere Festival next month.   Lesley-Ann Jones’s expertise has been incorporated into a screenplay for an upcoming film version of Mercury, which will star Sacha Baron Cohen.  

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Love is the Cure

In the 1980s, Elton John saw friend after friend, loved one after loved one, perish needlessly from AIDS.   In the midst of the plague, he befriended Ryan White, a young Indiana boy ostracized by his town and his school because of the HIV infection he had contracted from a blood transfusion.   Ryan’s inspiring life and devastating death led Elton to two realizations:  His own life was a mess.   And he had to do something to help stop the AIDS crisis.

Since then, Elton has dedicated himself to beating the epidemic and the stigma of AIDS.   He has done this through the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised and donated $275 million to date to fighting the disease worldwide.   Love is the Cure is Elton’s personal account of his life during the AIDS epidemic, including stories of his close friendships with Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, and others.   It is also the story of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.   With powerful conviction and emotional force, Elton conveys the personal toll AIDS has taken on his life — and his infinite determination to halt its spread.

Elton writes, “This is a disease that must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers and to build bridges of compassion.   Why are we not doing more?   This is a question I have thought deeply about, and wish to answer – and help to change – by writing this book.”

Love is the Cure: Ending the Global AIDS Epidemic will be released by Little, Brown and Company on July 17, 2012.   All proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.