The Carpenters: The Untold Story : An Authorized Biography

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Many insights in the book and a big plus of this book is that it allows the reader to reach their own conclusions.

Carpenter has passed on many retrospective projects, after facing decades of questions about his sister’s inner life and her death in 1983 from heart failure, a complication of anorexia, at age 32.I only wish someone could have helped this dear woman, and I also find it hard to believe that nobody had a clue of what was going on until it was almost too late. And while this coffeetable-like book is good, it's certainly not a "biography" as described by some nor is it a five-star addition to what has already been published about the group. Karen's quest to be thin seems to have begun innocently enough just after high school graduation when she started the Stillman water diet. It has travel journals, tv dates, when the song was released, remixed, when it peaked, and how Richard picked songs. She purchased a hip cycle, which she used each morning on her bed, and because it was portable the equipment was packed and taken with her on tour.

And anyone who was an "80's child" will remember how awful the clothes and music bands were back then. In fact, her walks to and from sessions with Levenkron kept her body weight beneath the six stone mark. I'm sure that given time, the right material, and had Karen made a full recovery, they would have come back strongly, perhaps even taking 80's music in a whole different direction. It has the heft and visual history of a coffee table book, but it's also a nearly note-for-note musical biography of the pair that goes back to their childhood lives in New Haven Connecticut where Richard Carpenter found the seeds of the group's sound in his father's records and a toy jukebox. A week into their daily sessions, Karen admitted to Levenkron she was taking a large number of laxative tablets – 80-90 Dulcolax a night.Yesterday Once More" will make you want to dust off those old LPs and rediscover the Carpenters' pop magic. The experts say that one of the things that seems to drive young girls to overdiet is that they were oftentimes the kids that never got attention. Barely one minute into their visit, host Sue Lawley surprised Karen by casting light on her darkest secret. This is a behind-the-scenes look by a devoted brother into the life of his sister and indeed the life of the duo.

But those portions of the book that talked about how a song was written, produced, and sung were wonderful. I grabbed this not knowing much about the Carpenters besides what I saw in a documentary made with Barbies.I had heard from people that knew Ray that there were some problems and that Ray would apologize for including some things in his book that he felt weren't written accurately. It's also hard to read at times, not because the book is difficult, but because there are so many emotions involved. Gigantic plus here for me as I get so tired of that stuff where people try and talk on other's behalves instead of their own when dealing with stuff.