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My Name Is Barbra
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About This Book
The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television. Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl (musical and film) to the long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she's found in her marriage to James Brolin. No entertainer's memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand's, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans. Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most iconic figures in music and film, the only recording artist in history to have earned #1 albums over six consecutive decades. She has received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of Arts, France's Légion d'Honneur, and America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded The Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, helping to raise awareness and push for more research into women's heart disease, the leading cause of death among women. Through the Streisand Foundation, which she established in 1986, she has supported national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women's issues, and nuclear disarmament. In 2021 she launched the Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA, a forward-thinking institution dedicated to finding solutions to the most vital social issues.
Reviews
"Streisand has never thought it necessary to contain herself, and there's no reason to start now."
"Amusing as this is, the book loses its hold on the reader as Streisand floats far from the ground."
"Written in plain chatty language much at home to parentheses and exclamation points, My Name is Barbra is exhaustive (not to say exhausting) in its treatment of struggles."
"The sheer ambition of this intricately woven memoir, though, makes it a fascinating read ..."
"Yes, it is overlong, and the endorsements scattered throughout add nothing, but the writing is great and the likeable, formidable personality shines through."
"Most celebrity memoirs rely on a certain amount of pre-existing goodwill to shunt readers through the more banal parts."
"Details may be familiar to fans, but for the most part they ring out more resoundingly in Streisand's chatty, ellipses-strewn telling."
"Even her most devoted followers will be crying uncle or, more to the point, Yentl."
"Chatty and sincere, the book reads like a conversation, complete with asides and self-corrections ..."
"You must let Barbra brag on herself, not directly but in the form of an ongoing fount of testimonials from the many people who have been touched by her."
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