{"id":30595,"date":"2026-02-03T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T10:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30595"},"modified":"2026-02-03T15:27:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:27:28","slug":"book-review-carole-king-she-made-the-earth-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/03\/book-review-carole-king-she-made-the-earth-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Carole King: She Made the Earth Move"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Carole King is a towering figure in popular music. Even had she never embarked on a solo recording career, her work as a songwriter in the early 1960s would have firmly established her important place in the arts and culture. The enduring songs she co-wrote are some of the finest examples of pop \u2013 often more sophisticated than they might at first seem \u2013 and that music lives on. But of course Carole King would go on to a celebrated career in the (more or less) spotlight, beginning with her breakout album Tapestry<\/i> <\/a>and continuing onward. So it would make sense that a biography of her life and career would find an audience.<\/p>\n

Oddly \u2013 but not so much once one considers King\u2019s fiercely guarded privacy \u2013 until recently, there hasn\u2019t been a proper biography. And as Jane Eisner makes plain in the opening pages of Carole King: She Made the Eart<\/i>h<\/i> Move<\/i>, King didn\u2019t cooperate in the slightest in the creation of this book.<\/p>\n

Yet Eisner pieces together a compelling narrative, one that ultimately feels almost as if the songwriter did cooperate on some level. Other writers have cobbled together bios using only secondary sources, and the seams are all too visible: their writing often comes off as a stitched-together tapestry (sorry!) of information from other journalists\u2019 interviews, reviews, new stories and whatnot.<\/p>\n

Eisner, on the other hand, has taken a deep dive, one initiated from the perspective of a writer who both understands King\u2019s music, her background as a woman of a certain generation, her New York City roots, and \u2013 this seems critical \u2013 her cultural Jewishness.<\/p>\n

In fact, Carole King: She Made the Earth Move<\/i> is published by an imprint called Jewish Lives, so telling the story through that lens \u2013 and with that emphasis \u2013 makes sense. To non-Jews, the very idea may raise an eyebrow: Will this book be so focused upon her ethnicity as to make is less accessible, less rewarding for the (I think we\u2019re called) goyim?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no need to worry. On the contrary, Eisner\u2019s perspective and focus in fact enhance her ability to tell a story that\u2019s well-rounded, compelling and eminently readable. King\u2019s story is in of itself quite remarkable, and Eisner\u2019s clear-eyed, non-fangirl approach makes the book even more rewarding. The author proves herself unafraid to tackle the more controversial dimensions of King\u2019s persona, personality and career. She neither shies away from the difficult-to-understand decisions that King has made in her life and music, nor glosses over the occasionally (but only<\/em> occasionally) uninspired and pedestrian musical efforts that inevitably crop up in a career that spans decades.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Carole King: She Made the Earth Move<\/i> is an essential companion to King\u2019s body of work, an important piece of the puzzle that will enlighten those who appreciate her artistry. One might say that the book is the best we\u2019re likely to get until King decides to write her own version. But anyone who reads She Made the Earth Move<\/i> will know that such a thing is unlikely to occur. And Jane Eisner\u2019s book is comprehensive enough \u2013 digging in to the important parts of the story, moving quickly through (but not ignoring) the less-essential bit of the narrative \u2013 to serve as a definitive biography of this landmark artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carole King is a towering figure in popular music. Even had she never embarked on a solo recording career, her work as a songwriter in the early 1960s would have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,49,51,65],"tags":[472,5833],"class_list":["post-30595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-new-release","category-pop","category-review","tag-carole-king","tag-jane-eisner","cat-10-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30769,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30595\/revisions\/30769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}