Books like Alexander McQueen: The Life and the Legacy

Argh. This was a pretty frustrating book for more than one reason. It was written in a passive, academic voice, i.e. "It was decided that..." YUCK! The very technical writing style was so dry it was difficult for me to stay engaged. While I appreciate the drawn-out descriptions of pieces that aren't included in the book as photographs, for pretty much every single show, we have to stop mid-sentence to look at a double page spread of photos with all-new captions, some of which have been previously described and some of which have not. And when we're done picking through the photos, we turn the page and need to remember where we left off two pages ago, and get back into that rhythm. Frustrating.There is so much background info that is referenced but not included! McQueen's childhood mental and emotional distress influenced one of his shows, except when you go back to re-read the scant three pages on his life before age 18, you see that you didn't accidentally skip over anything -- the author didn't say one word about it! Same for his close relationship with his mother. She was his rock, and he killed himself 9 days after her death from cancer. Why was she his rock, aside from emphasizing to him to his Scottish heritage? We'll never know from reading this book. Why did he choose to enter menswear, and how did he approach the creative process for menswear vs. womenswear? What were his days like? Who else influenced him, in addition to Isabella Blow?Editing? Fuhgeddaboutit. There's a childhood drawing of Cinderella in a ball gown on page 10, except it's not on page 10! It's not anywhere in the book that I can find. Not to mention McQueen's infamous armadillo shows. Not "shoes", but "shows". Right.In my wish list, what would probably have compensated for all this would be full runway shots of every single piece from every single collection. I'm sure that would have been difficult and expensive. My next suggestion would be for Bill Bryson to take a shot at writing this. I think he could have brought some curiosity, passion, and humanity that this book sorely lacks.