Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (audio)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called the "milk sickness." Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's unfortunate debts.

When the truth became known to the young Abraham Lincoln, he wrote in his journal: henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things—a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose."

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for reuniting the North with the South and abolishing slavery from our country, no one has ever understood his valiant fight for what it really was. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time—all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War, and uncovering the massive role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

My thoughts:
I loved this book!  I wasn't sure going into it if I would enjoy it or not, but I really did.  I love how the author took real facts and then told Lincoln's life story with a twist.  I am hoping that the non-vampire facts were true, I don't know all the dates and people who were a part of his life, but I have to say this might be a way to get reluctant readers or students who are having trouble memorizing dates and names to learn them in an innovative way!

At the start we meet the reluctant biographer and find out how he came to have journals and records about Abraham Lincoln.  Who gave them to him and for what purpose he was allowed to read and review these items.  From there we get the story of Abe's life and how vampires made their mark on both his life personally and on the country as a whole.  How slavery was perpetuated as a way to keep an easy food supply for vampires and how embedded they were in all forms of government and politics.

Abe comes to life as a hunter.  Some real details such as how be became a lawyer, got involved in politics, married and had children are there to hold the new construct together so the vampire element can be added in.  After finishing the book I commented to my husband that we should rent the movie.  I'd like to see how they developed it all for the screen.  Movies never really seem to live up to my expectations, but I plan to rent it anyway.

I enjoyed the audio for this book.  Sometimes the reader that is chosen doesn't complement the story, but this time I think they really got it right!  I am still struggling through a different audio book because I don't enjoy the woman who is providing the narration, but that was not the case this time at all!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781455510177
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 4/3/2012
• Edition description: Media Tie-In Edition
• Pages: 384

Meet the Author

More by this Author

• Unholy Night
• How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills

 

Seth Grahame-Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. In addition to adapting the screenplay for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seth also wrote Tim Burton's latest film, Dark Shadows. He lives in Los Angeles.

The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Think homeschooling is only for a handful of eccentrics on either end of the political spectrum? Think again. Today in America, two million primary- and secondary-school students are homeschooled. Growing at a rate of 10 percent annually, homeschooling represents the most dramatic change in American education since the invention of the mimeograph—and the story has only just begun.

In The Year of Learning Dangerously, popular blogger, author, and former child actor Quinn Cummings recounts her family’s decision to wade into the unfamiliar waters of homeschooling—despite a chronic lack of discipline, some major gaps in academic knowledge, and a serious case of math aversion. (That description refers to Quinn.)

Trying out the latest trends, attending key conferences (incognito, of course), and recounting the highlights and lowlights along the way, Quinn takes her daughter’s education into her own hands, for better and for worse. Part memoir, part social commentary, and part how-not-to guide, The Year of Learning Dangerously will make you laugh and make you think. And it may or may not have a quiz at the end. OK, there isn’t a quiz. Probably.

My thoughts:
When my oldest two children were younger I went through a time when I wanted to homeschool.  I loved the idea of it and of being able to keep them with me.  Planning field trips and learning at their pace, being able to use their interests to make learning personal and meaningful, but my husband wasn't in favor of the idea and then we had two more children and now I think it would be really hard to be working with all four of them on my own for all their educational needs.  One of the things that really struck me when I started this is how different it must be to just have one child.

Cummings does a great job of making her book entertaining while relating her year homeschooling her daughter and the research she did into the different groups who are homeschooling in America.  The history of homeschooling and even how it is handled in different countries.  I am not sure I would have wanted to disguise myself in order to attend conferences for fundamentalist groups of homeschoolers, but she made it fun and entertaining while still managing to teach something along the way.  If all history books and lessons could be done in such an entertaining fashion I think students of all ages would learn more!

I found myself loving this book.  I picked it up off the shelf at the library when the title jumped out at me.  Sometimes I find the best books that way.  I may or may not have seen a review of it in a magazine, but it just looked like a book I wanted to read.  I found it interesting how she dealt with teaching subjects that she herself wasn't the best at (which had been one of my concerns when I was thinking about homeschooling myself six years ago).  It will be interesting to see if she writes any more books on this subject.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780399537608
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 8/7/2012
• Pages: 240

Meet the Author

Quinn Cummings is an Oscar-nominated actress (The Goodbye Girl, Family), and the critically acclaimed author of the memoir Notes from the Underwire. She writes the popular blog The QC Report, and her work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Los Angeles Magazine, and Newsweek. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and daughter.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

An autobiographical narrative in which the author describes his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, watching family and friends die, and how they led him to believe that God is dead.

My thoughts:
This is a book I felt like I should read.  It has been on my shelf for ages, but somehow I never managed to get it started.  Last week I decided to listen to the audio book and even that was hard for me.  Listening to Wiesel describe how things were leading up to the time his family was sent to the concentration camp, how it was on the trains that took them to the camps, what conditions were like and how things were inside the camps was hard.  One of the things that really struck me was how he described a man he knew, who was deported from their neighborhood for being a foreigner.  When he comes back and tells them of the awful things that were done to the people who were taken away, who were rumored to have been taken somewhere nice where there was more work, no one wants to listen to him.  No one wants to believe that he is telling the truth.  He keeps telling them how he came back to warn them all, but it does no good.  I'm not sure what being forewarned would have done, but perhaps some of them would have been able to leave before they were confined to ghettos or taken away on trains to concentration camps.

It is hard to wrap my mind around just how awful it was.  I've seen pictures, read books and viewed movies and I think there are things that are just so awful that we do not want to believe that they are true and happened.  To believe that they could still be happening in some places, even with all the technology and modernization we have, people are still mistreated and placed in awful conditions.  Then there is the way being in those situations changes people and reverts them back to just surviving.  While it was difficult to listen to, I am not sorry that I decided to read this book.

Marathon Crasher: The Life and Times of MERRY LEPPER, the First American Woman to Run a Marathon by David Davis

Overview

David Davis’s stunning account of how Merry Lepper became the first American woman to complete a marathon

At a time when television was pushing male-dominated sports coverage into living rooms across America, women were struggling just to set foot onto the playing field. Barred from officially registering for long-distance running competitions, some women ran anyway, defying the authorities and the rules. Still, no American woman had ever successfully completed sports' ultimate endurance test: the marathon.

That changed in December of 1963, when Merry Lepper became the first. Leaping out of her hiding place in the bushes at the start of the race, dodging cars and infuriated race officials, Merry Lepper challenged the status quo and defeated it, years before the ban on female competitors would be revoked. This is the story of the arduous journey women distance runners had to endure to reach equality with men, and the story of how one woman overcame tremendous hurdles to fulfill a shared dream, paving the way for generations of female marathon runners to come.

This ebook also includes a 17-page excerpt from Showdown at Shepherd’s Bush, the story of the epic clash at the 1908 Olympic Marathon that jump-started the first marathon mania and heralded the modern age in sports.

My thoughts:
I read this book on NetGalley a couple weekends ago.  The title jumped out at me because I am registered for my first marathon in October, so anything with the word "marathon" in the title grabs me.  In going about our daily lives we often don't think about people who fought to get us the rights we have today. When I was debating whether or not to register for a marathon I never had to factor in if I would be allowed to run in a marathon.  I thought about if I felt I could train and complete that distance, if I would have the time needed to put into training, and how important this goal was for me.  Before 1963 when Merry Lepper ran as a crasher, no woman had completed a marathon.  The reasons given why women were not allowed seem so silly in retrospect, their bodies were too frail to undertake that strain and stress was a leading argument.  So a woman can carry a pregnancy for 9 months and give birth, but is too frail to run 26.2 miles?  Obviously these arguments were put forth by men.

Merry trained with another female friend and they both jumped out of the bushes when the race started and jumped in with the other runners.  Men tried to stop them and tried to get them out of the race, but they kept going.  Unfortunately Merry's friend did not complete the race, a fact that to this day causes her to feel regret, but Merry did.  Her accomplishment barely got her a mention in the news as it was a busy news week.  But today, all the women running can be thankful for her perseverance and dedication to something she felt passionate about.  Merry did not even tell her parents what she planned to do that day, she only said she was going to Hollywood with friends.  The marathon she ran in no longer exists, but the overall number of marathons has increased tremendously.

When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be all about Merry and women's running, but there were long sections about running in general.  One thing I kept thinking as I was reading was that now, in most races I've been in that break down entrants by gender, more women are registering and completing races than men.  Women are making up for lost time and exercising the right they have to use their bodies as they see fit!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781466817104
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 6/5/2012
• Sold by: ST MARTINS / MPS
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 32
• Sales rank: 287,490
• File size: 1 MB

My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clark

Overview

Imagine sneaking away to spend seven days with the most famous woman in the world…

In 1956, fresh from Oxford University, twenty-three-year-old Colin Clark began work as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, the film that united Sir Laurence Olivier with Marilyn Monroe. The blonde bombshell and the legendary actor were ill suited from the start. Monroe, on honeymoon with her new husband, the celebrated playwright Arthur Miller, was insecure, often late, and heavily medicated on pills. Olivier, obsessively punctual, had no patience for Monroe and the production became chaotic. Clark recorded it all in two unforgettable diaries—the first a charming fly-on-the- wall account of life as a gofer on the set; the other a heartfelt, intimate, and astonishing remembrance of the week Clark spent escorting Monroe around England, earning the trust and affection of one of the most desirable women in the world. Published together here for the first time, the books are the basis for the upcoming major motion picture My Week with Marilyn starring Michelle Williams, Judi Dench, and Kenneth Branagh.

England was abuzz when Monroe arrived to shoot The Prince and the Showgirl. She hoped working with the legendary Olivier would give her acting further credibility, while he hoped the film would give his career a boost at the box office and some Hollywood glamour. But Monroe, feeling abandoned when Miller left the country for Paris, became difficult on the set. Clark was perceptive in his assessment of what seemed to be going wrong in Monroe’s life: too many hangers-on, intense insecurity, and too many pills. Olivier, meanwhile, was impatient and condescending toward her. At a certain point, feeling isolated and overwhelmed, Monroe turned her attention to Clark, who gave her comfort and solace. Before long, she escaped the set and a remarkable true adventure took place. Monroe and Clark spent an innocent week together in the English countryside and Clark became her confidant and ally. And, like any man would be expected to, he fell a bit in love. Clark understood how best to handle Monroe and became Olivier’s only hope of getting the film finished. Before long, young Colin was in over his head, and his heart may well have been broken by the world’s biggest movie star.

A beguiling memoir that reads like a fable, My Week with Marilyn is above all a love letter to one of our most enduring icons.

My thoughts:
I listened to this on audio from a library download.  I was worried that I listened to it in the wrong order as it started with Colin's week with Marilyn, had an epilogue and a letter he wrote to a friend, and then started back way before Marilyn arrived with how he managed to secure his job on the movie set to begin with.  I enjoyed the beginning portion of the book about Marilyn and Colin's friendship with her.  The story lost something for me when it backtracked to his regular journal about his day to day things and used initials for Marilyn (MM), Sir Lawrence Olivier (SLO) and so forth.  It felt like I was listening to text messages.

In my opinion the book would have been better if it had stuck to the one week and skipped the rest of the journal.  I honestly started fast forwarding to see if something interesting was going to happen and it never really did.  Colin dated a woman from wardrobe, Colin lived in a room in a friend of his parents home, Colin had a nice visit with Vivian Leigh.  It was just a bit too ordinary and dry to make a good read.  I doubt someone, even myself, would want to go back and read six months worth of old journal entries.  The one dealing with Marilyn were a glimpse into the details of someone famous and they were friends who spent time together, so they had meaning and a lot more details than the ones about finding a house to rent and getting up early to be at work.

So, I enjoyed the first part and allowed myself the luxury of skipping some of the mundane details.  I think this would be an interesting movie to see at some point.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781602861497
• Publisher: Weinstein Publishing
• Publication date: 10/4/2011
• Pages: 336

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler

Overview

In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.

My thoughts:I originally shied away from this book because I thought it was only going to be about men Handler had slept with just once, I enjoyed the two other books I read so much that I decided to give it a try.  It was just as funny to read as the other two and a lot of fun to read.  While it does focus a lot on sex, that isn't the only thing it is about and a lot of it is funny moments before, during or after sex.  Having the dog steal your panties, walking into an apartment that you know you've been to before but can't recall when, bringing your gay friend home for your sister's wedding and finding him misbehaving all over the place were all featured in these stories.  I now wish I had read the books in order, this one jumps off into where she was in books two and three.  They can all stand alone just fine, but it would have been nice to see her growing with the books instead of going backwards.  That said, I think some of the stories from the later books come from this same time period.  I like that Chelsea is fine with who she is and doesn't apologize for her behavior, if only we could all feel that confident in ourselves!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781582346182
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication date: 6/28/2005
Pages: 213

The Funny Thing Is... by Ellen Degeneres

Overview from Barnes and Noble:
Ellen DeGeneres published her first book of comic essays, the #1 bestselling My Point...and I Do Have One, way back in 1996. Not one to rest on her laurels, the witty star of stage and screen has since dedicated her life to writing a hilarious new book. That book is this book.


After years of painstaking, round-the-clock research, surviving on a mere twenty minutes of sleep a night, and collaborating with lexicographers, plumbers, and mathematicians, DeGeneres has crafted a work that is both easy on the ears and very funny. Along with her trademark ramblings, The Funny Thing Is...contains hundreds of succinct insights into her psyche, and offers innovative features including:

• More than 50,000 simple, short words arranged in sentences that form paragraphs.

• Thousands of observations on everyday life — from terrible fashion trends to how to handle seating arrangements for a Sunday brunch with Paula Abdul, Diane Sawyer, and Eminem.

• All twenty-six letters of the alphabet read aloud.

Sure to make you laugh, The Funny Thing Is...is Ellen in top form.

My thoughts:
So yesterday when I went to the library to find the Chelsea Handler book I wanted to check out I discovered the call number that houses similar titles.  Not that I didn't know they were there somewhere, but I love stumbling across books that I am interested in but hadn't been looking for.  It is like hitting the library jackpot!

I enjoyed this book, it didn't make me laugh quite as hard as Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang did yesterday, but there were definitely parts that set me off.  It was interesting too to read Ellen's book because a few months ago I read her wife Portia de Rossi's book and she was mentioned in it. 

Against Ellen's wishes I read this book while driving and flossing my teeth at the same time.  Not really, but she cautions against it right from the front and urges us all to floss.  Not bad advice.  Also a good point, if you are using something to make sure you can use your phone hands free you may also need to concentrate on it as well!

I think I'm going to be looking for some more of her books at the library next week, just don't tell her since she seems to be very worried about if you have paid for the book!

Details
•Pub. Date: September 2004
•Publisher: Simon & Schuster
•Format: Paperback , 192pp
•ISBN-13: 9780743247634
•ISBN: 0743247639

Meet The Author
Ellen DeGeneres's first book, My Point...and I Do Have One, was an instant national bestseller that spent more than six months on the New York Times bestseller list. DeGeneres has won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and a People's Choice Award for her work as a writer and actress on her television series Ellen, and received Emmy nominations as host of the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, as an executive producer of HBO's If These Walls Could Talk 2, and as star and executive producer of her critically acclaimed one-woman HBO special The Beginning. DeGeneres made history when her on-screen persona Ellen Morgan became the first openly gay leading character on television, but her groundbreaking legacy had already begun in 1986, on the Tonight Show, when she became the first and only female comic invited by Johnny Carson to sit down with him after her stand-up performance. In September 2003, DeGeneres launched The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her own nationally syndicated daytime talk show.

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler

Overview from Barnes and Noble:
WHAT . . . A RIOT!


Life doesn't get more hilarious than when Chelsea Handler takes aim with her irreverent wit. Who else would send all-staff emails to smoke out the dumbest people on her show? Now, in this new collection of original essays, the #1 bestselling author of Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea delivers one laugh-out-loud moment after another as she sets her sights on the ridiculous side of childhood, adulthood, and daughterhood.

Family moments are fair game, whether it's writing a report on Reaganomics to earn a Cabbage Patch doll, or teaching her father social graces by ordering him to stay indoors. It's open season on her love life, from playing a prank on her boyfriend (using a ravioli, a fake autopsy, and the Santa Monica pier) to adopting a dog so she can snuggle with someone who doesn't talk. And everyone better duck for cover when her beach vacation turns into matchmaking gone wild. Outrageously funny and deliciously wicked, CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG is good good good good!

CHELSEA HANDLER ON...
Being unpopular: "My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy."

Living with her boyfriend: "He's similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up."

Appreciating her brother: "He's a certified public accountant, and I have a real life."

Arm-wrestling a maid of honor: "It wasn't her strength that intimidated me. It was the starry way her eyes focused on me, like Mike Tyson getting ready to feed."

My thoughts:
This book has been on my Paperbackswap wish list for over a year, at that time the local library didn't have a copy yet.  This morning on a whim I checked the online catalogue and found out that they now have a copy and it was available so I checked it out.  This one was just as funny as Are You There Vodka?  It's Me Chelsea.  It made me laugh out loud over and over again.  My children kept asking me what was funny and none of it was something I could share with them.

I am terrible at telling funny stories, because I always end up laughing too hard to actually tell them.  I would be like her one friend who had to hide under a desk during a speaker phone call that was a joke about a fake funeral.  I would be the person who was ruining the punchline and laughing before the joke was done, so I am impressed by people who can tell and carry off intricate jokes and lie on the fly.

I mentioned this in my last review, but I have never seen Chelsea's show.  I just checked the listings and it is coming on in a half hour so I am going to check it out.  I have a tiny little fear inside that it won't be as funny as her words were to me.  I am not a big fan of stand-up comedy and I'm not exactly sure if that is what her act is.  I don't want to have my opinion changed, but it is a  risk I have to take to try out seeing her live, and really what do I have to lose?  I enjoyed the book.  I laughed more today than I have all week combined.  I wonder if I can count that as exercise?  I did run today, but every little bit counts right?  Maybe laughing can be my new ab work!

Details
•Pub. Date: September 2011
•Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
•Format: Paperback , 256pp
•ISBN-13: 9780446552431
•ISBN: 0446552437

Meet The Author
Born in Livingston, New Jersey, to a Jewish father and a Mormon mother, Chelsea Handler is the youngest of six children. She is the star and host of E!'s Chelsea Lately.


www.eonline.com/chelsealately


www.myspace.com/chelseahandler

Jeannie out of the Bottle by Barbara Eden with Wendy Leigh

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

A magical, heartwarming memoir from one of Hollywood’s most beloved icons

Over the past four decades, the landmark NBC hit television series I Dream of Jeannie has delighted generations of audiences and inspired untold numbers of teenage crushes on its beautiful blond star, Barbara Eden. Part pristine Hollywood princess and part classic bombshell, with innocence, strength, and comedic talent to spare, Barbara finally lets Jeannie out of her bottle to tell her whole story.

Jeannie Out of the Bottle takes us behind the scenes of I Dream of Jeannie as well as Barbara’s dozens of other stage, movie, television, and live concert performances. We follow her from the hungry years when she was a struggling studio contract player at 20th Century Fox through difficult weeks trying to survive as a chorus girl at Ciro’s Sunset Strip supper club, from a stint as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on live TV to tangling on-screen and off with some of Hollywood’s most desirable leading men, including Elvis Presley, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, and Warren Beatty. From the ups and downs of her relationship with her Jeannie co-star Larry Hagman to a touching meeting with an exquisite and vulnerable Marilyn Monroe at the twilight of her career, readers join Barbara on a thrilling journey through her five decades in Hollywood.

But Barbara’s story is also an intimate and honest memoir of personal tragedy: a stillborn child with her first husband, Michael Ansara; a verbally abusive, drug-addicted second husband; the loss of her beloved mother; and the accidental heroin-induced death of her adult son, just months before his wedding. With candor and poignancy, Barbara reflects on the challenges she has faced, as well as the joys she has experienced and how she has maintained her humor, optimism, and inimitable Jeannie magic throughout the roller-coaster ride of a truly memorable life.

Illustrated with sixteen pages of photographs, including candid family pictures and rare publicity stills, Jeannie Out of the Bottle is a must-have for every fan, old and new.

My thoughts:
I am fascinated by the lives of real people and love to read biographies and autobiographies, probably autobiographies more because there is more real anecdotes and less speculation.  I don't believe I have ever seen a full episode of I Dream of Jeannie, but I knew the premise of the show and read a good review of this one somewhere a few months ago.  I found it on the new shelf at the library before we left for our vacation and I grabbed it.  I don't like to take library books to the beach so I had to wait until we came back to finish it.

Barbara Eden's story is engaging and feels authentic.  At times there felt like a lot of name dropping, which is one of the things she accuses her second husband of doing too much of, but I think a lot of readers might be wondering which other stars she interacted with and acted with during her career.  The love she shared with her first husband, Michael Ansara, was so palpable that I really felt like the decision she made to seek a divorce was not the right one.  She states that even to this day she is not sure she made the right decision, but I couldn't tell if it was because of the love she still felt or for the effect she felt it had on their son Matthew.

The Hollywood of Barbara Eden's early career seems so different from the way it seems today.  Along with the studios steadfast decree that she could not show her bellybutton as Jeannie on her hit show.  One of the passages that rally stayed with me was when Eden was talking about how Jeannie might not have won a lot of awards at the time, but it has remained popular and known all these years later in reruns and DVD release s while many of the shows that were winning acclaim at the time from critics have not endured nearly as well.  We tend to think awards are what makes great shows, but many times the shows people love may not be the same ones that critics are putting their attention on.

Another thing that I know I have made mistakes with is questioning my first instincts about a person.  Eden's first impression of her second husband was not a positive one, but then he won her over through persistence.  She was married to him for quite a few years, but it was not a good marriage and she ended up leaving him.

I loved this glimpse into Eden's life and how she was honest with her struggles in her career and in her personal life.  How the stillbirth of her second son threw her into a depression that ended her first marriage, how her son struggles with drug addiction and repeatedly sought treatment, how she ended up in a verbally abusive marriage and stayed far longer than she should have, and how show business was there through it all with roles and jobs all over the world.

Details
•Pub. Date: April 2011
•Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
•Format: Hardcover , 288pp
•ISBN-13: 9780307886941
•ISBN: 0307886948

Meet The Author
BARBARA EDEN has been a television, film, and stage actress, and a Las Vegas headliner, for more than five decades. She is best known for her title role in the hit TV series I Dream of Jeannie. She grew up in San Francisco and currently lives in Beverly Hills with her husband, Jon Eicholtz, and their Labradoodle, Djin Djin.


WENDY LEIGH is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen books, including Life with My Sister Madonna (as co-author) and True Grace: The Life and Times of an American Princess.



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Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

When Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power -- vodka. You would too if you found out that your boyfriend was having an affair with a Peekapoo or if you had to pretend to be honeymooning with your father in order to upgrade to first class. Welcome to Chelsea's world -- a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense.

In this hilarious, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she's convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her...only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today.

 

My thoughts:

I arrived at the beach with books packed but without having splurged on my yearly beach read book.  There is a fun used bookstore by the boardwalk that has a few shelves of used books.  This book was more than I usually pay for a used book, but it really jumped out at me so it became this years book.  Before I start with my thoughts I must admit that I have never watched Chelsea's show.  I've seen her in a movie or two and in the pages of magazines like People, but not watched her comedy act.  I think I had just read good reviews of this and that is what brought it onto my radar.

 

This book is laugh out loud funny.  I laughed so hard in bed one night that I felt like I was choking and then on the beach I laughed when no one else was.  My kids kept asking me what was so funny and none of the funny parts were appropriate to share with them.  I don't know how many times I had to say it was just a funny book!

 

I don't know how Chelsea is in person or on TV, but on paper she comes across as very amusing.  Talking about her family, how she dated some guy just because she had never been with a redhead before, going to jail briefly for having used her sister's ID to get into a bar and more turned hilarious at her retelling.  At one point my husband asked me what was so funny so I handed the book to him and pointed out the passage I was on.  He didn't even crack a smile so I think it was one of those had to be there or had to have read it moments.  This was the perfect beach read!

 

Details

•Pub. Date: December 2009

•Publisher: Gallery Books

•Format: Paperback , 264pp

•ISBN-13: 9781416596363

•ISBN: 1416596364

Meet The Author

Chelsea Handler is an accomplished stand-up comic and actress, as well as the bestselling author of My Horizontal Life. She is the star of her own late-night show on E!, Chelsea Lately; was one of the stars of Girls Behaving Badly; has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman; and has starred in her own half-hour Comedy Central special. Chelsea makes regular appearances in comedy clubs across America and lives in Los Angeles.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: Blacklisted

CHAPTER TWO: Chelsea in Charge

CHAPTER THREE: Prison Break

CHAPTER FOUR: Bladder Stones

CHAPTER FIVE: Big Red

CHAPTER SIX: Dining in the Dark

CHAPTER SEVEN: Dim Sum and Then Some

CHAPTER EIGHT: Barking up the Wrong Tree

CHAPTER NINE: Re-Gift

CHAPTER TEN: Jumped

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Mini-Me

CHAPTER TWELVE: Costa Rica

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Overview
A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye


A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

My thoughts:
I love biographies and the chance to get a glimpse into anther person's  life, especially celebrities because they seem to live a charmed existence.  After seeing The Outsiders I remember being drawn to Lowe.  I'm not sure I actually saw him in much of anything until later on when he was in Austin Powers, but for some reason he was one of my favorite actors so to be able to read his own account of his life was intriguing to me.

I found this book to be a bit uneven.  It reminded me of when I took American History in high school and we spent a ton of time on the beginning of the country and the beginning of the textbook, and then as the year started to run out we learned on fast forward and by the end of the year we had barely covered the more current events.  This book covers a lot of Lowe's early history and then more recent events are only mentioned briefly. 

Parts of this book really grabbed me and kept me reading and then I would start another chapter and it would lose me.  I really enjoy books where it feels and sounds like the author is just sitting down and talking with the you, as if you were hanging out with a friend, and at times that was what this was, but not all the way.  I applaud Lowe for getting sober and for finding fulfilment with his wife and children, but sometimes when he was upset with not getting what he felt was his fair share of a show I felt a little less compassion.  I understand that stars make a lot of money and work a lot of hours, but they make more for a few months of work than many people will make in half their lives.

By reading this I realized that a lot of Lowe's movies I have never seen. I never watched The West Wing and only occasionally caught Brothers and Sisters before his character was killed off, an episode which I did see.  I'd like to look around to see if Outsiders:The Novel the movie was ever released to see the movie with the deleted scenes to make it more like the book.

I didn't dislike the book, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations either. 


Details
•Pub. Date: April 2011
•Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
•Format: Hardcover , 308pp
•ISBN-13: 9780805093292
•ISBN: 080509329X

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Overview .
Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.


She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.

My thoughts:
This book made me laugh so hard.  My children were watching TV at one point and my daughter told me how they needed to turn up the volume if I was going to laugh so much!  I love reading about other peoples lives and getting a peak into what makes them tick and what made them who they are.  I was reminded of Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays book while i was reading.  Partially because both Fey and Crystal work in comedy and also because of how they include their families in their writing.

I've never watched 30 Rock, it isn't that I think I wouldn't like the show, I just don't watch a lot of TV in general.  When we moved six years ago we decided to forgo cable.  After two or three years we decided to get it again because we could bundle the phone, int4ernet and cable together so we've had it for three or four years, but the break from being able to tune in got me out of the habit of watching much of anything and I've tried to be sparing in what I decide to watch.  If our cable had better On Demand features I would probably watch more on my own time line, but it doesn't.  Same with SNL, I've seen episodes here and there but I've never been a regular viewer.  So why did I want to read this book?  I really think Tina Fey is funny and I loved her in Date Night.  The book did not disappoint!

It really takes talent to find the comedy in every day events and make them funny.  I can't even tell jokes very well because if I think something is really funny I tend to get the giggles before I finish the joke.  I do get people to laugh, but they are laughing at (or maybe with) me because I am laughing so hard.  At this point I've given up on even trying to tell jokes, which makes me appreciate people who can so much more!

In discovering Summer Theater Fey became friends with a number of gay people.  Her quote about her friends and gay people in general really made me laugh, " Gay people don't actually try to convert people.  That's Jehovah's Witnesses you're thinking of".


Details
•Pub. Date: April 2011

•Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
•Format: Hardcover , 277pp
•ISBN-13: 9780316056861
•ISBN: 0316056863

Notes Left Behind by Brooke and Keith Desserich

Synopsis

Wise beyond her years, six-year-old Elena Desserich never stopped teaching those around her to appreciate the miracle of everyday living, even as she battled a rare form of brain cancer.

Notes Left Behind tells a story of humility and inspiration. Through personal and candid journal entries they wrote as a remembrance for Elena's younger sister, Brooke and Keith Desserich share their emotional journey as a family, along with the private notes Elena hid around the house for them to discover after she was gone. Heartbreaking, moving, and inspiring, Elena's notes show us how, even during the darkest moments of life, it is possible to find hope and encouragement though selfless love.

My thoughts:
This book sucked me in from the beginning and I had a really hard time putting it down.  While at times it was hard to read about the struggles these parents went through while making difficult decisions for their daughters medical care, it also showed the joy they were able to find in the moments they had with both of their girls.  The whole family came off the page in these journal entries and became real.  Even knowing the eventual outcome I kept rooting for them to beat the odds and find the treatment that would work.

Elena was a little girl who loved all things pink, reading books and going to kindergarten.  She had a joy for life and loved her family.  The brain cancer she developed was a tumor that took things away from her like her ability to speak, walk, see and use her right hand.  Her family spent time with specialists and flew to far away hospitals to get her the care that was deemed best for this cancer.  They tried their best to grant her wishes as well.  Elena's whole extended family went to Disney World with her, she swam with dolphins and went to the top of the Eiffel Tower at her local amusement park. 

It was inspiring to see how much time these two parents put into spending with their children.  It can be so easy to get caught up in the pull of all the little things in life like laundry and dishes and getting sucked into mindless TV, but what if your time is even more limited than you realize?  It makes me wonder if I will regret not reading one more bedtime story or taking five more minutes at the park.  What about the time I spent reading a book or on the computer when I could have been spending time with my children, will I regret it later on?  There needs to be a balance and when you know the number of tomorrows available to you has a much sooner expiration date than you would like that balance can tip more to one side than the other. 

Part of what made this story hard was seeing Elena improve and seem to be getting better only to have the next MRI show that the tumor was getting worse.  It was wonderful that she was granted some more time when she was functioning and able to enjoy life, but it made it almost harder to see her then lose all that progress again not once but multiple times.

Elena's story is a reminder to live life to the fullest.  We never know how long we have and loved ones mean so much more than anything else.

Product Details

Pub. Date: October 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback , 250pp
ISBN-13: 9780061886409
ISBN: 0061886408

Eight Little Faces: A Mom's Journey by Kate Gosselin

Synopsis
Becoming the parents of eight children in less than four years has definitely presented both trials and blessings to Jon and Kate Gosselin. In this very personal close-up of their family life, Kate comments on the life lessons God has taught her. Featuring themes like trust, perseverance, joy, and encouragement, each two-page spread includes a photograph from the Gosselin family album, words from Kate, and topical Scripture verses. This book makes the perfect gift for any fan of the Gosselin's television show Jon& Kate Plus 8, which is featured on TLC, as well as any mother struggling with the demands of small children.


My thoughts:
This was another odd choice for me.  I watched Kate Gosslin on Dancing with the Stars last year and didn't really care for her.  I've read magazine articles about Kate and her family and saw the whole drama unfold when she and Jon split last year or the year before, not sure how long ago that was.  But through it all I wondered what kind of mother she was.  How she handled having eight children, how the older two felt when greeted with six new siblings, the logistics of taking eight children anywhere (I know sometimes my four feel like a handful and she had double).  None of that was really answered in this book.  I should have taken the time to flip through it, but I saw it on my way to the check out and it was only a dollar so I took a chance on it.  Each page has a picture from their family, a short paragraph (two or three sentences) about a theme word and then a bible quote.  I recall having read that Kate was creating a journal for her children so they could see how much she loved and appreciated them, but I was expecting something more than this.  I can see why it is in the bargain bin.  Plus, she keep talking about how she and Jon work as a team and she couldn't imagine doing this without him and, as anyone who has checked out at a supermarket knows, they are no longer together and went through pretty public nastiness regarding each other and their children.  It felt like the face and voice she was showing in the book are different than the few times I caught segments of her show.  This feels almost like a work of fiction rather than a journal to show her journey to motherhood and her love for her children.
Biography
Jon and Kate Gosselin had the joy of birthing twins and sextuplets in three years. The daily lives of their family are chronicled on TLC's hit show Jon & Kate plus 8. They are frequent speakers at churches and other events and live in central Pennsylvania. Find out more at sixgosselins.com.

Product Details

Pub. Date: April 2009
Publisher: Zondervan
Format: Hardcover , 48pp
ISBN-13: 9781616881795
ISBN: 1616881798

Celebrity Detox: The Fame Game by Rosie O'Donnell

Synopsis

That's the thing about fame. If you live like a famous person, you will pay the price. And it's a high price, and a dangerous game, because fame, the drug can sneak up on you in increments. You don't notice the increments, that they're increasing until you're so far away from ever making eye contact with another human being and being "real," that you don't even know you're not "real" anymore.

When O'Donnell's mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1973, ten-year-old Rosie believed that fame could cure her. Though she was still a kid, she had already grasped the cultural connection between talent and money. If she could become famous, the funds would pour in - and buy her mom the miracle cure that could save her life.

Rosie's mother died, but the bond in her daughter's mind between stardom and hope survived, propelling 0'Donnell into a career as a talk show host and passionate philanthropist.

At times funny, at others heartbreaking, but always intensely honest, CELEBRITY DETOX is Rosie's story of the years after she walked away from her top-rated TV show in 2002, and her reasons for going back on the air in 2006. In it, O'Donnell takes you inside the world of talk show TV, speaking candidly about the conflicts and challenges she faced as co-host on ABC's The View. Along the way O'Donnell shows us how fame becomes addiction and explores whether or not it's possible for an addict to safely, and sanely, return to the spotlight. She reveals her everyday interactions with her family, and the pressures of being both an ordinary mom and a "personality." She tells of the lifelong admiration she has had for an entertainment icon and of her complicated friendships with her TV colleagues - and talks openly about some dark passages from her own past.

Chronicling the ups and downs of "the fame game," Rosie O'Donnell illuminates not only what it's like to be a celebrity, but also what it's like to be a mother, a daughter, a leader, a friend, a sister, a wife - in short, a human being.

I came on The View. This is the story of how it all happened, off stage, on stage, how we struggled to make the show, and then so much more than that.

This is an account of what it means to make a show, and a friend, and an enemy, or two. This is about where we went wrong, and right. It's a story about stars and celebrities and one woman - me - going off air four years ago and then trying to re-enter orbit, not knowing if she can. It's the story of wondering whether I could give up the addictive elixir of fame and then go back, wondering if it's possible to sip instead of slug. It's a story about so much - how Barbara Walters started out as a sort of mother, and me a child willing to obey, and where we finally ended up, months later - after all the Trump dump and divisive ways of the world we are in, we have still, and nevertheless, at the very end, we have found a way to talk. We found, I have to hope, a friendship that, like any other friendship, is both compromised and connected.

All of Rosie's net profits from this book are being donated to Rosie's Broadway Kids, a program that brings musical theater to New York City public school children.

My thoughts:
I will admit that this book was a bit of an odd choice for me.  I don't watch a lot of TV and only ever occasionally even saw Rosie's show or The View, but it is interesting to read how someone who seems larger than life sees herself in her own life.  This book, as stated in the synopsis, is about Rosie's decision to go back on TV as a cohost on The View, how she decided to be on the show and then the year she was on the show.  She talks at length about her disagreement with Donald Trump and about when she realized that her joking way of taking as if she were Chinese had actually been hurtful.  More than anything though, it is about how she has missed her mother for years and has yearned to have had the chance to have her in her life now and how she loves her children.  While she is a celebrity, and has more money than many of us could ever imagine having, she still struggles with balancing her life as a mother and her life in her career.  I liked how she recognized that she has an advantage over many mothers in that she has two nanny's along with her wife to help her with her four children.  I enjoyed the narrative parts of the book but was not a big fan of the  blog entries.  Spelling and punctuation are important to me, I know that I still make mistakes in my writing, but I don't care for abbreviations and such like "u" for  "you".  That is just me.  Maybe when I jump into texting I will have a change of heart, but for right now I did not care for those sections. 

One of the items Rosie commented on that was not from her own life was Anna Nicole Smith's death.  Last month I read a book about Anna Nicole so it was interesting to have her pop up here as well.  Rosie places a portion fo the blame for Anna Nicole's demise on the public for siletnly standing by and watching her fall apart and for particiatping in watching it happen.  I recall seeing a tabloid picture of Anna Niciole jumping into the water after her commitment ceremony and thinking it was such a bad idea since you aren't supposed to go swimming for six weeks after the birth of a baby.  (My other worry comes from watching Jaws, woulding the bleeding a woman experiences after birth be a bad thing to be having in ocean water when a shark could come around.  I am sure the shark was a lot less of a concern than the possible infection and othe rcomplications of swimming so soon after birth, but it did cross my mind!)  It seems sometimes like celebrities follow a different set of rules, but maybe it was all for the cameras and Anna Nicole didn't really want to be jumping into salt water but felt like she had to for the cameras filming her life.

I hope that Rosie has been able to find her yellow (her own term for her happiness) and I thought it was wonderful to read that she was donating proceeds from the book to a charity.  I also was really appreciated her willingness to donate to others and to causes she believes in.


Biography

Rosie O'Donnell is one of America's favorite celebrities. She was the host of The Rosie O'Donnell Show, one of the most popular shows of the decade, and has also appeared in numerous movies, television sitcoms, comedy specials and, most recently, on Broadway. She was also co-host of The View.

Product Details

Pub. Date: October 2007
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Format: Hardcover , 224pp
ISBN-13: 9780446582247
ISBN: 0446582247

700 Sundays by Billy Crystal

Synopsis

Hailed as a triumph by everyone from the New York Times to Sports Illustrated, Billy Crystal's 700 SUNDAYS is the crowning achievement of an amazing career. A poignant, hilarious, and personal portrayal of his youth, Crystal's play broke Broadway box office records and failed to leave a dry eye in the house.

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book.  So many parts of it had me laughing.  I could hear Crystal's voice in my head while I was reading and could imagine how he would deliver it if he were on stage.  It was very evident that Billy Crystal loved his family and that his time with them meant a great deal to him.  700 Sundays refers to how long he had with his father, who died when Billy was fifteen.  Because of work obligations the day Billy and his two older brothers had to spend with their father was Sunday.  He was proud of the achievements of his father with producing jazz records and running a record store in New York as well as giving new musicians a chance to get up on stage and play for audiences.  From a  very young age Billy loved baseball and comedy.  His first acts were done in front of his family, both his immediate and extended family.  He would perform routines he had seen on stage and memorized from records, even when he did not understand all of the jokes or sexual innuendos included in them.  Most of this book focuses on his childhood and memories with his father and then later with his mother at the end of her life.  While he mentions his wife briefly and his two children, this is not a book about them.  I imagine on the stage this was even funnier because of being a part of an audience and hearing Crystal himself tell the anecdotes.  The photos that were included added to a feeling of knowing Billy's family and set the tone for the time period within which events were taking place.  Each of the chapters was on the short side and in a way self contained so this was good before bed reading.  In between other books I would pick this one up and read a chapter or two, get a  few laughs and go to bed for the night. It was nice to read a book from a celebrity that was so family focused.


Product Details

Pub. Date: October 2006
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Format: Paperback , 192pp
ISBN-13: 9780446698511
ISBN: 0446698512
Edition Description: Reprint

Daniel Radcliffe No Ordinary Wizard by Grace Norwich

Synopsis
Meet Daniel Radcliffe: one of the richest, most famous teens in the world. Oh and let's not forget that he plays one of the most beloved fictional characters of all time: Harry Potter. But before taking on the role of Harry, Daniel was just an ordinary kid. With five Harry Potter movies under his belt, and the final ones in the works, Daniel has begun to come out of his shell and take on some more eclectic acting roles. Both in film and on the stage. From his favorite band (The Sex Pistols) to his favorite show(The Simpsons), learn everything you ever wanted to know about Daniel Radcliffe and his hot-shot role as the boy wizard, Harry Potter! This biography is complete with brand-new, up-to-date photos and information about everyone's favorite teenage heartthrob!

My thoughts:

My son checked this book out at the school library last week. When he brought it home he said, "Look, it's a new Harry Potter book that we haven't read yet." That opened a whole discussion on biographies and actors and such. We tried reading it together but my kids got bored with it. We made it halfway before it was obvious I was reading it mostly to myself. Out of curiosity I finished the second half by myself, and remarkably quicker since I didn't have to read it aloud anymore! The author seems to do a pretty thorough job of covering Daniel Radcliffe's life from right before he was cast as Harry Potter to about two years ago. Much discussion takes place about the directors of the films in the series and his costars. I'm not sure how indepth it really got, most quotes were taken from newspapers, magazines or online news sources. The author does not seem to have ever actual met the actor which isn't always necessary of course. It also seems as though this book was written more for a female audience as it calls Dan a "babe" more than once. If you have a child who is very into reading the books or more so excited about the movies this book would be a good way to read more. On my own I wouldn't have picked this up, but I have this weird inability to leave books unfinished so after the halfway point I had to keep reading! I guess that is why my TBR shelf is so full, I have a hard time getting rid of books if I haven't finished them yet.

Product DetailsPub. Date: October 2008
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Format: Paperback , 128pp
Age Range: 12 and up
ISBN-13: 9781416967712
ISBN: 1416967710

I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron

Synopsis from Paperbackswap.com:

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself. The woman who brought us When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Bewitched, and the author of best sellers Heartburn, Scribble Scribble, and Crazy Salad, discusses everything -- from how much she hates her purse to how much time she spends attempting to stop the clock: the hair dye, the treadmill, the lotions and creams that promise to slow the aging process but never do. Oh, and she can't stand the way her neck looks. But her dermatologist tells her there's no quick fix for that.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She recounts her anything-but-glamorous days as a White House intern during the JFK years ("I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House that the President did not make a pass at.") and shares how she fell in and out of love with Bill Clinton -- from a distance, of course. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age. Utterly courageous, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a book of wisdom, advice, and laugh-out-loud moments, a scrumptious, irresistible treat.

My thoughts:

I loved this book! It was amusing, to laugh out loud funny at times! It feels like Ephron is a friend you haven't seen in awhile sharing her views. It made me think about my own thoughts on each subject (if I had them, living in New York is something I've never done or had any real desire to do so I don't have strong opinions on that). This book has been sitting on my shelf for awhile. Over the weekend I read a bloggers review of her latest book and thought that I should read this one since I already own it. I'm afraid I am now going to be staring in the mirror trying to figure out if she is right about woman's necks, will it really be all downhill after 43? Luckily I have awhile before that deadline. I recall my dad telling me one time that is is all downhill after 35 and thinking that it couldn't possibly that early but as I've seen my age go up it has started to become harder to keep extra weight off and stay in shape. Will I have a wattle to look forward to at 43?

One item I could totally relate to was Ephron's relationship with her purse. I want to like carrying one, but I am never organized enough and end up searching for everything for so long that I often wonder why I even bothered to bring one along. The bottom seems to accumulate loose change and crayons, along with cheerios and crumbs. I buy extra zippered bags to make it easier to find important items but still I loose a lot in my purse.

Her chapter on cookbooks reminded me of reading Julia and Julia last year, with her imaginary conversations with the authors and how rigidly she stuck to the recipes. I am the opposite, if I want to make something but don't have quite the right ingredients at home and don't want to deal with the buckling car seats and going to the grocery store I will improvise. Sometimes it is fine and others, I realize too late I should have just waited to go to the store for the right items. I do delete things a lot too, I hate how so many recipes call for cheese and nuts, those ruin so many otherwise appealing foods! I take them out when I can.

I do not look forward to the time that I will need to pay someone to dye my hair. The idea of never having to wash it at home again has some appeal, but really it doesn't take that long. Also I can't understand why it would take 90 minutes to have hair dyed at a salon when at home application, setting time and washing out takes less than an hour. I've never been someone to take a lot of time on my hair. I now pretty much just wash it, comb it out and let it dry. I'll use barrettes or hairbands and elastic bands but never do anything complicated. About every three years I cut off 10 or more inches to donate (I've done Locks of Love and Pantene Beautiful Lengths), love it for about a week and then hate it and wait for it to grow back. I'm about due for the cutting it and hating it stage again.

Ephron's relationship with her reading glasses reminds me of mine with sunglasses, I buy multiple pairs a year and can never find more than one pair at any one time. I designate spots to put them in and still when I need them they are gone, but miraculously when I come back sometimes they are there again (so maybe I need stronger contacts as well since I am overlooking something that is already there to begin with).

This book was a comfortable, fun read. It felt like a conversation. I guess instead of having imaginary conversations with cookbook authors I was having them with Ephron's essays about being a woman. "Oh I know exactly what you mean..", "You should see my purse and then things I find in old purses like..", "So you really think when my children grow up I should repurpose their bedrooms right away so they don't try to move back? What if they really need to?" I enjoyed this weekend reading this book and loved that each essay was short so provided a natural break for putting it down if I needed to.

Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith by Donna Hogan as told to Henrietta Tiefenthaler

Synopsis from Paperbackswap.com:

The sensational life story of one of America's most notorious celebrites - Anna Nicole Smith - told by the woman who knows her best - her sister. The childhood, the secrets and the details of her childhood, rise to fame, marriage to one of the richest men in America, court battles, the death of her son and her new baby.

My thoughts:

I found this book last year and it looked like a fun read, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. The book is written by Anna Nicole's half sister Donna who seems to have her own agenda. While it says it is a story about Anna Nicole at least a third of it is about Donna and her life. Donna tries to tie her life into Anna Nicole's but as a reader I really didn't care about how much harder Donna had it than Anna. Donna says over and over again that she doesn't want to have to speak to the press and described how she was hounded by the press for comments. She laments how when she did speak to the press it was twisted so that her words weren't what she had really said.

I realize that I don't have any experience with celebrities so maybe their family members truely are hounded and bothered, but it seems like she protests too much. Even the pictures in the book are only half of Anna Nicole with the rest being Donna and her other siblings. Do we really need a photo of Donna's children? How is that about her sister?

For some reason I felt the need to keep reading so the author succeeded in that. Every chapter I would consider putting the book down, but for some reason I kept going. I have to admit to never being much of a fan, which makes me wonder why I bought the book to begin with something about the catchy title maybe. I never saw the reality show Anna Nicole starred in but I did see her in magazines and on news segments. To have accomplished so many of her dreams shows that she couldn't have been as ditzy as the image she showed to the world. Her death is also a wake-up call to all of us that perscription drugs aren't safe and should be used with caution. I wonder how many non-celebrities have died because of drug interactions.

For someone actually interested in learning about Anna Nicole's life this may not be the right book, I think Donna is telling her version and there seems to be a lot of jealously and hurt with the truth. Perhaps she is dead on with her version, but I think someone else might be a more objective writer on the subject matter.