Absolutely wonderful. And absolutely devastating in turns. But most of all, wonderful. Yet, perversely, it's the devastating bits that will truly stay...moreAbsolutely wonderful. And absolutely devastating in turns. But most of all, wonderful. Yet, perversely, it's the devastating bits that will truly stay with me. Exquisite heartbreak. Loved it. I really didn't want this to end.(less)
Alright, so no one chucked a Booker at her for this one, but it's in no way lesser for it. That Hil's an extraordinary writer. Few can touch her for t...moreAlright, so no one chucked a Booker at her for this one, but it's in no way lesser for it. That Hil's an extraordinary writer. Few can touch her for talent. I was totally absorbed. Loved fat Alison and chewed-up Colette and all the dodgy spooks. Maybe I wouldn't have minded a climax with just a bit more punch to it (Colette stuck in the TV a la the brat from Poltergeist, perhaps?), but I won't take a spoon to your eye for it. Fine book. Great fun. (less)
Filth! Trash! Sordidness and disgrace! I enjoyed every last page. I don't know what to think about the Hepburn and Tracy stuff, but God damn it, if it...moreFilth! Trash! Sordidness and disgrace! I enjoyed every last page. I don't know what to think about the Hepburn and Tracy stuff, but God damn it, if it's true then I suppose I should admire them all the more for the sheer force of will that maintaining such an act would have required. This was a highly entertaining penny dreadful. (less)
The most extraordinary thing about this book is the true picture of Mom and her incredible life that slowly emerges across the chapters - and books. A...moreThe most extraordinary thing about this book is the true picture of Mom and her incredible life that slowly emerges across the chapters - and books. A genuine saint. A beautiful book. (less)
My love of the Duchess of Windsor remains undiminished, an achievement considering the hatchet thrown at her here. But let's face it, she had it comin...moreMy love of the Duchess of Windsor remains undiminished, an achievement considering the hatchet thrown at her here. But let's face it, she had it coming, and more besides. This delight of a book says nothing shocking that hasn't already been said of Wally elsewhere, it just says so in a highly clever and original way. Detailing the abdication crisis via the diary of a fictional friend is SUCH a good idea I could nick the Fort Belvedere silverware in a jealous fury at not thinking of it first. In the days since reading Gone With the Windsors I've been trying to think of other historical personages/events I could apply the diary idea to myself. I've drawn a blank. But if there's any fairness I'll have reversed this calamity in a week. Laurie's inspired me. But the device is nothing without the actual diarist, and in this Laurie can laugh at all her pretenders because Maybell is every bit as vividly realised as Wally is. I loved Maybell. I was almost sad when she finally pulled herself away from Wally's selfish, ungrateful, sponging orbit. The fun ended. I read most of this thoroughly entertaining book sitting in a blow up pool during a four day heat wave. Occasionally I was even accompanied by wine. I was holidaying at home, but it was no less a holiday for it. Gone With the Windsors was the PERFECT book for my soujourn. (less)
This was as wildly entertaining as the other two Banks novels I've read in the last twelve months. God, I love visiting the Culture now. It's a hoot!...moreThis was as wildly entertaining as the other two Banks novels I've read in the last twelve months. God, I love visiting the Culture now. It's a hoot! And I'm hooked. The almost anti-plot nature of Banks' style says that I should hate his stuff for all the show-offy rule breaking involved, but I couldn't love it more. Its the sheer imagination of it. Once again Banks kicks things off with a dazzling opening sequence - three plot lines set up in very bold style - each one more startling than the last. And then things sort of level out into his winning formula: another spin on the classic quest tale, peppered with lots of eye-popping diversions. In this case the quest is revenge. Led was a lovely heroine. Her double act with the twisted avatar was delicious - and he was also blessed with one of the most memorable introductions I've read. An avatar with his own avatar! As usual, mind-bending. The Yime strand was ultimately a little pointless, but it also contained some of the novel's very best bits, so I'll forgive it. Everything in the Unfallen Bulbitian chapters was just a knockout (literally so for Yime), if ultimately not much connected with everything else. But who cares? Perhaps other books revisit the Bulbitians? I hope so. We were just about to discover all there is to know about subliming! The standout strand was Chay's. Wonderful. Just when it seemed to settle down into hellish predictability it took an extraordinary turn. And then it took another one! Great fun. (less)
Oh, those Churchills. It's extraordinary how much of Winston's personality was seeded two centuries prior in his overly-aspirant ancestors. All the sa...moreOh, those Churchills. It's extraordinary how much of Winston's personality was seeded two centuries prior in his overly-aspirant ancestors. All the same good stuff and much of the not so good. I picked this book up for the friendship/betrayal story of Sarah Churchill and Queen Anne. Anne's one of those monarchs I've sort of kidded myself I know all about for years, when in truth I know nothing. William and Mary were in that camp, too. And so was James II! My shameful ignorance. Whenever I'd heard the term Glorious Revolution in the past I'd just cloudily presumed it was a name given to the earlier ruckus when Charles I got it. Well, ignoramus no more, me. This was a very enlightening and entertaining read, illuminating me no end on all four short-run monarchs, and quite a few others besides. The Sarah/Anne story certainly stuck its toe in Lake Lesbian from page one, but it actually took off for me only when Abigail entered the picture, providing an ah-ha! moment. That was when the bitchy story that followed really started to show itself. Everything seemed human and very universal to me then. Nothing says 'impending heartbreak' louder than a love triangle underscored by bitter jealousy, and that's the special dramatic ingredient Abigail definitely brought to the proceedings. She was clearly a piece of work, but who wasn't in that sh*t baguette? I could practically FEEL Abigail's black hatred of Sarah brewing behind every hissed 'thank you' for the minuscule mercies her invidious poor relation status brought her. Of course Abigail wanted high and mighty Sarah ruined - no doubt she prayed for her disfigurement, too. Melodrama aside, getting my head around Anne losing all seventeen of her children took some doing. It's almost more than a modern reader can comprehend. Ditto the grim realities of smallpox. Once the Sarah/Anne section of the book was done, I was a bit friendship/betrayal-ed out and didn't feel like repeating the process with the other two sections, and so didn't. That is not a reflection on the fine writing. I wanted Krystal vs Alexis, 1700 style, and I got it. Ben Franklin and Herb Asquith weren't quite promising the same cat fights. (less)
Crazy old Gore: as arch as two bastards and drier than a wooden god. He's a loss to us. He was right to call this a 'memoir', for in little way is it...moreCrazy old Gore: as arch as two bastards and drier than a wooden god. He's a loss to us. He was right to call this a 'memoir', for in little way is it an autobiography, really, in the expected sense. Only the tiniest snippets of his life are (re)arranged for us here, in idiosyncratic order, while the rest remains firmly behind locked doors, you rather feel. Yet this is a witty read - most of the morsels are pretty delicious. The Barbara Cartland in Bangkok story has stuck in my memory, as has Jackie Kennedy in the lift, Garbo leaving the dunny seat up and Barbara Streisand's 500 eggs for breakfast. Gore isn't one to build carefully constructed anecdotes that end with a punchline. He delivers a 'story' and lets you find your own way through it as you will. If you spot the wry hilarity behind his selected observation, then you're doing well. If you miss it - as, frankly, I did with several of his chapterlets - then a moment's pondering upon one's own idiocy is due. I remain none the wiser about his falling out with Bobby Kennedy. Ditto his lousy relationship with his mother (whatever it was she said about Howard must have been ripe). Perhaps his earlier memoir casts a bit more light there? I'll have to make sure I read it. This book was a witty diversion that I quite enjoyed.(less)
This is the most sordid book about Old Hollywood I've ever read, which I guess says one of two things about me. I have either a) finally reached the b...moreThis is the most sordid book about Old Hollywood I've ever read, which I guess says one of two things about me. I have either a) finally reached the bottom of the barrel in my ongoing passion for this topic, or b) I've barely touched the sides and the bottom is but a murk-smeared speck in the distance. I'm unsure which. I thought Hollywood Babylon II was gutter-level, but really that's just a collection of incriminating snapshots wrapped up in camp. The Fixers is SERIOUS. But sordid by no means equals unentertaining or unenlightening here; The Fixers is compelling and revelatory in turns. Other GoodReads reviewers have cursed EJ Fleming as a lousy writer with poor research skills, but I couldn't disagree more. He's a highly engaging scribe who knows his chosen subject matter all TOO well, as the exhausting bibliography attests. But that's not to say I don't feel like washing my hands a hundred times in a vat of boiling bleach. This is mucky stuff, with every page exposing a new abortion/adultery/lesbian orgy/suicide attempt/cocaine addiction/lavender marriage. At least he provides something of an explanation for this gobsmacking stew of sin: the EUROPEANS started it. Rings true to me. I suspended reading this around the 1942 mark. This is not because I wasn't enjoying it - far from it - but the 1930s stuff was my primary reason for picking this up in the first place, and now I've dovetailed into an allied book. But I shall return. When I feel clean again.(less)
I flung myself from the first Loos memoir straight into this, the second, and enjoyed it just as much. She's a laugh-out-loud read, although her sense...moreI flung myself from the first Loos memoir straight into this, the second, and enjoyed it just as much. She's a laugh-out-loud read, although her sense of chronology can be maddening. She leaps about all over the place, which has the effect of making her seem perpetually girlish; forever the wisecracking flapper with her windblown bob, long after hair-dos have moved on. I did my sums and worked out she was tapping forty when she took the job offer from MGM, so while she might have LOOKED like a teenager, she'd most definitely been around the block a bit. In a girlishly gamin way, of course. Nita never strikes me as tarty, although she clearly had her opportunities. Indeed, it's her steadfast loyalty to husband Mr E that was one of the most eye-opening aspects of the book for me. Between the first memoir and the second John Emerson took a major nosedive in my affections. He seemed endearingly eccentric in part one, and Nita's devotion made sense; he was the man who lifted her from fruitless toils in Griffith's script room sweat shop. But by part two, where Nita freely (and yet undamningly) reveals how he exploited and robbed her across the subsequent decades, I just wanted to shriek. I found the anecdote about Emerson quitting Metro on her behalf in order to sign her up with Sam Goldwyn far more shocking than the later story of trying to throttle his Buggie on the sofa. The events around Mr E's eventual institutionalisation were a little vague, revealed very obliquely, I thought, via a remembered conversation with a priest. Perhaps that stuff was just too difficult for her to tackle head on? Yet she faced everything else so unflinchingly. One of the brightest aspects of the memoir was how enjoyably Jean Harlow comes across; Nita clearly loved her. I read a lacklustre biography of Harlow earlier this year that had none of this sparkle that Nita captures at all. Jean was clearly a riot, and a sweetie to boot, and Nita saw plenty of it. A terrific book. (less)
I've made two great author discoveries this year; authors I'd long heard of and occasionally even fondled, but never actually read; authors I'll now h...moreI've made two great author discoveries this year; authors I'd long heard of and occasionally even fondled, but never actually read; authors I'll now have as friends for years. The first is Iain M Banks, about whom I have raved elsewhere. And the second, in an almost complete contrast to to all that sci-fi insanity, is Anita Loos. The sum total of my Loos experience up until now was my enthusiasm for the Monroe/Russell pairing in the 50s movie version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. More fool me. Many a gem has flowed from her pen, as I'm now discovering. This memoir was a total and utter joy. Hilarious. Sheer escapism. All day I kept looking forward to picking it up again. Better than television! I've gone straight onto her other one without pause.(less)
It's near impossible not to enjoy Lana Turner's version of herself here for the sheer, pathological optimism of her approach to life. It leaps out fro...moreIt's near impossible not to enjoy Lana Turner's version of herself here for the sheer, pathological optimism of her approach to life. It leaps out from every page and makes her very endearing. Each foolhardy venture, misplacing of trust, 'misinterpreted' tantrum, and most recurring of all, shambles of a marriage(s), receives the cheery Turner gloss of hindsight, aided no doubt at the time of writing by the holy sheen that came with belatedly finding Jesus. That was the only bit that depressed me. Ditch the Lord, Lana, you're already a Goddess! Mercifully, that reveal was shoved to the epilogue and all the best episodes were done and dusted. I thoroughly enjoyed this 'tell-all' for its glammy nostalgia and weird deju vu. By marriage Number 3 the husbands were interchangeable and could easily have been the same man. The last three seemed to slip by, barely disturbing the bedsheets. Actually, that's not wholly true. Husband Number 6 disturbed the bedsheets quite memorably; the episode with Lana's maid presenting the soiled evidence of his 'partying' is one I shall treasure. The Johnny Stompanato chapters are harrowing, as they should be, although other books I've read about the affair are rather more harrowing still, perhaps unsurprisingly. Lana strikes the reader as being a very positive lady, and that awful event, plus the lead up to it, must have been difficult to recount, even after a gap of decades. 'Tell all' deserves to be placed in inverted commas, of course, because Lana would never have been fool enough to tell ALL. Anything excessively sordid has been wisely jettisoned, with most of the omissions concerning Cheryl, I suspect. There's quite few question marks there, especially when she's despatched to barbed wired fenced boarding schools and New Hampshire nut-houses. I don't blame Lana one iota for this. If you want the less palatable truth, head elsewhere. This is a rompy, saucy yarn that paints the lady's life in colours perfectly matching her carefully crafted on-screen and off-screen image - which were one and the same, of course. I, for one, appreciate that image. It's how movie stars should be. And Lana, above all else, was a dyed-in-the-wool movie star. More please.(less)
Crikey, what a weirdo! A fascinating weirdo, but still a weirdo. I might even go so far as to say that she was as nutty as a date pud. Not that this r...moreCrikey, what a weirdo! A fascinating weirdo, but still a weirdo. I might even go so far as to say that she was as nutty as a date pud. Not that this remotely detracts from her luminescence on screen - it doesn't - but what this book illustrates above all else is that Garbo barely lived off screen at all. She was only at her best when the cameras were on her, and when they weren't (ie, for the last fifty years of her life), she had one big Swedish peasant foot planted in self-indulgent crazy. What is refreshing about her though is her degree of self-awareness. She knew she was nuts, and stingy, and 'legend' obsessed, and dislikeable. She didn't shy away from any of it. She didn't try to amend any of it very much, either. Some of her bahaviour really is reprehensible at first glance. Dropping Marie Dressler like a hot rock (that they were scissor sisters at all was quite a revelation) and then shedding not a tear when Marie went to her early grave was pretty unkind. I can only presume this was because of the present Marie sent when Garbo was setting sail to Sweden - the one that paranoid Garbo sniffed the hand of Mayer behind. Ditto John Gilbert and his even earlier grave. His demise was ghastly and she didn't seem cut up about it at all. Indeed, the discrepancy between the still much lauded 'great romance', as popular legend has it, and Garbo's own very backhanded dismissal of the whole thing, is one of the most startling aspects of her story. Still, there must have been SOMETHING between them, even if he did compel her to take her frock to the dry cleaners, Lewinski style. Other memorable moments for me were Mercedes da Costa's lunatic mysticism (another weirdo!), pre-dating the Beatles-go-swami by thirty years; the fling with the strapping ship steward (that was very sexy - wish there were snaps); and the extraordinary episode of saving suicidal Hazel the maid. Overall, I suspect there's a better biography than this one to be read, and I shall endeavour to find it. Antoni Gronowicz had unprecedented access to her, and he captures 'her own words' very well, but it lacks an incisive assessment of her character, preferring to allow Garbo to achieve that herself. For that reason, grains of salt are required, I think. The chapter at the very end was a bonus but it stuck out a bit. Would have appreciated more of that earlier. Still, this was a highly entertaining read, consistently, if not objectively illuminating, about one of Old Hollywood's most compelling stars. (less)
There's not much I can add to all the other gushes from the fantasy fanboys already here, so I'll keep it swift and punchy: I loved it. Yes, I read it...moreThere's not much I can add to all the other gushes from the fantasy fanboys already here, so I'll keep it swift and punchy: I loved it. Yes, I read it because I love the TV show and likely wouldn't have read it if I didn't, but the experience was every bit as enjoyable and compelling, and additionally, revelatory, because Martin is just such a fine, fine writer with lessons for us all. Another revelation: he uses exactly the same narrative structure Kevin J Anderson uses in his Saga of Seven Suns sprawlathon. Who came first? I think Martin might have by a hair. No doubt many other genre writers have used it too and I'll discover as much in time, but for now these two present a revealing contrast to me. Anderson's books leave me feeling like I've digested 500 pages of padding and 50 pages of actual slap-your-face-silly plot progression where stuff happens. Martin gives 800 pages of the latter and none of the former at all. The plots MOVES; the reversals are frequent and shocking; the situations are universally compelling, and no character is EVER left treading water, struggling to justify their presence in the proceedings. Mr Anderson, take note! Can't wait to read book two, even though I know what happens in it - that's a compliment to Mr Martin. My dilemma: do I read book three before the new TV season starts? I shall wrestle with that... A final observation: Renley and Loras were so sexy together they put a crease in my pants in the TV version, but in the book there's none of their hanky-panky at all! I pray book two does not disappoint me on that score...(less)
Oh Lord, does anyone have worse luck than poor Jenny Morrison? Or, for that matter, better fecundity? In the next book I fear she'll sit on a dunny se...moreOh Lord, does anyone have worse luck than poor Jenny Morrison? Or, for that matter, better fecundity? In the next book I fear she'll sit on a dunny seat vacated by a man five minutes earlier and come out knocked up with triplets. Goodness, what a womb on her. I couldn't put this book down, of course. The Woody Creek miseries are so addictive, but they're leavened beautifully by good humour and a sort of stoic endurance shared by all the characters. For her utter haplessness, Jenny is still a lovely lass and a pleasure to read about. You certainly root for her. (It's just such a shame that half the blokes do, too.) Gertrude remains a triumph. Ditto Sissy - although I sort of missed her dumb malignancy once she embarked on her serial house-guesting. Hope she'll be back in force next book, and with a bastard of her own as just deserts. Loved the whole Sydney section and especially Myrtle, who deserved a good throttling at one point, but luckily came good. Shocking end for Amber and Norman - yet very fitting. I suspect Amber will be back like a rash though. Can't keep a good lunatic down. Joy Dettman loves a startling return, does she? This book was littered with 'em! Can't complain though, I've always been of the camp that celebrates coincidences as plotting devices when used with boldness and aplomb. Clearly Joy is, too. She's one of the best writers in Australia. I just wish more people would start saying it. Looking forward to 'Moth to the Flame'. (less)
Thinking about this book, as I have been a great deal and was again last night, a week after having finished it, the thing that came to my mind among...moreThinking about this book, as I have been a great deal and was again last night, a week after having finished it, the thing that came to my mind among the MANY, MANY things I really liked about it was the moving relationship between Horza and Balveda. How subtly, yet how beautifully and deftly was their rivalry/friendship plotted across the story's chaotic events. We hit the ground running with these two and their spiky, yet loaded exchanges, maintaining the pace when they miraculously reconnect with each other again and then slowly building to an astonishing intensity with all that they experience on Schar's World in the novel's apocalyptic final quarter. It is only after the climax that the true depth of Horza and Balveda's connection is seen for what it is. I shan't give any spoilers, but the Epilogue, disliked by some who have reviewed it here, REALLY worked for me. It was sad, but very touching; its message being (to me, at least) that any individual, no matter how insignificant in the scheme of things, can and will achieve impact upon others, long after they are gone, in ways that are strange and surprising. The pay off of the Mind's new name was additionally lovely.
This has been my first exposure to Banks' Culture novels and I don't know why I held off sampling one for so long. It's changed my sci-fi reading habits FOREVER. This is not hyprbole. The bar has been truly raised for me; Banks' writing just makes a lot of the sci-fi I've read before him seem a little, well, thin. 'Consider Phlebas' and the Culture universe it explores is just stuffed full of so many mind blowing ideas. I hardly know where to continue lauding it really, but another aspect I really loved about it, and which has also stayed with me afterwards, is the sheer scale of what is continually encountered - the colossal orbital Vavatch (and it's even more colossal destruction); the Megaship slamming into an iceberg (of all things!); the absurdly enormous GSV ship that Horza has to repeatedly burn through in order to escape. BIGNESS EVERYWHERE! Wonderful. And all so vividly written.
Among other delicious highlights for me: Horza's introduction, drowning in sewerage; Horza marooned on the Eaters' island (hilarious but hideous); the various sarcastic, complaining and truculent machines, most especially Unaha-Closp, who was just a scream of a character and a big part of the fun in the book's final sections.
The moment I realised I was hooked on this wonderful book snuck up on me. I'll admit I'd been toying with putting it down and picking up something els...moreThe moment I realised I was hooked on this wonderful book snuck up on me. I'll admit I'd been toying with putting it down and picking up something else after the first hundred pages. It was my holiday read. I was in a sun lounge, under tropical trees, with a balmy ocean breeze caressing my remaining hair and crystal clear waves lapping gently in the monsoonal middle distance... oh, and a dozen desperate touts never taking their beady eyes off me in case I wanted to go parasailing. I damn well didn't. And I had to do something to block those lousy bastards out. So an astute choice of absorbing reading matter was my principal option, coupled with pina coladas. 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' takes a while to warm up. I know of others who have abandoned it for this very reason. I feared I was going to join them until I suddenly got to the revelation that Charles, first Ephrussi owner of the netsuke collection, was among the happy afternoon revellers captured in Renoir's masterpiece, The Luncheon of the Boating Party. Apologies if that makes me sound like an A-Grade wanker but I saw that remarkable painting twenty plus years ago when a touring exhibition from the Phillips Institute came to my part of the world with The Boating Party as its centre piece. It stunned me. I've never forgotten it. I bought the postcard. Discovering that Charles - along with his tragic PA, Laforgue - was immortalised in this painting by Renoir, complete with in jokes, hooked me more completely than anything that came before it in the book. From then on I started to LOVE The Hare with Amber Eyes. Dozens of people have praised it already on GoodReads, so I won't dully echo their gushing words. But I will say this: the strongest aspect of this book, and the element that glued me to it the most, making me truly unable to put it down, was the growing sense of dread - utter, utter dread - at what might lie ahead for this glittering family. The Parisian chapters are but a warm up to the main event. The Viennese section is a sublime achievement. While splendidly dizzying in all its glamour, the fear for the future that slowly builds as you read is remorseless. And when history is suddenly upon them all the impact of it is gut wrenching. I don't think I've ever read anything that has so effectively detailed the experience of having absolutely everything and then having nothing at all. An emotional book. Deeply moving. Beautifully written. Ultimately so life affirming. Who could ask for better? One of my best reads for the year so far.(less)
Devouring this excellent biography was the perhaps inevitable result of a touring exhibition of Kelly's old frocks coming to my neck of the woods rece...moreDevouring this excellent biography was the perhaps inevitable result of a touring exhibition of Kelly's old frocks coming to my neck of the woods recently. Appetite more than whetted, and feeling far from overdosed on Grace glamour just yet, I was driven to discover the truth behind the chiffon, as it were. And I'm so glad I did. This was a startling, amusing and ultimately, highly moving read. It says everything about Grace Kelly (and Lacey's sympathetic portrait of her) that for all the gadding about with menfolk in her early years (including the Shah of Iran, for Allah's sake) she does NOT come across as tarty. That's a feat in itself really. I breathlessly read of Grace's every unsuitable love affair and only liked her more and more. Lacey's insightful summation of her Daddy issues provided all the explanation needed for that long, long line of dodgy older blokes. Grace's classiness really was Teflon coated. Nothing diminished it. This book had a number of revelatory moments for me, chief among them being the disclosure that the Grimaldi clan were moral and matrimonial train wrecks centuries before the current incumbents. I loved Aunt Tiny shagging her crim chauffeur and carting him along to the wedding, what's more, bold as brass, in an uncanny harbinger of Stephanie's later shenanigans. Ditto the subsequent jewel thefts during the prenuptial knees-up, that so bizarrely echoed the plot of To Catch a Thief. Rainier's mother was certainly a hard boiled hunk of hatred, as was Grace's own dear Ma, frankly. And how about mean brother Kell ending up in the arms of a kindly trannie? I didn't see that one coming. Indeed, tragically few of Grace's nearest and dearest come off well in her life story, her own children being absolutely no exception. Although written in 1994, Lacey's summation of the junior Grimaldis' profound lack of life achievement rings as true now as it did then, with the possible exception of Caroline. I was inspired by the loyalty Grace engendered on her many friends, however, particularly Cary Grant. The final chapters, dealing with the evolution Grace was just beginning to experience in her rather atrophied later life was profoundly moving, given that Fate so cruelly intervened. I thoroughly enjoyed this biography and its subject. Lacey is a fine writer.
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