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william rated a book really liked it Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 07, 2008 10:39PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
william has read Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Rather than a female narrator called, say, Plum, we have a narrator called “Moi,” which is that much more intimate. Moi is quick to point out that she is not blonde, that she has a career, as a fashion magazine writer no less, and that she happens t ...more
Jan 07, 2008 10:36PM · 5 likes · like · see review
william rated a book did not like it Holding Fire: A Love Story by Elissa Wald	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Deeply odd but interesting book that came out right after 9/11 from the author of Meeting the Master. It's based on the author's affair with Pat Brown, a hero. I wrote it up for Time Out who were understandably skittish that month in 2001. ...more
Jan 07, 2008 10:26PM · like · see review
william made a comment on his review of The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia " True enough, but this is about the effect of Stalin's policies on families lives, which is far more effective than the dozen great biographies that ha ...more "
Jan 07, 2008 10:21PM · see review
william rated a book really liked it Dead Babies by Martin Amis Reading for the 2nd time	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Martin Amis really used to be this good, in his twenties, about thirty years ago. He was so good, in fact, that he's getting away with literary murder now. Dipping into this book, along with Success and Rachel Papers, you can see why he is forgiven h ...more
Jan 07, 2008 10:08PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Dead Babies by Martin Amis. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Dead Babies by Martin Amis <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
william rated a book it was amazing Hollywood Babylon (Hollywood Babylon, #1) by Kenneth Anger	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Never fails to cheer me up.
Jan 07, 2008 10:05PM · like · see review
william rated a book it was amazing The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I thought I had satisfied by obsession with Russia this decade, but this new study by Figes -- who wrote the marvelous cultural history Nastaha's Dance -- makes it all the more fascinating, terrible and human.
Jan 07, 2008 10:05PM · 6 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Whisperers by Orlando Figes. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Whisperers by Orlando Figes <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
william rated a book liked it Home School (The Graduate, #2) by Charles Webb	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
http://www.latimes.com/features/books...
Jan 07, 2008 10:02PM · like · see review
william rated a book it was amazing Regeneration (Regeneration #1) by Pat Barker Reading for the 2nd time	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It takes a woman to write about men this brilliantly.
Jan 07, 2008 10:01PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Regeneration by Pat Barker. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Regeneration by Pat Barker <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

william rated a book really liked it

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Goodreads Author)

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william has read

Bergdorf Blondes
by Plum Sykes

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Rather than a female narrator called, say, Plum, we have a narrator called “Moi,” which is that much more intimate. Moi is quick to point out that she is not blonde, that she has a career, as a fashion magazine writer no less, and that she happens t Rather than a female narrator called, say, Plum, we have a narrator called “Moi,” which is that much more intimate. Moi is quick to point out that she is not blonde, that she has a career, as a fashion magazine writer no less, and that she happens to be a conduit for the lives of the rich and blonde around her.
The tone is curious, more Teen Vogue than proper Vogue. Still, it follows American magazine protocol in being chatty, toothlessly catty and less than fully informed. This suits the narrative which follows a traditional arc of girl meets boy, loses boy, meets boy, meets boy, meets really rich boy and swoons. There is a similarity to the television show Sex in the City, in that all men who wander across the pages are either appalling or unutterably wonderful. As Moi sums up her love life: “I had somehow contrived to date one brute, one congenital liar and a professional lothario.”
Early on Moi offers a short list of reasons why it is better to live in New York than in London. After Mummy, Toffs (“ew!”) and Daddy comes the Brazilian, as in the bikini wax favored by thong-wearing women whose nether regions tend to be their most interesting asset. Could the narrator and author be unaware of the fact that such a treatment is available in London? Should Vogue be alerted to the existence of a little place called Bliss?
This display of ignorance becomes less startling as Bergdorf Blondes stumbles on, and it allows for a cloying motif. Because of this amazing new waxing thing that has never been heard of outside of New York, sex is referred to throughout as variations on the word Brazil. This is not unlike Jay McInerney referring to cocaine in “Bright Lights Big City” as Bolivian Marching Powder. Moi, then, goes to Brazil, she goes to the Amazon, she goes to Rio (the clitoris), and, most dismayingly to Impanema. For the sake of context, Moi informs “ . . . . you know me, when faced with a choice between another glass of Pimms or a trip to Brazil, I’ll always take the Brazil.” Of course sex is relative in a world where “Michael Kors understands the inside of a womans’ thigh like no other man I know.”
Oh yes, fashion. There is barely a designer’s name that doesn’t happen to be one of the major advertisers in the first zillion pages of Vogue. The careful politics of acceptable product placement are adhered to but when something as safely acceptable as Alexander McQueen isn’t being exalted the author loses her footing. The lovely designs of Marni for instance, which could be described as shabby chic, are here rendered as having the look of a “street urchin” which is spectacularly incorrect. Personal taste is questionable in the extreme, most especially when we come to a $325 pair of Chloe Jeans which apparently “do something amazing for my ass.”
For a deep inside look at New York fashionista wit, which is slightly too stupid to be offensive: “The hottest sample sales in New York are so fraught with danger they make the Gaza Strip look peaceful.”
Throughout advance copies of the book I was honored to see the author’s mind at work in mid-composition -- pen held aloft as she searched for the mot juste, as moi wouldn’t say. At one point it is written “J’ sais pas [sic:] (ck. French),” which is very sweet given that the narrator expresses excitement with liberal use of the word “trés.” Elsewhere comes the need to describe small items inspiring “chahtchkis [sic:] (ck sp/ Jewish word).” Indeed.
Despite Moi’s objection to England, the whole inside-New York fairy tale grinds to a halt in the English countryside and everyone lives happily ever after, but not before our heroine gets mud on her Jimmy Choos. The ending brings the proceedings firmly into the realm of Barbara Cartland -- the moral of the story is to marry well, which I suppose is the ultimate beauty tip. ...more

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Holding Fire: A Love Story
by Elissa Wald

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Deeply odd but interesting book that came out right after 9/11 from the author of Meeting the Master. It's based on the author's affair with Pat Brown, a hero. I wrote it up for Time Out who were understandably skittish that month in 2001.

Deeply odd but interesting book that came out right after 9/11 from the author of Meeting the Master. It's based on the author's affair with Pat Brown, a hero. I wrote it up for Time Out who were understandably skittish that month in 2001.

Dedicated to the "last American heroes," Holding Fire: A Love Story,” is really about a shrill and needy stripper’s sexual exploits with two of New York’s bravest. The author apparently interviewed hundreds of firemen for this first novel, but those hundreds are shrunk down to three composites: Seamus, the chief who has an extramarital affair, Jonah, another hero with hustling and Viet Nam in his past, and Jake, a macho young thing confused by his homosexual yearnings. Alicia has affairs with the latter two, spicing the love with varieties of generic kink, but both men leave her. Alicia, described endlessly as variations on sexy and beautiful and young, never comes close to experiencing the bond the firefighters have together. The depth of her romantic liaisons offer a clue: “The girl was in kick ass shape; her body was almost as amazing as his.” The book should feature a bare-chested Fabio on the cover, sporting a fireman's helmet.
The novel is at its best when Alicia leaves the men alone and lets them do their job. The descriptions of firefighting are gripping and vivid, jarringly so when set beside the domestic drama of a clinging woman. Jonah comes off as a thoroughly fascinating all-American hero who embodies the popular perception of firemen: tough guys who want to help rather than hurt, and as a result of such a life’s mission have to watch their colleagues be hurt and killed on a regular basis.
Wald exalts the firemen as heroes and then muddies that truth by airing what amounts to dirty laundry. The book was published after September 11 and Jonah is based on a real hero who perished in the WTC. Rather than refer to Holding Fire as fiction, the author has insisted that she now intends for her book to be a tribute to the FDNY and that the character of Jonah "will live on through the book. And it will immortalize him." From what one gleans of the man Jonah was based on, immortalizing him and his brothers through such a thin, adolescent fantasy adds petty insult to unfathomable injury. ...more

william made a comment on his review of The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

" True enough, but this is about the effect of Stalin's policies on families lives, which is far more effective than the dozen great biographies that ha ...more "

william rated a book really liked it

Dead Babies
by Martin Amis

Reading for the 2nd time

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Martin Amis really used to be this good, in his twenties, about thirty years ago. He was so good, in fact, that he's getting away with literary murder now. Dipping into this book, along with Success and Rachel Papers, you can see why he is forgiven h ...more

william rated a book it was amazing

Hollywood Babylon (Hollywood Babylon, #1)
by Kenneth Anger

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Never fails to cheer me up.

william rated a book it was amazing

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
by Orlando Figes

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

I thought I had satisfied by obsession with Russia this decade, but this new study by Figes -- who wrote the marvelous cultural history Nastaha's Dance -- makes it all the more fascinating, terrible and human.