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FAVORITES
- BOOKS
What
do I read?
Mostly biography and history. I never read fiction when
I'm working; it's too distracting-and besides I'm too
tired and too involved with my own characters to concentrate.
I save that for beach vacations.
What do I recommend?
RUTH
REICHL has two books of autobiography out. Since
she was the New York Times restaurant critic for many
years and is now the editor of Gourmet magazine, you
know she is a true 'foodie' and believe me this woman
knows how to describe food so that your mouth waters.
But this is also the funny and witty story of her life,
she makes you laugh with her stories of her eccentric
mother (for whom a bit of mold on the pies was just
something to be dusted off, a mere nothing!) Reichl
has the ability to take you into her world, and she
is a treasure. Please read TENDER AT THE BONE
(Growing Up At the Table) which is her first volume
of autobiography, plus now also the sequel COMFORT
ME WITH APPLES (just published by Broadway Books)
I can't recommend them highly enough.
Another
interesting book is USE ME by Elissa Schappell.
It's not exactly a collection of stories, but more like
stories about the same people, strung together as a
novel: the young girl who is the narrator and her family,
about friendships and family rivalry, the love for a
man, the birth of a child and the death of a father.
It's wildly eccentric and seriously funny, and it's
published by Harper Collins under their Perennial imprint.
Here
is a list of books from my current reading list:
RULES
OF THE WILD (Vintage) a novel by Francesca
Marciano. A study of a beautiful woman falling for the
wrong man and falling to pieces emotionally, set in
the rigid world of European-expatriate Keyna, with the
added bonus of wonderful description of landscape and
animals and safaris.
DIVINE
SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD - a novel by Rebecca
Wells (Random House) is funny and poignant and
full of southern charm; a young girl's view of her eccentric
mother and her friends.
Carolyn
See's novel THE HANDYMAN
(Random House, now out in paperback) is a wonderful
tale about a young 'handyman' who somehow manages to
bring order and sanity into the lives of the odd people
he works for and, sometimes, love as well.
Also
Carolyn See's autobiography,
DREAMING-HARD TIMES AND GOOD LUCK IN AMERICA
is searing and devastating, heart-warming, funny and.
It's brilliant.
BEACH
MUSIC - Pat Conroy is a wonderful storyteller whose
prose sends me into meltdown. Sinuous, sensuous, smoothly
Southern, he is the writer I admire most and this book
is a wonder. There is a beauty about his prose that
leaves you reading and rereading the same paragraph,
just for the way the words flow, smooth as a good southern
bourbon, right to your gut.
Willie
Morris's MY DOG SKIP, and also MY CAT SPIT
MacGEE (Random House). The first is the heart-warming
story (I have to use that cliche because heart-warming
is truly what it is) of a boy and his dog, old-fashioned,
nostalgic, and wonderful whether you are a dog lover
or not. Now it has been made into a charming movie,
though the story is slightly different.
MY
CAT SPIT MacGEE tells how Morris, a confirmed dog-man
married a Cat-person, and slowly was converted to cats.
For all of us who are cat-people, he captures the essence
of what it is about these creatures that makes us become
their willing slaves. Willie Morris's conversion was
complete when, sadly, he died last year.
SECRETS
OF THE FLESH - A LIFE OF COLETTE by Judith Thurman
(Knopf) A well-told biography of a famous, fascinating
and seductive woman, which also shows the other, tougher
side of her character.
CINDERELLA
AND COMPANY - Backstage At The Opera With Celia
Bartoli, by Manuela Hoelterhoff, (Vintage) is
a gossipy and very funny glimpse at this exotic world:
the truth about opera singers, their lives and their
outrageous demands. Delicious.
EVERYBODY
WAS SO YOUNG - by Amanda Vail (Broadway)
'The Story Of Sarah And Gerald Murphy: A Lost Generation
Love Story.' A vividly-detailed glimpse into the happy
times and tragedies of a golden couple with a gift for
sharing their lives, loves and loyalty with their many
friends. The first Americans to settle in in the South
of France, they are most famous for being the longtime
all-forgiving friends of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
- Brilliant!
FALLING
LEAVES by Adeline Yen Mah (Broadway) The
writer is a physician, but here she writes evocatively
about her tormented childhood as the unwanted daughter
of a wealthy Chinese family, under the domination of
a cruel stepmother who was about on par with Snow White's
for evil machinations. Mah tells how, despite everything,
her spirit prevailed, and she finally became a woman
in her own right. Wonderful and heart-rending, it will
bring tears to your eyes. Especially Mah's dedication
'To all the unwanted children.'
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