85. My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D

I saw My Stroke of Insight on my mom's book shelf forever ago, and thought it looked really interesting. It's been sitting on my coffee table for months now, so I figured it was high time I got started reading.

On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain -- the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side -- swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realities: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely. 

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insights gained from her right brain that morning of December 10th.

Today Taylor is convinced that the stroke was the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taught her that the feeling of nirvana is never more than a mere thought away. By stepping to the right of our left brains, we can all uncover the feelings of well-being and peace that are so often sidelined by our own brain chatter. A fascinating journey into the mechanics of the human mind, My Stroke of Insight is both a valuable recovery guide for anyone touched by a brain injury and an emotionally stirring testimony that deep internal peace truly is accessible to anyone at any time.

Summary taken from the book jacket.

Okay, once I started re-reading the book jacket to type up the summary, I got a little nervous. The book was sounding a little touchy-feely and almost like a how-to -- did I really want to read about how to access a part of my brain to achieve nirvana? Also, one of my relatives suffered from an aneurysm when I was eleven years old. Did I really want to know what she might have been going through before she got medical attention? I had to force myself to continue on, and remember that this did sound interesting and I should give it a chance.

My first reaction is that the science of the brain is a little beyond me. Taylor includes a section of background information, so that you can better understand how she writes about the stroke and her recovery. I gave it an honest effort, but after a few pages it was clear that I wasn't taking anything away from it. And she was dumbing it down! Sigh. It's just not my area.

Also, Taylor is a little... well, I would say hippie-dippie, but that's a little mean. I'm just not the type to walk around a park with my guitar and sing. So I had a hard time relating to her because we didn't have much in common. 

However, this book was as interesting as I expected. Although it was nerve-wracking, reading about the experience of having a stroke was valuable to me. And the wisdom that Taylor imparts about how to interact with someone recovering from a stroke is priceless. You can be sure that I will pick up a copy for myself should I ever need a refresher. 

81. Vanna Speaks by Vanna White

I remember my friend Jeff telling me ages ago how good Vanna Speaks was. He kindly lent me a few books to read, and I made sure this was one of them.

At last, VANNA SPEAKS...and tells her fabulous story. You'll meet a celebrity it's impossible not to love...the girl-next-door who fantasized about being famous -- and worked to make it happen...the young model in Atlanta setting out in a rented U-Haul to see her fortune in Hollywood...the struggling starlet falling in love, surviving heart-breaking tragedy, and getting both lucky and tough breaks...and finally, the glamorous star, who after a decade of hard work, achieved "overnight success" and national fame on Wheel of Fortune. Sweet, sexy, candid and always herself, here is the real Vanna -- and the inspiring story of her breathtaking dream come true. 

Summary taken from the back cover of the paperback published in (hold on to your hats) 1987. Have you ever seen so many ellipses in your life?

Can I just start out by saying that this book is fabulous? There are so many elements of the ridiculous! I love how unintentionally hilarious Vanna is. She starts out the book with her morning routine, includes her favorite afghan pattern and has an entire chapter on the inner workings of Wheel of Fortune, including answers to her top ten most frequently asked questions. And her cats are (or at this point were, I guess) named Rhett and Ashley -- and she claims that this is not after Gone With the Wind. Wowza. I love it. 

Although Vanna has been dealt some tough breaks, namely the untimely deaths of her mother and boyfriend, she seems to have had an overall pretty vanilla, charmed, Norman Rockwell-esque existence. I think she's pretty anxious to downplay that; she's very insistent about the fact that hers was not an overnight success but rather took years of struggle. At one point, she describes feeling particularly low and not taking care of herself physically:

"At that rate it didn't take me very long to balloon up to over 130 pounds, between 20 and 25 pounds above my ideal weight."

Please keep in mind that Vanna is only 5'6". This is only about an inch taller than me and I hover between 130 and 135 lbs. Next time you see me, take stock and let me know if I should lose 20 to 25 pounds to achieve my ideal weight. Sigh. I may have cussed a little when I reached this point of the book. I mean, really.

But I can't stay mad at Vanna, because she goes to say stuff like this:

"Being on the show has also presented me with opportunities to do things that I'd never dreamed I'd do, like hula-hooping on national television."

Oh, Vanna. I'm very glad that you have finally spoken. 

79. Never Tell Our Business to Strangers by Jennifer Mascia

I read about Never Tell Our Business to Strangers in People magazine, and was immediately intrigued. Reading The Godfather whetted my appetite for more mafia-related books, and I really liked the title and the cover. It took forever to get through the waiting list at the library, so I was pretty happy when I finally got it.

When Jennifer Mascia is five years old, the FBI comes for her father. At that moment Jenny realizes that her family isn't exactly normal. What follows are months of confusion marked by visits with her father through thick glass, talking to him over a telephone attached to the wall. She and her mother crisscross the country, from California to New York to Miami and back again. When her father finally returns home, months later, his absence is never explained -- and Jenny is told that the family has a new last name. It's only much later that Jenny discovers that theirs was life spent on the lam, trying to outrun the law. 

Thus begins the story of Jennifer Mascia's bizarre but strangely magical childhood. An only child, she revels in her parents' intense love for her -- and rides the highs and lows of their equally passionate arguments. They are a tight-knit band, never allowing many outsiders in. And then there are the oddities that Jenny notices only as she gets older: the fact that her father had two names before he went away -- in public he was Frank, but at home her mother called him Johnny; the neat, hidden hole in the carpet where her parents keep all their cash. The family sees wild swings in wealth -- one year they're shopping for Chanel and Louis Vuitton at posh shopping centers in Los Angeles, the next they're living in one room and subsisting on food stamps.

What have her parents done? What was the reason for her father's incarceration so many years ago? When Jenny, at twenty-two, uncovers her father's criminal record during an Internet search, still more questions are raised. By then he is dying of cancer, so she presses her mother for answers, eliciting the first in a series of reluctant admissions about her father's criminal past. Before her mother dies, four years later, Jenny is made privy to one final, riveting confession, which sets her on a search for the truth her mother fought to conceal for so many years. As Jenny unravels her family's dark secrets, she must confront the grisly legacy she has inherited and the hard truth that her parents are not -- and never have been -- what they claimed to be.

Summary lifted from the book jacket. I typed it up, and it took forever.

It took awhile to settle into Mascia's writing style; it seemed over-written or over-dramatic or just over-something. The book eventually drew me in, but took its sweet time in doing so. I ultimately didn't connect to it in the way that I expected, so the experience was disappointing. 

First off, we're supposed to know that her parents loved intensely and fought intensely. All I could feel was the fighting, I didn't get as strong a sense of the love. That just didn't come across as successfully. 

  
Secondly, this isn't my world and I don't want it to be, so it was hard to settle into the book for that reason as well. My dad never kicked me in the shins for talking back to my mom, you know? There was no "busting" of credit cards in our house (to my knowledge). So much of Mascia's childhood is just unpleasant to read about, rather than interesting. 

And finally, so much of the book is about the parents dying of cancer -- the two separate prolonged illnesses and deaths feature prominently and it is so sad. I was expecting to read more about her digging to find out about their past, and that's really a very small part of the book. 

As I read, I kept wondering where the expression "on the lam" comes from anyway. What does it MEAN? As usual, Wikipedia was the fastest answer (even though -- I know, I know -- it's not always the most reputable).

62. Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein

I can't remember if I read about this book online first or if I saw Adelstein interviewed on The Daily Show first. Either way, I really wanted to read this based on what I was hearing about it. I had plenty of time to get excited about it because there was a 4 month wait at the library. 4 MONTHS! Sheesh.

From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, first-hand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up. At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime... crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face-to-face with Japan's most infamous yakuza boss - and the threat of death for him and his family - Adelstein decided to step down... momentarily. Then he fought back. In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter - who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor - to a daring investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a fascination, and an education, from start to finish.

Summary lifted from the book jacket. Colin typed it up for because he can't stand my hunt-and-peck typing.

So, yeah. When I hear about Tokyo Vice, I thought it was going to be all about Adelstein's troubles with the Yakuza. I didn't connect that the title refers to the vice beat that he covered as a reporter. There's a lot of ugly stuff in this book about human trafficking, the sex trade in Japan, and the police force's dismissive attitude toward rape victims. There was one chapter in particular about an all-night tour he was given of the sex shop area that really got to me. Also, some very bad things happen -- a friend of Adelstein's disappears while helping him track down a story and someone shows him graphic photos of a murder victim, claiming that the murdered woman is his missing friend. Also, Adelstein didn't come off as very likeable to me. He never really explains why he went to live in Japan in the first place, which I found off-putting. He's very honest and upfront about the less sympathetic choices that he makes, and I respect that. But it doesn't really change the fact that he wasn't someone I was whole-heartedly rooting for.

Okay, I think that covers the cons. Let's get to the pros. Adelstein provides extensive background on journalism in Japan, which is very interesting. He's a talented writer, I give him that. And I don't know a lot about Japan, so I enjoyed learning more about the country as he experienced it. Here's one quote that I thought was especially interesting:

"It says a great deal about the safety of the country [Japan] that a murder, any murder, is national news. There are exceptions, however, and that's when the victim is Chinese, a yakuza, a homeless person, or a nonwhite foreigner. Then the news value drops 50%."

That's something I probably never would have known otherwise. So it wasn't a complete waste of time, even if the review makes it sound that way at first.

Ultimately, I was expecting to read part crime story, part memoir along the lines of American Shaolin by Matthew Polly. Not the case. Suffice it to say that I wish I had realized what I was getting into. A different mindset going in would have helped me enjoy this book more or get something more out of it. 

Here's the interview with Adelstein on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jake Adelstein
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

If you're interested, give the book a shot. You might love it, even if I didn't.

55. How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill

I think I first heard about How Starbucks Saved My Life when I heard about the movie adaptation that's in the works. Tom Hanks is slated to star, and I love Tom Hanks. So I figured that I would read it for the project, but it seemed silly to count this as one of my movie adaptations since I don't even know when the movie will be released (it's still listed as "In Development" on IMDb.com). So I added it to the biography tally (a category that I know I wouldn't have trouble finding books for).

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house in the suburbs, a loving family and a top job at an ad agency with a six-figure salary. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement. First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, prognosis undetermined. Around the same time, his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects.

One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury, a latte, brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform. For the first time in his life, Gill was a minority -- the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his ingrained prejudices and admit to himself that, far from being beneath him, his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite having half the education and twice the personal difficulties he'd ever faced, were running circles around him.

The other baristas treated Gill with respect and kindness despite his differences, and he began to feel a new emotion: gratitude. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained. One that everyone, especially Michael's kids, liked a lot better.

The backdrop to Gill's story is a nearly universal cultural phenomenon: the Starbucks experience. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, we step behind the counter of one of the world's best-known companies and discover how it all really works, who the baristas are and what they love (and hate) about their jobs. Inside Starbucks, as Crystal and Mike's friendship grows, we see what wonders can happen when we reach out across race, class, and age divisions to help a fellow human being.

Plot summary lifted from the back cover, per usual. 

I enjoyed reading this book so much! I picked it up during a lazy Sunday morning, thinking I would start it and then watch some TV, and I read it straight through until the end. I couldn't put it down, which is kind of unusual for autobiographies. I enjoy the genre, but they don't always grab you like that. This is partly due to Gill's writing skills; he grew up in a famous New York literary family and started his 25-year career at JWT as a copywriter. It shows. Although the book is mainly about his first year working at Starbucks and how it changed -- sorry, saved his life, he cuts back and forth between the present and the past. Gill has lived what most would call a charmed life, and the stories from his childhood to adulthood are fascinating. For example, a friend from the secret society Skull and Bones set up his job interview at JWT. Maybe that's common in some circles, but to me that is crazy. 

Side note: OMG! My friend Jeff and I heart the movie The Skulls with Joshua Jackson; our favorite quote is "If it's secret and elite, it can't be good." Well, apparently it was good to Mr. Gill!

I think this book especially appealed to me because I could relate to both of Gill's professional lives -- I work in the advertising industry, so reading about his advertising career was interesting, and I worked at a Caribou Coffee for over a year, so the insider info on Starbucks was interesting, too. By the way, this quote kills me:

"Almost all ad clients took about ten minutes to decide they knew better than you."

I have a tiny chip on my shoulder after reading about some of the Starbucks stuff. For example, Gill and his coworkers got scheduled breaks. Not me! I think it may have been in the rules at Caribou, but it wasn't enforced. Also, Gill didn't have to count down his cash drawer at the start and end of each shift -- they had a money weighing machine! What the what? I spent hours of my life counting down those drawers, and Starbucks has money weighing machines? Ugh. Okay, I'll get over it. Eventually.

I highly recommend this book. It's a quick read with an incredibly likeable narrator. The journey that Gill goes through to adjust to this new chapter in his life and the lessons that he learns make for a valuable yet entertaining read.

50. Enemies of the People by Kati Marton

I read about Enemies of the People by Kati Marton somewhere, and kept seeing the title pop up on book blogs and review sites. It sounded really interesting, so I placed a request at the library and waited my turn. The day that I went to pick it up, Marton was interviewed on The Colbert Report (which is practically required viewing in our home). This seemed fortuitous to me somehow, so I started reading the next day.

"You are opening a Pandora's box."

Marton was warned when she filed for her family's secret police files in Budapest. But her family history -- during both the Nazi and the Communist periods -- was too full of shadows. The files revealed terrifying truths: secret love affairs, betrayals inside the family circle, torture and brutalities alongside acts of stunning courage -- and, above all, deep family love. In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton, an accomplished journalist, exposes the cruel mechanics of the Communist Terror State, using the secret police files on her journalist parents as well as dozens of interviews that reveal how her family was spied on and betrayed by friends and colleagues, and even their children's baby-sitter. In this moving and brave memoir, Marton searches for and finds her parents, and love. Marton relates her eyewitness account of her mother's and father's arrests in Cold War Budapest and the terrible separation that followed. She describes the pain her parents endured in prison - isolated from each other and their children. She reveals the secret war between Washington and Moscow, in which Marton and her family were pawns in a much larger game. By the acclaimed author of The Great Escape, Enemies of the People is a tour de force, an important work of history as it was lived, a narrative of multiple betrayals on both sides of the Cold War that ends with triumph and a new beginning in America.

Plot summary lifted from the book jacket. Colin typed it up for me because he can't stand my hunt-and-peck typing.

First, let me get the negatives out of the way. In my experience, expectations have an enormous effect on your enjoyment of a book. For some reason, I was expecting to be riveted while reading Enemies of the People. While this book is interesting, I wasn't riveted and that made me feel like it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The subject matter and the way that Marton chose to write about it was a bit dryer than I expected. You hear about secret police investigating and arresting journalists and you expect suspense and intrigue. In actuality, the surveillance of the Martons must have been tedious for the state. It doesn't seem like very much is happening. And Kati made extensive use of her research, quoting from informants and reports in the files. I can see why she made this choice -- the book is in essence a result of this journey to uncover what the files contained. And those contents are extraordinary, but I felt a bit mired down in the excerpts at times. 

In the end, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. What happened to Kati Marton and her family almost seems like fiction; the fact that it's all true and the evidence is right in front of us is incredible. I appreciated Marton's sense of humor and her willingness to share how her past has shaped her life -- that is to say, the past as she knew it and the past as she now knows it. The most valuable part of the book for me is the very clear sense you get of the atmosphere in Hungary at the time. Marton relates the day-to-day life in a police state eloquently, making the unimaginable imaginable. If you're at all interested in this time period or subject matter, I recommend you give this book a try.

Here's a clip of Marton's appearance on The Colbert Report. It's very entertaining, even if you're not a Colbert fan. 

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kati Marton
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

(I especially like the part when Marton calls her baby-sitter a bitch.)

42. Invisible Sisters: A Memoir by Jessica Handler

I saw Invisible Sisters on the new non-fiction shelf at my library, read the book jacket, and decided to check it out. As it turns out, I misread the book jacket. I thought this was a memoir about two sisters, one of whom was sick and one of whom was not. It's actually about three sisters, two of whom are sick and one who is not. Being the youngest of three sisters, I felt nervous about reading this book once I read the book jacket properly. I didn't want to start imagining scenarios in which my sisters became sick and were taken away from me. So it was with slight dread that I started reading.

Jessica Handler recounts growing up with her mother, father and two younger sisters, Susie and Sarah, in Invisible Sisters. Susie is diagnosed with leukemia at age eight. Sarah suffers from symptoms of Kostmann's syndrome from birth. At one point, Jessica found herself clarifying her status to a nurse, "I'm the well sister." Jessica's family soon becomes accustomed to illness; their family is doctor is also a close family friend, calls and visits to the hospital are routine. Sarah has to learn to swallow pills as a toddler, and all of the sisters practice with candy. Things begin to fall apart when Susie passes away after two years of treatment. The remaining family members don't quite know how to deal with their grief individually or as a group. Jessica's father begins a slow decline into addiction and estrangement from the family, and Jessica herself experiments with alcohol and drugs as a teen. Sarah lives until the age of 27, at which point she succumbs to her illness. Jessica is left the sole surviving sister, haunted by her "invisible sisters" and fantasies of memories they could have made together with their children, had Susie and Sarah lived. Jessica eventually reconciles with her father, forgiving him for past mistakes, and marries in her hometown of Atlanta.

I'm going to start my response to this book with a quote from the About Me section of my sister Mollie's blog:

"The oldest of three sisters, I am somehow always aware of how similar and different we are from each other, and that no one can really know me without knowing them."

I really couldn't have put it better myself. From the day I was born, I was part of a set. The three of us are still known as The Sullivan Girls in some circles. Although Jessica writes eloquently about her experiences, I still can't quite imagine my life if Mollie or Annie had become sick or passed away. I don't want to think about. We still have our whole lives ahead of us, Mollie is getting married this year and none of us are mothers yet. And we're each older than Sarah Handler was when she died. I left the book feeling shaken and sad, but above all incredibly, effing lucky.

This memoir is very well-written and incredibly moving. Even though I was scared to read it and I still don't want to put myself in Handler's shoes, I read the book in one sitting and then felt very appreciative of all that I have. I would definitely recommend it anyone.

34. Bobby and Jackie by C. David Heymann

I love Jackie Kennedy. I really do. It's mainly her iconic sense of style, but I also admire the fact that above all else she was a survivor. I have a few biographies written about her, including one called A Woman Named Jackie by C. David Heymann, who also wrote Bobby and Jackie. [Side note: I keep trying to type Jackie and Bobby, which shows my clear bias.] When I read a review of this book in People, I clipped it and saved it until I was ready for another biography.

If the Kennedys -- and Jackie in particular -- interest you at all, you should definitely read this book. It's a fairly quick read, only covering in depth the time period of the alleged affair (1964-1968). Heymann quotes numerous members of the Kennedys' inner circle, many of whom he states are only now willing to go on the record about the "open secret" of Jackie and Bobby's affair. According to those interviewed, so many people were in on the secret that it's amazing the story didn't break at the time. Jackie and Bobby are portrayed as close friends whose bond deepened after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, eventually leading to a long-term affair and the realization that they were each the love of the other's life. The affair came to an amicable end while Bobby was running for president. It's an interesting read, although you have to decide for yourself how much of the story that you believe. Although Heymann is careful to provide sources, there is no concrete proof or evidence of the relationship.

I didn't really plan to read this book directly after In the President's Secret Service, but I'm glad that I did. It was interesting to read about the circumstances of the JFK and RFK assassinations with a stronger grasp on Secret Service protocol. For example, Bobby was entitled to Secret Service protection while running for president, but opted not to use it. Instead, he hired two bodyguards -- neither of whom he allowed to carry guns. Both of the brothers -- especially Bobby -- felt that if someone wanted to get to them, they would find a way. And neither wanted to be separated from the public that they were trying to connect with.

I have to mention that this is the first book that I've read using Kindle for PC. It's awesome! You can install Kindle software on your computer for free and buy Kindle books (usually $9.99 each) to read onscreen. Many thanks to Annie & Doug for the idea!

7. Cloris by Cloris Leachman with George Englund

I wanted to read Cloris, Cloris Leachman's autobiography, for a few different reasons:

1. I love celebrity tell-alls! (Have I mentioned that?)

2. I have read and re-read the autobiography Past Imperfect by Joan Collins countless times. (It's excellent!) She describes in detail the affair she had with George Englund while he was still married to Cloris Leachman, and I wanted to read about those events from the married woman's point of view.

(Also, I was a little intrigued by the fact that the ex-husband co-wrote the book.)

3. I have heard a couple of stories about interviews with Cloris Leachman that suggest that she's at the age when she no longer cares about following publicists' orders and not offending anyone. (Did anyone else hear that she called Betty White a slut?) Yay, dish!

So how did it stack up? A complete disappointment!

In her introduction, Cloris states, "I decided it would be wrong to write my autobiography in chapters, because I didn't live my life in chapters. The long walk I've taken wasn't divided into tidy sections. It came in arcs and rainbows, sprints and marathons, clouds and clear places." Right. So she jumps around between times and topics, and it's impossible to put what she's writing about into context and gain any understanding from her experiences.

I admittedly prefer autobiographies to be written in a chronological context, and I prefer linear story-telling. I think it's somewhat arrogant to say "well, I didn't live my life in chapters, so how could I possibly write about it in chapters?" An autobiography is not a diary; it's meant to be read -- and enjoyed -- by other people. How do you expect readers to be able to follow along when you don't have an established method of story-telling? How is a reader supposed to put an event into context when they can't remember where you lived or if you had one child or two at that point? It's disorienting and defeats the purpose.

One of the problems with this approach is that I don't feel like I know very much about the events of Cloris's life. I think she has five children, and I know that at one point a son died. I don't know when exactly she and George Englund divorced or exactly why. She states more than once that she has won nine Emmy Awards, but I don't know for which nine projects. I know that she has two younger sisters, but I barely know anything about them or her relationships with them.

There was some celebrity dish (an epic night of love-making with Gene Hackman, anyone?) but not enough to really qualify as a "tell-all" or to believe she's not leaving the best stuff out. The Joan Collins affair? It rates a couple of paragraphs, but Cloris doesn't really relate how she felt about it or it affected the marriage. As far as George Englund goes, he is the love of her life and she of his and end of story. They are great friends and what does it matter that they see other people? That was frustrating, as I really don't understand it or relate to it. Open up a little more and tell me about it, and maybe I'll be able to see where you're coming from. Isn't that the point?

I don't recommend this book. It's not worth the amount of time it takes to read it -- and it does take a bit longer than one might expect because of the writing style. Cloris interrupts herself to go on tangents about other topics throughout, and at best is just rambling.

Instead, watch this clip of Cloris on Chelsea Lately. It will take much less time and give you an idea of how the book goes.

4. Breakfast With Tiffany: An Uncle's Memoir by Edwin John Wintle

I was at the library, browsing the biography section, and this title jumped out at me. Anyone who knows how many times I've seen Breakfast at Tiffany's could probably understand why.

Ed Wintle is a single gay man in his early 40s, living and working in Manhattan. Although happy with his nice, orderly life, Ed has a growing sense that something is missing. After frequent phone calls from his at-her-wit's-end sister, he offers to take in her troubled daughter Tiffany, and she eventually takes him up on it. Within the space of eight days, Ed's life is turned completely upside down. This book contains the story of Ed and Tiffany's first year together. Tiffany's home life has been volatile, and while she wants to escape it, that's the only type of environment she knows. Her misguided attempts to recreate it frustrate both Ed and the reader. Ed and Tiffany have had a loving and supportive relationship as uncle and niece, and while the transition from friend to parent is difficult and full of challenges, it is utlimately beautiful and rewarding.

Breakfast With Tiffany is so well written and so well paced, I flew through it. Hours passed and I didn't even notice. (There went my Sunday.) You can probably tell that I loved it. Ed Wintle is a witty, smart and self-deprecating writer who makes you feel privileged to be part of his journey. His humor and warmth invite you in and don't let you leave.