A Shelf Full of Books

Book shopping haul for the past weekend…

This past weekend we took advantage of nice weather we were having and we went to Portobello Road Market on Saturday to enjoy the stalls and have a lovely meal. Though we’re still in lockdown with restrictions – we have to maintain social distancing as well as wear facemasks – we have been able to enjoy the city more now.

Part of my love of Portobello Road Market is visiting Books for Cooks, a fabulous bookshop in Notting Hill. It’s a shop I found years ago when I visited London for the first time, and have made a point of shopping there each time I make it to London. I then moved to London and was hoping to make it a regular haunt, but I’ve often found its hours difficult and I haven’t been able to go as often as I’d like. Then this past year and a half made it so that I couldn’t visit my favorite spots in London, including Books for Cooks.

I was finally able to go to Books for Cooks and I was thrilled – it’s a great place and I love going there to browse (and shop, of course). I also made my way to the Oxfam bookshop on Portobello Road and got some items, there…All in all, a great haul for the weekend. Here’s what I got over the weekend:

Books for Cooks:

Black and White and the Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant by Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano – Mashama Bailey is the executive chef at the Grey, a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. The site of the restaurant is a former segregated bus depot. I became familiar with Bailey because of the Netflix show, Chef’s Table, and found her story so moving. On the show, she talked about the history of soul food and its relationship with Black history, particularly in a city like Savannah that is so marked by the history of race in America. Bailey is a New Yorker who moved to the South after a career in social work and a stint studying cooking in France before forging an incredible career working at the Grey. Along with Bailey, John O. Morisano was also featured on the episode; I got this book because I thought Bailey was so magnetic and arresting. I’m very excited to read this book.

The Book Lover’s Guide to France by Patricia Wells – I like Patricia Wells writing a lot – I’ve read her work in anthologies of food essays, and I have a couple of her cookbooks. I picked up this used at Books for Cooks, the friendly owner highly recommending this book. It’s a guidebook about spots in France that have the best restaurants, bakeries, cheese mongers. This book was published in 1987, so I imagine that a lot of the entries won’t be relevant anymore, but it’s still a fantastic snapshot of what French cooking looked like in the mid 1980s. I’ve always been fascinated about European culture in the 1980s and 1990s, and have collected books, films, and music of Europe from that time. There are some great photos in there, and once I’m reading the book, I’ll be going through and seeing which places are still open and penciling them for my next visit.

I also got two old magazines from a rack near the shop’s test kitchen. One of the magazines, Slow Ark is a magazine from an organisation that promotes the slow food movement. The other magazine I got was 2000 summer issue of Gourmet magazine (a fabulous, but now-defunct, food magazine that featured some of the best food writing)

Along with these books, I got a lovely tote bag from the owner, as well. I really love Books for Cooks and was really pleased that I was able to make it.

Oxfam

There’s an Oxfam near my home in Chiswick that I go to a lot, but I like going to other Oxfams to see what they’ve got. At the door, there’s a sign that asks folks to leave a bag at the counter. When I walked into the shop, I left my bag with the kind lady at the till, and through our facemasks, I let her know that I was leaving my bag as the door asked.

I then browsed through the store’s great selection – it’s a really great charity shop – and when I got back to the counter to pay for my books, I spotted some books behind the woman and saw Black, White and the Grey and thought, “How funny, someone has donated a book that I just bought.” I then saw a Gourmet underneath it, and thought, “How weird, a Gourmet, too,” and it was then that I realized that it was my stuff. I asked the volunteer about the books and she was immediately apologetic and explained that she thought I was donating; through our muffled voices, we figured out that this was all a funny misunderstanding, and she packed up my stuff.

Move Love: Complete Reviews 1988-1991 by Pauline Kael – I love Kael’s film writing. She was quite prickly and very opinionated and I often disagreed with some of her views (she had a rather dim view of Marilyn Monroe was regularly trashed Candice Bergen), but she was a fantastic writer, one of the best. I have a number of her books, but never heard of Movie Love, so I was excited to pick it up.

They Went Thataway – Redefining Film Genres: A National Society of Film Critics Video Guide edited by Richard T. Jameson – I picked up the book because of its striking Dan Hubig cover. This book is a collection of film essays that engage with various film genres, focusing on films that were definitive of different film genres like comedy or gangster film. The book was published in 1994, so it’d be interesting to see if there were any follow up volumes published with new entries.

Himalaya by Michael Palin – Michael Palin is a great comedian and travel writer who was featured in a great series of travel shows on British television. He’s funny and engaging. I recently watched Around the World in 80 Days which was great. I never read much about the Himalayas – I did go through a brief spell when I read about Everest a lot – but Palin’s funny and thoughtful writing is a great way for me to learn more about this region. The Guardian‘s blurb read “The ultimate armchair travel book” – and that’s a perfect way of describing Palin’s work, a vicarious experience of vacationing around the world from the comfort of your living room. (the edition I have isn’t part of the publishing of Palin’s books that feature a photo of him on a band across the book cover but instead an older version with Palin sitting on a pile of luggage with the Himalayas looming behind him)

Full Circle by Michael Palin – Full Circle is the last in a trio of books Palin wrote about travel during the 1990s, with Around the World in 80 Days being the first. Like the other Palin books, it’s a diary with the guy musing about his travels and what he’s been seeing and confronting during his travels (like with the other Palin book I got, this edition was an older edition than the picture below – the version I got was a BBC-tie in with a trio of pics with Palin, one in a rice field, another with him smiling from the driver’s seat in a dessert, and a nice pic of him in front of a bonfire)

Amazon

I ordered a couple books online, as well. Most of my book shopping now is through charity shops, Waterstones, or going to mom and pop bookshops, but I still order stuff online, as well – particularly if it’s do with my writing (I’m looking to go back to school)

Eat Something: A Wise Son’s Cookbook for Jews Who Like Food and Food Lovers Who Like Jews by Evan Bloom and Rachel Levin – I saw this book on a window display of Books for Cooks months ago. The shop was closed so I wasn’t able to get it, but I was so charmed by the cover which was shot by Maren Caruso (a great food photographer – go visit her website) that I clicked/saved the book in my mind and then got it this past week. I love Jewish cooking and contemporary Jewish history/culture, so this book was a must for me. The book not only has recipes but essays as well, so I’m looking forward to reading it.

Elaine’s: The Rise of One of New York’s Most Legendary Restaurants from Those Who Were There Amy Phillips Penn – I’m looking into contemporary New York culture as a possible part of my PhD work (if I go back to school), so I thought I’d get books about New York food culture, too…I wanted to find books on Zabars and Gristedes as well as Elaine’s as it’s a legendary institution of New York food lore. There are lots of pictures and the book is a bit slim – I’m still on the hunt for something a bit more academic – I’m also looking for something about the Carlyle – but it’s still a seeming affectionate tribute to an important bit of Manhattan culture.

Dolly Parton shares her life story and her genius with ‘Storyteller: My Life in Lyrics’

Dolly Parton is popular music’s answer to Mozart. She’s a prolific songwriter, responsible for penning some 3,000 songs. Her songs have become country or pop standards and she is a legend. Her songwriting has chronicled her poverty-stricken childhood, her deep faith in God and Jesus, her love of humanity, and her strength and iron will as a pioneering performer. Her genius has propelled her into megastardom, with her eventually eclipsing her country roots, making her a single-name superstar who conquered music, film, television, and theatre.

So Storyteller: My Life in Lyrics is an invaluable treasure trove of information on Parton’s inspiration. Going as far back as 1959, Storyteller gives readers fascinating insight to what motivated her to write certain songs. We all know that she wrote “I Will Always Love You” to convince svengali, Porter Wagoner to let her go; “Jolene” was a paean to the town beauty who caught the eye of her husband; “9 to 5” was written during the filming of her movie debut, 9 to 5, to honor women stuck in pink collar jobs. But she goes into details of hundreds of other songs that made her a music giant. And though her image of a smiling, genial singing superstar is enduring, she goes into candid detail of the hardships in her life that led her to write some dark lyrics: issues like health issues, the deaths of loved ones, a grinding poverty that led her father to seek employment in Detroit away from his family in Tennessee and caused her mother to fall into bouts of depression as she fretted about the safety of her family. In Storyteller, we see a Parton that is far more complex and intriguing that the Mae West-like human cartoon we see on television. She writes tunes of despair, suicide, and death. Events like 9/11 marked her writing and though she’s famously apolitical, social justice issues like women’s rights and queerness find themselves in her writing.

What makes Storytelling so great is that it covers the many phases and stages of Parton’s career. We get 70s country Dolly who sang on Porter Wagoner’s TV show. We get late 80s pop star Dolly who found huge crossover success. We get movie star Dolly who parlayed her success and her natural charm and charisma into a legit acting career. We get comeback Dolly, who spent the late 1990s/early 2000s reclaiming her authenticity as an artist and a creative spirit after years of glitz and spangly success. The revered songs like “Coat of Many Colors” or “Just Because I’m a Woman” are covered but lesser-known hits like “Eagle When She Flies” and “White Limozeen” are also covered.

Along with deeply touching passages written by the country diva, we also get some great photographs. Though not exactly a coffee table book, Story Teller is a fabulous photo album of sorts, documenting the many different changes in Parton’s image and career (as well as her physical changes) There loads of family photographs as well as pictures of Parton with her famous friends and costars (the movie star Dolly bits are great – especially fun and dated are her pics with Rhinestone costar, Sylvester Stallone)

Storyteller does a remarkable job in affirming what many have already been saying: Dolly Parton is a creative giant. Her kindness and sunniness comes through in print as her writing reflects her generous spirit and point of view. She’s also a natural wit and a gifted humorist and there are some amusing stories slotted in between the heartbreaking and touching ones. More than anything, the book is a wonderful testament and history of one of pop culture’s most enduring and important figures.

Barack Obama works very hard to shore up his legacy in ‘A Promised Land’

First thing I noticed when I got my copy of Barack Obama’s latest memoir A Promised Land is its heft. At 700 pages it’s a long read. When one discovers that this is just the first of two volumes then it’s clear that brevity is not a priority for the former POTUS. Instead, what A Promised Land does is an in-depth look at the many milestones Obama reached in his life. From his childhood to college, to his time as a community organiser and up-and-coming politico in Chicago, to eventually ascending to the highest office in the world. It would be a dizzying life to read, except it seems as if Obama doesn’t spare a word when writing his book. Though he’s a stunningly gifted author, capable of some really beautiful prose, the book is far too long, indulging in mind-numbing minutia that gums up any momentum. When he covers policy he plunges into so much details, that it feels like a copy of one of his briefing books.

A Promised Land follows the president’s first two books, Dreams of My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006). It’s not as good as those books but it’s far more ambitious. The Barack Obama in 1995 and 2006 is different than the Barack Obama in 2020, a whole term after his presidency. The Obama of A Promised Land is one who is in charge of preserving his legacy, one that has been highly compromised by the election of a man who worked his best to undo all of the work of the Obama administration. It’s written at a very anxious point in Obama’s literary career: he’s missed by millions but his accomplishments have never been more in question.

And Obama is very aware of this issue and he does a lot of writing to explain some of the failures of his administration. A lot of writing. His herculean efforts to wrest the country from a recession in 2008 has been derided by critics who saw the resultant economy benefiting much of the players who destroyed it in the first place; TARP funds have been used for golden parachutes, private jets, and bonuses for bank executives, whilst middle-class families faced foreclosure. Though he ran as an anti-war president, he expanded much of America’s military presence in the U.S., despite dubiously winning a Nobel Peace Prize very early into his presidency. And climate change – arguably the most pressing issue facing the world at the moment – hasn’t been given the attention it deserved, in part, because the president was so busy working on the economy.

Through 700 pages, Obama writes in exhaustive detail about the machinations of the senate and congress, gumming up his efforts, and watering down many of his most ambitious efforts. The book details behind-the-scenes meetings that Obama attends with political adversaries like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and John Boehner. As he writes it, these meetings, whilst contentious, were still respectful, if damning. Much of what befell Bill Clinton’s administration – triangulation and an eagerness to compromise – seems to be a problem for Obama, too. Though he self-identifies as a liberal, even progressive, he doesn’t necessarily eschew certain neo-liberal positions, which explain some of the policy decisions he made (like, for example, giving private insurance companies way too much of a stake in the Affordable Care Act) But a lot of A Promised Land is spent explaining, even defending, his decision. The book is quite defensive at times, as if he’s wounded by the criticism leveled at him by progressive activists, who he sees as principled but perhaps, naive of the intricacies of Washington, DC. Though it may not be intentional, the president seems to be trying to convince the reader – and possibly himself – that any shortcomings of his presidency was because of outside forces like a hostile congress and a growing alt-right populist movement, particularly the Tea Party, that hampered much of his aspirations.

But as defensive as this book tends to read – especially in the latter chapters – it still has some stirring and arresting writing. Obama is a gifted writer, arguably the best political memoirist of the last 40 years. He has an eloquence and elegance to his prose. The emotion and inspiration that is a trademark in his speeches are also present in his writing.

His profundity comes up when he offers his political, cultural, and social philosophy. And to his credit, he’s never stultifying or insufferable. He imbues the beautiful passages of the book with deep and compassionate though, as when he opines of the current global crisis:

“I’m convinced that the pandemic we’re currently living through is both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world, one in which peoples and cultures can’t help but collide…And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed.”

A Promised Land isn’t the best political memoir to come out of the post-Obama America: it’s far too long and at-times, too self-indulgent. But it’s still a worthy tome and one that does a solid job of chronicling a moment of recent American history that was marked paradoxically by hope and fear. Obama’s memoir captures that contradiction. He is a brilliant and astute observer and is able to chart how a country that elected a Black man president twice could also be the country that voted for a racist misogynist right after. Obama drops bread crumbs, starting with Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s running mate in 2008. In her astounding popularity, he saw the seed of the noxious weed that would infect the political discourse. It’s an important moment in A Promised Land because it’s the genesis of the devastating repudiation of not only his work but his mere existence.

‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole – a perennial favorite of mine…

There are a few books that I read annually. Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Another book I read every year is John Kennedy Toole’s comedy classic A Confederacy of Dunces. It tells the story of the ultimate anti-hero, Ignatius J. Reilly, an over-educated misanthrope who blunders through the streets of New Orleans, unable to find his place in society.

The episodic plot has Ignatius going through a picaresque journey that finds him squaring off against the New Orleans police department, a moribund pants company, bitchy gay guys and militant lesbians, and an underground softcore porn ring. Prudish, conservative, and repressed, Ignatius spends his free time haunting movie houses, screaming at the screens, overcome by the perceived lasciviousness of what he’s seeing; or he locks himself up in his room, scribbling out his political and social manifesto on piles of legal pads.

I’ve been reading A Confederacy of Dunces since my freshman year of high school, when I stumbled on it at a bookstore. I gravitate towards comedy novels – I love to laugh whilst reading – and I was hooked on the crazed stories of Ignatius.

A Confederacy of Dunces is an interesting book because it’s quite queer with a significant emphasis on the gay denizens of NOLA. Though Ignatius’ conservatism and piety makes him quite homophobic, he does interact with New Orleans queers quite a bit, even seeing homosexuals as the answer to world peace and the overpopulation problem. Though the novel was published in 1980, he wrote the book in 1963, years before Stonewall and years before the APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. And in Louisiana, sodomy laws criminalized homosexual behavior (which is alluded to in the novel)

And the queer characters aren’t drawn with too much complexity, and yet I found them endearing and couldn’t be offended. Dorian Greene, the book’s main gay character, is a fey, flamboyant party guy who meets Ignatius and his mother at a dive bar. After buying a hat from her, he prances away, only to run into Ignatius later on, charmed by the pirate costume he was wearing to sell hot dogs. Thinking Ignatius would be a great novelty for his party, Dorian invites him under the ruse that the get together is actually a political rally. The other notable queer characters are Timmy, a S&M enthusiast who enjoys being slapped in the face, and Frieda, Betty, and Liz, a trio of hard-drinking boozing lesbians who rough Ignatius up.

Toole treats queerness as simply one of many colorful details that appear in the novel. Yes, it’s sorta equated with drunkenness, vagrancy, and decadence, but there’s a strange lack of judgement or hostility toward the depiction of the gay characters (even though Ignatius is unhappy with gay people) and I find the inclusion weirdly respectful.

The thing about Toole’s writing is that even though the characters are grotesque and terrifying, there’s little judgment. The characters all do terrible things: Ignatius is horribly spoiled, mean to his mother, and hostile to his only friend, activist Myrna Minkoff, and responsible for the possible collapse of Levy Pants; his mother, Irene, is a hopeless drunk; and Angelo Mancuso is an undercover cop whose own misadventures highlight the hypocrisy of the police force.

Even though, I’ve read the book countless times, each time I read it, I find something new. This last time, I found it far more poignant than before. At the end, Ignatius’ life comes crashing down, and his mother essentially gives up. Hoping to avoid being committed to an asylum, he escapes with Myrna, off to New York City for more adventures. I was moved and touched by the character’s perseverance and his optimism, despite his trash heap of a life. Because Irene has finally written Ignatius off, she has one last goodbye with her son, which I found sad and quite tragic. It’s written as a manic episode, madcap with slapstick comedy, but I was surprisingly moved.

I can’t wait to read it next year to see what else I’ll find.

Brian Raferty does a fantastic job writing about his favorite movie year…

For many film critics, 1939 is the best year for films, what with Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, The Women, Stagecoach. According to Brain Raferty, 1999 is right up there with 1939, what with sterling cinematic classics like Election, Boys Don’t Cry, Fight Club, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, among others. Raferty does a great job when writing about how political, cultural, and economical forces influenced Hollywood.

In his book, Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, he spins a fascinating tale of how 1999 saw a plethora of cinema gems that challenged Hollywood conventions. He looks at big budget spectacles like George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (which sported a reported budget of $115m) and The Matrix ($63m) to underdog indie productions like Boys Don’t Cry ($2m) or The Blair Witch Project ($500,000) and how these films collectively altered pop culture in 1999 (do you remember how many people would utter “I see dead people”?)

There isn’t much film theory or criticism in this book, nor do we have lots of production history. Instead, Raferty looks at the films (arranging them in chronological order) and how they found funding, studio support, marquee names, and in certain cases, an after life on DVD and cable TV if box office returns were disappointing. These passages are engaging and very interesting because we get insight from studio executives, film directors, and actors who share histories of how these films were made and the sometimes-circuitous roads filmmakers had to take to make their films. Some of these stories warrant their own books – The Blair Witch Project deserves its own book, as Rafferty recounts how directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez pieced together the infamous horror flick and found studio backing. The ingenious and groundbreaking marketing mounted for the film is brilliant (the film’s actors were essentially sequestered to maintain mystery) Raferty also goes into the significance of inexpensive indie like Blair Witch becoming a phenomenon.

For readers in 2020, Best. Movie. Year. Ever will be profound reading because so much of the political and cultural moments in that year have had strong bearings today. None more so than the repeated allusions to Miramax, the innovative indie studio, headed by Harvey Weinstein, the serial rapist who (finally) was arrested in 2018 after years of predatory behavior. That Weinstein was a force in indie filmmaking in the mid 19990s is undeniable, though it’s still startling to see him cast as anything but a total monster. Raferty also notes a similarity between Election‘s ambitious high schooler Tracey Flick (Reese Witherspoon) and Hillary Clinton, particularly during Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign (though he insists that the comparisons are flattering) And seeing/witnessing the assault on the trans community by the White House makes the passages about Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry especially poignant. And in these times during a pandemic, it seems almost quaint that the world was nervously waiting for the Y2K bug (that never materialized), stocking up on supplies in case anarchy set in.

Even if you don’t believe that 1999 was the best movie year (I don’t), you don’t have to be convinced to enjoy this book. Raferty is a great story teller and has a voice that is at once intellectual and entertaining. The book ends up being not just an exercise in nostalgia but also a smart look at how film and commerce are intersected – and how so much of what makes a movie successful is dependent on outside factors like economy, politics, the national conversation. If anything, Raferty’s book is a great way to start a conversation on other important years in cinema.

Tama Janowitz writes life after fame in her memoir ‘Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction’

Because of Slaves of New York, author Tama Janowitz achieved the kind of fame that usually pop stars, movie stars, athletes, or super models attain. The 1986 short story collection made Janowitz a literary star and she became part of the “literary brat pack” – an informal, media-coined group of authors, largely from the East Coast, whose books largely captured a neon-sluiced, coke-fueled, self-centered tone of the 1980s. At the height of her fame, Janowitz found herself a regular guest on Late Night with David Letterman and briefly became a ubiquitous presence on the talk show circuit. But that fame didn’t last as long as some of her fellow brat packers – Jay McInerney or Bret Easton Ellis – and her following books failed to capture the attention of the literary world as Slaves of New York did. As her book sales shrunk, her celebrity eventually descended, as well. In Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction, Janowitz writes a searing – but oft-funny – story about becoming a literary superstar and then surviving once that celebrity goes away. The years before and after Slaves weren’t easy. Her life was marked with chaos, poverty, mental illness, and familial dysfunction.

For those who remember Janowitz, the image she conjures of a very specific New York City of the mid 1980s. She partied with celebrities like Andy Warhol, appeared in print ads for Amaretto, and in 1989, she saw her book Slaves of New York become a Merchant Ivory film starring Bernadette Peters. As a result, it’s easy to assume that her life was full of money and glamour, but reading Scream, one gets the impression that the author had a wary relationship with her stardom – a wariness that may have been formed by her difficult childhood and adolescence.

For those hoping for a juicy, gossipy tome akin to Warhol’s diaries, Scream will be a disappointment. This book is not a nostalgic look back at the heady days of the 80s. Instead it focuses on Janowitz’s story, which is at once extraordinary and ordinary. While building a successful career as a writer, she also has to contend with difficult parents, both of whom live in old age with mental illness issues. Much of the book is devoted to the exhaustive work of having to care for an elderly and ill parent, as Janowitz is doing her best taking care of her mother who was living her final days in dementia, going through a series of nursing homes.

Her troubled relationship with her mother is the primary story of Scream. A poet and an academic, Phyllis Winer raised Janowitz and her brother Sam, as a single mom in a somewhat hectic and chaotic household. Her father, psychiatrist Julian was a distant, aloof and mercurial figure who seemed somewhat indifferent to being a father. So Winer’s mothering was marked with moments of indecision and disarray, including a brief period when the trio found themselves living in Israel, though eking out a tenuous existence, relying on the generosity of Winer’s parents.

As a young writer, Janowitz lived a life similarly covered in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar or even Jacqueline Sussan’s The Valley of the Dolls. She uses her sharp and quick wit to write about the people she ran into, including Mary Cantwell, editor of Mademoiselle, who gets a particularly withering assessment from Janowitz (the author calls Cantwell “pathetic”). She astutely observes that many people in positions of power in publishing aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or qualified, but the best at BS’ing their way to the top.

The bulk of Scream doesn’t take place in the exciting, pulsing environs of New York City. Instead, most of it takes place in upstate New York, with Janowitz dealing with crumbling homes, grim exurbian supermarkets, and rural America. When she writes about New York, it’s a seemingly small part of her life – even if those on the outside expect it to dominate her narrative. But Slaves and New York City is just one small – though important – part of her whole story, and it’s interesting to read that Janowitz refuses to prioritize her celeb days to pander to readers hoping to read about glittery movie premiers, blue chip art gallery shows, and fashionable night clubs.

Scream is a compelling read – one that is peppered with her humor – but it’s also a sad one. Though Janowitz doesn’t seem to regret the gradual loss of her fame, she does make an important point about money. So much of Janowitz’s stresses were marked by the lack of/need of money. Those who would assume that Slaves would set Janowitz up for life would be mistaken. Too few people are willing to talk about money – it’s seen as unseemly – but she is frank about how difficult her life is because she’s broke. The end of the book ends openly with Janowitz seeing her brother suing her for embezzling their mother’s money whilst she was taking care of her. It’s a startling way to end the book but a fitting one, because so much of her life and career was about trying to handle swirling chaos.

“Eating Their Words: My Love of Food Writing”

An American in London

For a bookworm who overeats, food writing is a fantastic combination. It marries two great passions of mine, yet indulging in it doesn’t stretch waistlines or raise my cholesterol. The best food writing has the ability to reach its readers, stimulating their senses of smell and taste without the benefit of ingredients. And the best food writing isn’t just about food. It’s about history, culture, literature, class, gender, race. It’s about how people live and make do and it’s about how people express their love and affection for each other. Food writing is about friendship and war. Food writing is a great peek into how people relate to each other.

Food was an important part of my childhood as it was for most immigrant children because food was a source of comfort when things got difficult. We didn’t grow up with a lot of money and my grandmother’s cheap, but…

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Stephen Rebello is serving all kinds of hot, piping tea with ‘Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Deep Inside “Valley of the Dolls,” the most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time’

Valley of the Dolls is a sloppy, campy mess of a book that was made into a sloppy, campy mess of a film. Director Mark Robson had a rough assignment. Make something watchable from something patently unwatchable. Though there were lots of great intentions, Robson’s project was doomed. But the film is memorable for reasons that have little to do with the film’s quality. It has a tragic connection to cast member Sharon Tate’s murder; it also is known for being a devastating blip in the increasingly depressing oeuvre of Judy Garland; and the final product has emerged as a much-derided camp classic, one that is endlessly studied, dissected, and quoted by drag queens.

The source material for the film was written by Jacqueline Susann, an author known more for her uncanny ability in selling books than writing them. A vivacious and beautiful woman (who tried her hand at becoming an actress), Susann was also witty and whip smart, appearing on talk shows and being interviewed, offering the public great quotes and a master class in how to peddle nonsense and make it gold. Valley of the Dolls is a roman-à-clef that pulls the life stories of women like Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, as well as form the writer’s life, as well. Coming off as a twisted take Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the story is a rags-to-riches story that also is a cautionary tale of celebrity and the pitfalls of fame. The course, absurd material seemed destined for a film.

Stephen Rebello has written a fun-filled, jam-packed tome of the film’s genesis, filming, and eventual release. Written in a witty, gossipy voice, Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time is a captivated work. The hubris, sincerity, and chaos that marked the filming of the film is so incredible, that it deserves a film of its own. Rebello has done incredible research and has excavated some really fascinating facts about Susann and her spotty relationship with the film. His depiction of the famed writer is that of a plucky, intelligent woman who found success through sheer hard work and drive. He’s not blind to her debits – he readily reports that she’s not a particularly talented or gifted writer – but he pays great tribute to her oversized personality and potent charisma and drive.

But as engrossing as Susann is, it’s the actors that make the book the fun, campy bitch-fest. Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Barbara Perkins, Judy Garland, and Susan Hayward make up a brilliant cast of characters. Each woman brings an astounding amount of baggage to the film: Duke, an Oscar-winning former child actress and TV star, was the biggest star of the trio of young ingenues, and had the most to prove; Tate, the ethereal beauty went into the film having serious conflicts with Robson; Perkins, who auditioned for Duke’s Neely O’Hara character, was worried about being overshadowed by the splashier Duke; a frail and grasping Garland saw Valley of the Dolls as a comeback, but failed to perform and was duly fired; and Hayward, a classy, elegant legend had to contend with what was, frankly, a trashy film. Rebello has a hard task ahead of him: to make some sense out of all these ridiculous backstories that unfolded as the performers were filming their scenes.

Though Valley of the Dolls is lampooned kitsch, Rebello doesn’t reduce the film, or the colorful characters in front of/behind the scenes into a joke. He has a great sense of cinema history and knows how to look at the film in the context of late 60s cinema, a integral moment in American film when the New Hollywood movement blew up the self-imposed sanitized Hollywood of the Hays Code era. The author makes a convincing case for the movie as an important artifact of American pop and camp culture, folding its badness into its legacy. The book is not just a juicy, gossipy series of dishy tales, but also a great insight to the perfect combination of inept players that made a perfect mess of a film.

André Leon Talley charms in his entertaining and engrossing memoir ‘The Chiffon Trenches’

André Leon Talley is a towering figure in the fashion world – an instantly recognizable celebrity who is reliable for a pithy, smart, and cutting assessment of the latest trends, fashion history, or the fashion wannabes who try to make a name in the industry. As a fashion editor, Talley documented some of the most important moments of fashion. He’s known giants and counted some of these icons as personal friends. In The Chiffon Trenches, he tells his story – an incredible journey that takes him from Jim Crow North Carolina, to Manhattan and Andy Warhol’s Factory, to Paris, where he regularly hung out with Karl Lagerfeld. Far from being a tell-all (though there is a lot of juicy dish), The Chiffon Trenches is an absorbing and inspirational story of a man’s ascendance in a cutthroat industry by applying his grit, talent, and ambition.

Anyone who follows Talley and his many media appearances (or anyone who has seen the excellent 2017 documentary The Gospel According to André) knows that he’s an erudite dandy with a biting wit. He applies that wit to his writing, too. He doesn’t spend a lot of ink settling scores or throwing shade at former colleagues, but he’s also very frank when describing the glittery, radiant people who float in his universe. He admires those superstars – names like Diana Vreeland, Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint-Laurent, Anna Wintour, Lee Radziwell, Naomi Campbell are important players in his world. But he’s also wary of their temperament: Lagerfeld and Wintour, in particular, are painted with conflicting and complex colors; though he loves them dearly, their relationships are complicated and fraught with high emotions and capriciousness.

When he writes about the people he loves, he lavishes praise. The high-octane world he inhabits (and creates) means that the people he runs into are extreme, operatic. For much of his career, Talley played a skillful and dangerous game of balancing and appeasing oversized egos. He writes sagely that though he’s very close to Wintour and Lagerfeld, the two colossi are notoriously mercurial when it comes to professional and personal relationships. It’s these oft-precarious relationships that make for some of the most fabulous, but also poignant parts of the book.

Though in person, Talley is often very funny, on paper, he can be quite empathetic and sometimes sad. He writes candidly of his weight gain, and how that and his age has made him lose opportunities in an industry obsessed by beauty and youth. Though his penchant for billowing caftans started as a sartorial response to growing weight, it has since become his patented trademark. But he writes of the industry’s response to his physical transformation with a rueful honesty.

One of the most stirring themes in The Chiffon Trenches is Talley’s identity as a Black queer man in America. He writes movingly about growing up in the South to a hostile mother and befuddled family members, but a supportive grandmother. He also recounts the ugly racism that marked much of his career – when he was reduced to gross stereotypes of Black male sexuality. He also includes a stirring entry about the importance of the Obamas and how their successful road to the White House was so inspirational to him. As he writes, “President Barack Obama and brilliant Michelle Obama gave me a renewed optimism,faith, and a determination to continue to survive with the usual force and fanfare and aplomb I have sustained throughout my life.” These are affecting words, especially given what Talley went through in his career, having his work dismissed because of his Blackness and queerness.

Like most pioneers, Talley stands alone. As he wisely notes “a black man must still be smarter than any white person to ascend to the top of his field.” He has created a career and crafted a public persona that has critiqued fashion and style for the past 50 years. He’s done so with panache and an intellectual acuity. In The Chiffon Trenches, he gives his reader an inside view of the genesis of that brilliant mind.

Reading During the Pandemic

So, normally I would have littered this blog with books I’m reading and books I’ve bought. But the lockdown and being furloughed had made my reading haphazard. I struggled to stay focused, starting books, but then abandoning after a few attempts. I shifted and started reading crime fiction, just to give my brain a bit of a break, as when I was trying to get into reading my research work, I failed to get through the first page.

So I thought I’d share some of the books I read in the past few months (it’s not a lot) and the books that I bought (it’s a lot, I’ve been online book shopping like a fiend)

My reading goals once the lockdown eases is to get back to a better schedule of reading a book a week (which is what I average) and I want to start reading stuff that’s outside my usual taste. I also am working on a few articles, so I’m reading research stuff for those, as well.

I’m currently reading André Leon Talley’s memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, so I’ll be including a review of that book once I’m done….so far, it’s really good and I can’t seem to put it down….

Books read:

Murder, She Wrote – A Little Yuletide Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

Murder, She Wrote – Manhattans & Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

Murder She Wrote – Provence – To Die For by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

So, obviously these books aren’t great literature, but they’re fun, well-written books that maintain the reality of the long-running TV show. Murder, She Wrote is a murder mystery show that ran through the 80s and 90s, starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer who finds herself involved in real-life murders. The books are written by the late Donald Bain, who wrote these books for a long time before he passed away (other writers pick up where he left off)

These books are easy, escapist entertainment. The Yuletide and Manhattans books are Christmas books. That’s another thing that I’ve been doing – consuming all sorts of Christmas stuff during this weird time. The Provence book has Jessica staying in France for a couple months to take a cooking course, but instead having to solve a mystery.

I read these Murder, She Wrote books because they worked to calm me down during “these days.” Despite these books being about murder, the worlds in the books were quaint, easy and cozy.

The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel by Julie Satow.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with New York culture. I love New York history, literature, cuisine. I’m also interested in New York hotel/luxury housing culture, too. I watch Matthew Miele’s documentary on the Carlyle, Always at the Carlyle all the time. I’m in love with the luxe history of that place, and am always listening to Bobby Short records.

Satow’s book about the Plaza is a great book – one of the best I’ve ever read. As a kid, I used to read Kay Thompson’s Eloise books and imagined living in the Plaza, running through the hallways and ordering room service. Satow writes a fantastic history on the life of the hotel – from when it was built to when “45” bought the place and bankrupted it because he’s such a good businessman. What’s interesting about Satow’s book is that even though it’s about the story of the Plaza, it’s also a story about New York City and its labor history, how the city reacted to world events like the Great Depression, WWII, the cultural revolution of the 1960s, 9/11, the Great Recession….It’s such an engaging book…

Katz’s Deli: Autobiography of a Delicatessen by Jake Dell

As I wrote about Satow’s book, I picked up this book because I’m also very interested in the food history culture of New York City. Katz’ Deli is a legendary delicatessen in the city – it’s knit in the popular culture fabric of the city. I love deli food – something I miss dearly living in London…Though we didn’t have Katz’s in Chicago, I loved going to Eleven City Diner, The Bagel Restaurant & Deli, and there were two amazing Jewish delis in Chicago, I always went to, but they no longer are around: Ashkenaz Deli in the Gold Coast and Samuel’s Delicatessen on Broadway. I used to work on Broadway in a candy store/soda shop, and for my lunch, I would wander over to Samuel’s for a cup of matzo ball soup, a pastrami sandwich (this is back when I ate red meat), and celery soda (Dr Brown’s)

Katz’s Deli is largely a photography book with some amazing history about the restaurant as well as a great assessment of its impact on New York culinary culture.

Life at the Dakota: New York’s Most Unusual Address by Stephen Birmingham.

I know, I know, a New York theme is emerging. The Dakota is a legendary apartment building – John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived there, Roberta Flack, Lauren Bacall had a legendary apartment in that building…Roman Polanksi’s horror classic Rosemary’s Baby was based on The Dakota. It’s a great book that gives the history of the building, as well as, sharing neat anecdotes about the building. It’s an older book, it ends at 1979, so I’d be interested to see a sequel that catches us up with the building’s dittos. I’m a big fan of Lauren Bacall and she appears quite a bit in the book, being a very vocal and assertive tenant.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

I joined a virtual book club with A Public Space, a nonprofit literary group and publisher. It was the first time I tried doing a virtual book club, and it was interesting to engage with strangers whom I never saw face-to-face. Writer Garth Greenwell led the book discussion on James’ horror/ghost classic The Turn of the Screw. We read 10 pages a day and then went on social media – in my case, Twitter, and discussed the story.

I haven’t read James’ novella in over 20 years ago. Last time I read it was in high school. It’s a creepy story about a governess who is hired to take care of two kids and she’s starting to think that the family home is haunted. James’ story is a gothic classic and it’s a great example of a unreliable narrator – the governess’ story is told first-person through a manuscript, however, a Christmas party guest named Douglas is reading the story to his friends, but that’s not it – an unnamed narrator, a friend of Douglas is actually recounting Douglas’ reading of the governess’ story – we’re getting the story from three layers….

James is a master at creating tension and creepiness and does an incredible job of subverting and confusing the reader into trying to figure out what’s really happening in the book – what is real, what is imagined…

The discussions I had on Twitter was great and we had some great talks.

The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem by Sandra Tsing Loh.

Sandra Tsing Loh is an incredible performance artist and writer and her book, Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays from Lesser Los Angeles is a classic and I read that book at least once a year. Tsing Loh is also an accomplished musician and I have her piano album.

The Madwoman and the Roomba is interesting because it’s a domestic-focused collection of essays…I think of this book as a hipper Erma Bombeck. She writes about being middle-aged, mother of kids, with a partner who is struggling with his career. She’s very funny and a great writer, and I’ve been following her work.

The Baby-Sitters Club – Baby-Sitters on Board! Super Special #1 by Ann M. Martin

This is an admittedly weird entry in this reading list. But hear me out. My favorite film podcast is I Hate It but I Love It, with Kat Angus and Jocelyn Geddie, two very funny comediennes, who are BFFs. They take on a certain film (or television show) and talk about it, why they love it, and why they hate it….It’s a funny podcast, listening to these two very smart, very funny ladies hash out important – but not canonical – movies of the past twenty years.

So, in one episode, they were talking about the film version of The Baby-Sitters Club that came out 1995. Angus and Geddie gave the film a bad review, but they talked about their affection for the book series, and mentioned this book, so I picked it up and it was a fun read. The story has the girls from the Baby-Sitters Club go on a cruise to the Bahamas and then to Disney Wotrld. There are a few stories that are braided together into a larger story. There is mystery, romance, comedy…all of it…It’s a very good book and I think more adults should be reading it.

Brother and Sister: A Memoir by Diane Keaton.

This is Keaton’s third memoir. I wrote a review for it on this blog.

Books Bought:

Travels As a Political Act: How to Leave Your Baggage Behind by Rick Steves
Cooking with Regis & Kathie Lee by Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, with Barbara Albright.
Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction by Tama Janowitz
Farewell to Fat by Richard Simmons
Sweetie Pie: The Richard Simmons Private Collection of Dazzling Desserts by Richard Simmons
Eat This Too! It’ll Also Make You Feel Better by Dom DeLuise
Battle Beyond the Dolestars by Chris McCrudden
The Missing Madonna: A Sister Mary Helen Mystery by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie
Judas Priest: A Father Dowling Mystery by Ralph McInerny
A Nun in the Closet by Dorothy Gillman
Please to the Table: Book of Russian Cooking by Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman
Entenmann’s Big Book of Baking
Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat by Chrissy Teigen
LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes to Sing About by Patti LaBelle
“Mr Food” Cooks Chicken by Art Ginsburg
“Mr Food” Old World Cooking Made Easy by Art Ginsburg
Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian by Jeff Smith
Martha Stewart’s Menus for Entertaining by Martha Stewart
Sesame Street C Is for Cooking: Recipes from the Street by Susan McQuillan, RD
Cuisine Vegetarienne Francais by Jean Conil
A History of Film Music by Mervyn Cooke
Doing Oral History by Donald A. Ritchie
Scoring the Screen: The Secret Language of Film Music by Andy Hill
Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays
Rachael Ray 50: Memories and Meals from a Sweet and Savory Life by Rachael Ray
Cooking for Healthy Living by Jane Fonda
How to Be Dead: Books 1-3 by Dave Turner
The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century by Amanda Hesser
The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook by Barbara Sinatra and Frank Sinatra
Newman’s Own Cookbook: A Veritable Cornucopia of Recipes, Food Talk, Trivia, and Newman’s Pearls of Wisdom by Paul Newman
Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV by Jennifer L. Pozner
The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups by Ron Rosenbaum
We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezin by Marie Rut Krizkova, Kurt Jiri Kotouc, Zdenek Ornest
Abigail Adams: A Life by Woody Holton
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts
Call Her Miss Ross: The Unauthorized Biography of Diana Ross by J. Randy Taraborrelli
The Martha Stewart Living Christmas Cookbook: A Collection of Favorite Holiday Recipes by Martha Stewart
Death Comes at Christmas by Gladys Mitchell
The Goldbergs Cookbook by Beverly Goldberg with Jenn Fujikawa
Betty Crocker’s Christmas Cookbook
Wolfgang Puck Cookbook: Recipes from Spago, Chinois, and Points East and West by Wolfgang Puck
Entertaining with Regis & Kathie Lee: Year-Round Holiday Recipes, Entertaining Tips, and Party Ideas by Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford with Barbara Albright
In the Kitchen with Rosie: Oprah’s Favorite Recipes by Rosie Daley
Secrets of a Sparrow: Memoirs by Diana Ross
Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Times by Stephen Rebello
Copenhagen Cult Recipes by Christine Rudolph and Susie Theodorou
New York Cookbook: From Pelican Bay to Park Avenue – Firehouses to 40 Restaurants – Neighborhood Gourmets and the Great Chefs by Molly O’Neill
The 2nd Ave Deli Cookbook: Recipes and Memories from Abe Lebewohl’s Legendary Kitchen by Sharon Lebewohl and Rena Bulkin
Concepts in Film Theory by Dudley Andrew
Vile Days: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1985-1988 by Gary Indiana
Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny by Nile Rodgers

This is a crazy long list, I know… This is what happens when you’re trapped in a house for six months. Now, the cinema and music books are for my research/writing (so hopefully I can write them off) and because when I moved to the UK, I had to get rid of a lot of my cookbooks, so I’m rebuilding my library.

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