Wallis Simpson has popped up on my cultural radar several times since I first heard her name in the 2010 movie The King’s Speech: Elizabeth Taylor bought some of her jewelry and Coco Chanel partied with her in France. She was born Bessiewallis Warfield in 19th century Pennsylvania but she changed the British monarchy forever. Author Anne Sebba does a mostly excellent job is telling the story of Wallis both before and after her fateful relationship with the future king of England. In one, too […]
Mommy Issues
Gillian Flynn has a dark & twisty mind; and I mean that in the best way possible. As a reporter for a second rate newspaper in Chicago, Camille Preaker returns to her tiny Missouri hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. Camille left home years ago, following the death of her younger sister, an emotional collapse and a stay in the psych ward. Since her escape from rural Wind Gap, Camille has hardly spoken to her overbearing, hypochondriac mother or high school friends. […]
All Dogs Go to Heaven
The Art of Racing in the Rain was recommended to me by an associate at Barnes & Nobel who sold it on the fact that one of the local high-schools banned it because the premise relies heavily on the belief that dogs have souls. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that their official reason (there is a criminal case involving underage sex) is in fact the truth- even if the sex in question is about 3 sentences long. “I’ve always felt almost […]
Oscar Bait
I heard about Still Alice throughout Julianne Moore’s Academy Awards campaign. I’ve always liked to read the books movies (particularly critcally acclaimed movies) are based on- even if I never get around to watching the final film. Still Alice is the story of Alice Howland: a happily married, mother of three. She is a professor at Harvard University whose story is told as her memory declines following an Early Onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. As her memory fades the narration becomes less focused, the passages shorter and […]
Nostalgia for Bridget Jones
Oh Bridget… I felt obligated to read Mad About the Boy from a completionist standpoint. I read the first two novels and saw the movies, it only seemed logical to read the long awaited (was it?) sequel (cash grab) *Eighteen month old spoiler* * * * * Ok, so Mad About the Boy opens with Bridget in a new dating dilemma over her first boyfriend since the perfect Mark Darcy’s death. I get that Fielding had to kill Mark because no would be sympathetic to […]
Murder and Mayhem in the Silent Film Era
My dad is a dork. He loves old movies; my sister & I were raise on Jimmy Stewart and Audrey Hepburn, 50s musicals and Some Like it Hot. I could pay my student loans off with how many times I’ve heard “Clara Bow- what a babe!” I read Mann’s How to Be a Movie Star and knew he was well versed in writing about Hollywood- So a true crime story about a murder during the heyday of the silent film era seemed like a fun […]
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