Books Lately [UPDATED]
Ugh. I feel awful and should call in sick. My nose is running, I'm stuffed up, nasal drainage is in effect so my throat is sore, it's unpleasant.
Lately I've bought up a couple batches of (cheap) books. I love Buck a Book, even though they closed the store in Downtown Providence. Apparently the only branch left in Rhode Island is the one near me. I also had to snatch up a small bunch of books at Book Warehouse at the Wrentham Factory Outlets. Every book in these last two jaunts was about $5 or less after costing at least $11 or so before, and almost good as new. (Sorry, authors. Remaindered books can be fun!)
My earlier trip to Buck a Book garnered Shanghai Baby and William Goldman's Boys and Girls Together.
Shanghai Baby was moving. Gripping. Maybe it was shocking. I'm sure it was. Though banned in its native country, it sure wasn't as shocking as some of the books that have followed it so far. It was wonderful to read what seemed to be a semiautobiographical memoir of a young woman's quest to write ... well ... seemingly, the book I was reading ... (love those mental feedback loops), and her love affair with the city of Shanghai. It was sad to read how the love of her life couldn't be fulfilled. Such drama. Thanks, Kelly, for recommending it.
I have just this week finished the hefty tome Boys and Girls Together. This, too, had its sadness. Goldman, of course, was behind all manner of books on Hollywood and the fairy tale for adults, The Princess Bride. And you know, now that I think about it (for I've just this minute thought about it) now I can see why The Princess Bride had so many backstory exposition sequences -- about Fezzik, and Inigo and so on -- that kind of veered off from the main story at hand, and therefore had to be sliced wholesale when the movie came along. Boys and Girls Together could also be made for the screen; but it's so long it would have to be a miniseries, a la "Tales of the City." And who would want to slice anything away from it? It jumps around just a tad, though. And you'd have to watch every single episode all the way through to know everything and keep up with all the developments. When I was "back West" over Labor Day I noted to my parents about the book that there was so MUCH exposition about the back stories of the four men and one woman who come together in New York City. Now I guess I know why; and yet now that I have finished I will have to re-read this thing (with the knowledge of how it ends -- sadly) so I can come full circle with all the characters. At one point because the book went into such detail about the families of our heroes (Heroes? Tough to say, really, sometimes) it made me want to start filling out index cards to keep track of everyone, everyone's peccadilloes, and motives. Must have been a hell of a book to WRITE too. In the edition I have Goldman's preface presents a good argument for just saying screw the critics' opinions and KEEP WRITING.
(And by the way I see on GMA this morning that Brooke Shields seems to be starring in a new production of Wonderful Town, which is probably about New York City of old, so I'm going to have to look into that...)
Latest trip, to Book Warehouse, garnered several former NYT bestseller-types: Playing with Scissors, The Nanny Diaries,, Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber, Silicon Follies, and Fired, Downsized or Laid Off: What Your Employer Doesn't Want You To Know About How To Fight Back.
Right now I'm reading Playing with Scissors because I loved Augusten Burroughs' Sellevision. Trust me, this one is already far more shocking than anything that happened in Shanghai Baby, starting with what happened when the baby ran under the piano. Eeeeewwwww, and all those sounds of disgust. I suppose once you've written Sellevision how are you going to top it? With this, of course. What a life this man has had, apparently. I feel like saying "Oh, I'm so sheltered," in self-pity. Jeez. I've been reminded in the past few days of the mantra-slash-franchise "Everybody Has A Story" on CBS's "The Early Show" (it may also be on the Evening News too). Remind me to write Steve Hartman and ask him if he ever ran across anybody who didn't want to be on television.
I think I also need to put The Devil Wears Prada or a book like that -- whichever one it is where the young Candace Bushnell/Bridget Jones-type heroine takes on her (female) boss who has taken to making her her personal slave -- on my Amazon list. Maybe it's already there. Birthday coming soon. Also make sure the two, or is it three?, big David Sedaris books are there too, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Those books can only be improved upon by having the author himself read the book on tape.
And going back to "Everybody Has A Story," Boys and Girls Together also brought up a great theme that it basically laid down at the reader's feet close to the end of the book and made it more than obvious:
Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
Which I should put up on my wall.
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[UPDATE: The CBS News website's pages about "Everybody Has A Story" reports it has sometimes taken Steve 44 phone calls to get somebody to agree to tell their story. Impressive.]Labels: Originally published
... Scribbled by Bill T ... 9/21/2004 04:15:00 PM ... 
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