#Red Star over Hollywood Audiobook

[bashsbooks]

The Maddie Diaries Book Review

★☆☆☆☆ ~ 1 out of 5 stars

Like most people who read (or listen to, in this case) books sometimes, I listened to Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died last year (though not recently enough to give it a proper review - sorry!). That was my first audiobook memoir, and it set the bar very high for audiobook memoirs.

By contrast, I just scraped the bottom of the audiobook-memoir barrel with my first one of 2023 - Maddie Ziegler’s The Maddie Diaries. If you’re wondering who that is, I envy your lack of familiarity with the reality TV show Dance Moms, on which Ziegler and her younger sister, Mackenzie, starred as child dancers for several years in the late 00s and early 10s. Like all reality TV, Dance Moms contained drama and strife to a cartoonish degree. Something about watching moms and a dance teacher fight about which little girl is the very best dancer really tapped into the American psyche during the time period in which it was on, though. This show was popular, and it launched Maddie, her sister, and her costars to varying degrees of fame. Due to her role on Dance Moms, Ziegler was picked up as a dancer for the popstar Sia and was a judge for So You Think You Can Dance back in 2016. 

The Maddie Diaries was published in 2017, when Ziegler was fourteen. This is generally a little young to write a memoir, but Ziegler is famous and has had an unusual life, so I thought that perhaps her age was not the biggest red flag. Retrospectively, that was a bit naïve of me. 

First and foremost, The Maddie Diaries is not a memoir. It is half teen self-help book and half an opportunity to brag, with a dash of kissing up to Sia, that is masquerading as a memoir. Every chapter contains an “Ask Maddie” section where generic questions about common teen issues are given to Ziegler, and she gives the blandest and least controversial advice possible for each one. When she is not instructing teens on how to be little angels, she is usually just listing her accomplishments and talking about her interests. While those things should be incorporated into a good memoir, there is no underlying reason why she is talking about these things; they don’t provide conflict or tension.

In fact, this is one of the most conflict-avoidant books I’ve ever read. This is seen most acutely when Ziegler raises the question of whether the drama on Dance Moms is real, no doubt because she knows her readers are curious. She gives a nonresponse about how competition life is stressful, and then she goes back to only focusing on the positive aspects of all the experiences that she has had. Focusing on the positive is a respectable choice, but never saying anything that could be construed as negative makes for a boring book.

I don’t think these issues with The Maddie Diaries are Ziegler’s fault. I don’t know how much of this book she wrote herself, but it seems apparent to me that there was a heavy amount of outside input on what she should and shouldn’t say and a great concern about the possibility of stepping on people’s toes. I think this is the reason why they moved in more of a teen self-help book direction. And I think the reason that they didn’t completely commit to that direction is that Ziegler or someone else involved in the book’s creation wanted to create space to gush about her personal experiences. But those are just my speculations.

Returning to what is in the book, the biggest throughline in The Maddie Diaries, the one thing she keeps coming back to over and over again, is Sia. Sia wrote the foreword to this “memoir,” wherein she praised Ziegler for being a brilliant and talented young woman and notes that she hopes to be a mentor to Ziegler and help her avoid the predation that happens so often in Hollywood. Ziegler returns these praises tenfold within the text, talking about how Sia is like her best friend and her second mom all rolled into one, wishing that the two of them could live together, attending a wedding with Sia, noting how people sometimes call her Sia’s muse, talking about being on tour and in the studio with Sia constantly. When I listened to all this, I texted a friend and said that I cannot tell if Ziegler is being a kiss-ass here, or if she has a crush, or both. Additionally, I have to wonder if Sia’s intentions in seeking out a famous child dancer and getting her involved in all of her projects, from music videos to tours to movies, is as altruistically motivated as Sia claims. 

All that said, I would give The Maddie Diaries 1 out of 5 stars. I don’t recommend reading it. I hope that one day Ziegler produces a memoir that is a little more genuine - I’m sure she would have lots of interesting stories to tell if she were not worried about pissing anyone off or sounding ungrateful. 

[Thank you to @wideeyedreader for giving me feedback on this review!]

[bellaskhakis]

could u pls give some book recs?

ofc ! i’m not sure what kind of books you’d enjoy but here are some of my fav recent reads! the first two books especially deal with some tough issues so i definitely suggest searching up the trigger warnings for the books before reading :)

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Historical Fiction

One of my all-time favorite books! It’s about a fictional band from the 70s, its members, the story of the band, and its eventual breakup. It's written in the style of interviews with the members and is a very easy read. Great as an audiobook as well :) 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Historical Fiction, Romance

I’ve seen recommendations for this book float around for a while and after reading it, I can definitely understand why. It’s the story of a fictional Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo who decides to give a tell-all interview about her life (and seven husbands ofc!) to a relatively unknown journalist. A very interesting read that definitely made me cry. 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Fantasy Fiction, Historical Fiction

Tells the story of Addie LaRue, a French girl who makes a Faustian bargain in 1719 to live forever but in turn will be forgotten by everyone she meets. 

Reading this book genuinely broke my heart and in some ways also fixed it lol. The minute I finished it, I wanted to reread it. Definitely one of my all-time favorite books !

You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle

Fiction, Romance

The story of an engaged couple trying their best to get their partner to break off the engagement. So funny at times, and a lovely story overall. Enemies to lovers romance but in a way, they’re already lovers haha.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Historical Fiction, Romance

This book absolutely ruined me. I was crying my eyes out at 2 am for a solid 30 minutes at least. The story of Greek heroes Achilles and Patroclus. I recommend this book to everyone !!!

A few more books I’ve read over the past year that I also recommend (basically all of them are romance lmao)

A Court of Thorns & Roses Series by Sarah J. Maas - Fantasy Fiction

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne - Romance

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang - Romance 

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston - Romance

Just Like You by Nick Hornby - Romance

The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary - Romance

Fight or Flight by Samantha Young - Romance

[defyomolte523299-blog]

history of audiobooks : Red Star over Hollywood by Allis Radosh, Ronald Radosh | History

Listen to Red Star over Hollywood new releases history of audiobooks on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Get any BOOKAUDIO by Allis Radosh, Ronald Radosh History FREE during your Free Trial

Written By: Allis Radosh, Ronald Radosh Narrated By: Jeff Riggenbach Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks Date: June 2010 Duration: 10 hours 21 minutes

[jamzoom1]

When Movie Stars Turn Action Heroes

Tom Hardy was seemingly made to play an action hero. Making his Hollywood debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down in 2001, Hardy would go on to make appearances in such action packed films as Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), RocknRolla (2008), Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Locke (2013), The Drop (2014), and The Revenant (2015), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2015, Hardy moved up from supporting to starring roles, portraying "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road, both Kray twins in Legend, and Eddie Brock / Venom in the antihero film Venom (2018).

While there’s no doubt that Hardy can certainly play the role of action hero, on one Sunday afternoon in April of 2017 he played an action hero in real life as he chased after, and caught, a thief who had stolen a moped and crashed into a Mercedes. The incident happened in Richmond, London, when two men had stolen a moped and crashed into the car after running a red light. One was apprehended immediately, but when the second fled the scene Hardy sprang into action, chasing down the thief on foot, catching him, and declaring "I caught the c*nt!" before handing him over to the police. Tom Hardy is a force to be reckoned with, for certain.

Looking for some action-packed reads? Visit our online library at www.jamzoom.com for a wide variety of ebooks, audiobooks, music, and more, accessible anytime from your favorite devices.

[therightprometheanfire]

Tag Game

I got tagged by @nerdygingerandproud, y’all!

1. Relationship status:  Single

2. Lipstick or chapstick: Definitely lipstick. I have one in a light pleasant pink and another in a dark red and that last one especially is one of my favorite things.

3. Three favorite foods:  Hmmmm. Burgers (particularly this burger joint back home in VT is just... fucking incredible, my dudes), strawberries, aaaaand I’m gonna go with the steak that my brother makes, because when I was still at home and he was working at the grocery store and tired all the time, he learned what the cheapest cuts of meat in the store that still tasted good were, so he’d bring home five dollar cuts of meat that he’s so good at cooking, and idk, I’ve been missing it a lot lately

4. Song stuck in your head:  this is a weird pull, but when I went home last weekend my brother and I rewatched the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet”, and there’s this bit where Jasper’s singing to the tune of “Theme from a Summer Place” but instead of the lyrics he sings “it’s the theeeeeeme from a suuuuummer plaaaaace, from a summer plaaaace, it’s the theeeeme from a suuuummer plaaaace”, and on and off ever since it has been going in a goddamn loop in my brain

5. Last movie you watched: if documentaries count, an American Masters on Edgar Allen Poe. It was only okay: they were bending over backwards to excuse how Poe was kind of a dick (although he’s not a dick in all the ways we commonly believe him to be, which the documentary was pushing pretty hard, he still married his thirteen year old cousin, so)

6. Top three shows— Classic: I always went more hardcore on classic movies than classic TV shows and my brain is a garbage fire in general, so these will probably be the ones that I remember (some of these I haven’t even seen in ages but remember loving dearly), BUT: Monty Python, most of the early SNL stuff, and The Twilight Zone. I haven’t watched enough Star Trek OTS to call it a favorite, but I’ve seen enough that I like and appreciate it a bunch.  Recent: The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine Nine, and American Experience. Really, any PBS documentary is good with me.

7. Books I’m currently reading:  I haven’t been reading as much as I have been listening to audiobooks, so for audiobooks I’m working on The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore and Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris. The physical book I’m trying to finish is Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd. Queer City is very well written, and pretty interesting, but it advertises as being a history including gays, lesbians, transgender folk, and that it is not very good at it. It’s mostly a history of gay men, and also some lesbians, and a very small amount of trans folk. As a gay male history of London, it’s exceptional, but as far being an all encompassing queer history book, it definitely falls way short of the mark.

8. Last thing I googled:  "queer city book”, because I couldn’t remember the full title or author, and it’s on my bookshelf but I do not have the vision necessary to read the author from here and my comforter is very warm.

9. Time: 5:52 pm

10. Dream trip: God, dudes, I want to travel so bad. I think I answered one of these recently talking about how my next trip I wanted to be to NYC, and that is still true, but as far as dream trip, fuck, man. I would love to do a road trip across the US because I’ve always wanted to do a road trip, but for one thing that costs money, and for another a loudmouthed queer woman traveling on her own across the country is... probably not a good thing to be doing at the moment. But I also really wanna go to Britain. I’m really interested in English and Irish history and would love to travel to see historical landmarks (yes, I would be that tourist), I’ve been a Shakespeare nerd since I was about seven or eight and I’ve always wanted to see a production at the Globe, I have friends in Britain I’d love to see (looking at you, @dont-offend-the-bees and @lavellington).

11. Anything you want:  Gosh. Well, okay. I’d like for the world to not be such a fucking nightmare, and if the US weathers Trump, I would really like for liberals and the left to not dust off their hands and go “yay, we fixed it!”, because getting rid of Trump will not mean “we fixed all the problems that led us here”, and we still have a lot of work to do with racism and misogyny and transphobia and homophobia. Getting rid of the asshole at the top of the system does not mean we have fixed the problems inherent in the system.

That, obviously, is the big one. On a smaller scale,  I’d like to be able to set up a both at craft shows, for one thing, I love crochet and I’d love to be able to showcase it to a bunch of people and have a bunch of people buy my stuff (and definitely validate my yarn habit). I would love to get a book published- I have a couple long term book plots churning, but I think an anthology of poetry and short stories would be good for me. I want to lose some weight cause even though I actually really like being fat, I have arthritis, and the less weighing on my joints, the less I’ll be in pain. Kind of foiling that last wish, I really want a plain untoasted bagel with a smoked salmon schmear from the cafe about eight minutes from me.

All right, I’ve definitely fuckin talked enough, let’s get tagging. I’m supposed to tag fifteen people, but I always struggle with hitting the exact number, so I’m gonna do my best and if y’all feel like doing it, go for it.

@dont-offend-the-bees, @klaudiart, @princessparadoxical, @punkpuppydragon, @singlemaltantiseptics, @lavellington, @elijahwoodnot

[traceydyer]

[PDF Download] Big Red - Jerome Charyn

Download Or Read PDF Big Red - Jerome Charyn Free Full Pages Online With Audiobook.

  [*] Download PDF Here => Big Red

[*] Read PDF Here => Big Red

 Since he first appeared on the American literary scene, Jerome Charyn has dazzled readers with his ?blunt, brilliantly crafted prose? (Washington Post). Yet Charyn, a beloved comedic novelist, also possesses an extraordinary knowledge of Golden Age Hollywood, having taught film history both in the United States and France.With Big Red, Charyn reimagines the life of one of America?s most enduring icons, ?Gilda? herself, Rita Hayworth, whose fiery red tresses and hypnotic dancing graced the silver screen over sixty times in her nearly forty-year career. The quintessential movie star of the 1940s, Hayworth has long been objectified as a sex symbol, pin-up girl, and so-called Love Goddess. Here Charyn, channeling the ghosts of a buried past, finally lifts the veils that have long enshrouded Hayworth, evoking her emotional complexity?her passions, her pain, and her inner turmoil.Charyn?s reimagining of Hayworth?s story begins in 1943, in a roomette at the Hollywood Hotel, where narrator

[papermoonloveslucy]

DESI DISCOVERS!

June 30, 1974

BY BEN FALKE, Sunday Group Writer 

Who says they never come back? At 57 and in better physical condition than he's been in for years, Desi Arnaz has finished a pilot which he hopes NBC will convert to a prime time series. 

The show is called "Dr. Domingo” and it's about a doctor in a small northern California town who adds to his income by acting as the local coroner and medical examiner. 

"He's a cross between Marcus Welby and Columbo," says Arnaz gleefully.  If "Domingo" never makes it as a series, Arnaz has four or five other projects in his hopper more than enough to justify the rent on his office at Universal, just around the corner from Lucille Ball Productions. (1)

Desi, who invented television reruns and syndication of hit shows, feels he still has some contributions to make to the medium he did so much to shape 25 years ago. 

MENTION ARNAZ' name and most people think first of "I Love Lucy," those 180 merry half hours which, ever since they went into syndication, have been showing somewhere in the world virtually every hour of every day. A New York critic complained recently that one station in that city was showing "I Love Lucy" reruns five times a day! 

Those who remember TV credit lines also recall Arnaz as the producer and occasional director of "The Untouchables," another series with gargantuan longevity. (2) Then there was "Desilu Playhouse," a quality anthology series which introduced many top film and stage stars to the small screen. Not to mention shows like "December Bride," "The Mothers-In-Law," "Guestward-Ho," and others whose ghosts still enliven daytime television. 

"I quit the business in 1960 because it got to be a monster," Arnaz recalls now. (Actually, he says it "beez-ness" his Cuban accent still as thick as ever). 

"At the beginning, It was fun but when you art in charge of three studios, with 3,000 people and 35 sound stages working all the time, the fun is long gone." 

He and Lucy, after many stormy off-camera scenes, were newly divorced then, so Arnaz moved quietly out of Los Angeles to breed horses farther south, in Del Mar, and to fish and build a showplace hideaway house at Las Cruces in Baja California. He married again in 1967, to a non-show biz lady who shared his love of horses, and he even found time to teach a course in television at San Diego State College. (3)

DESPITE THE FACT that he is (he says) far from the multi-millionaire which all those reruns of "Lucy" and "The Untouchables" might lead you to suspect, Arnaz claims that it isn't money pressure that's bringing him back to work now. 

“I'm okay for money if I don't live too long," he says with a chuckle. "The funny thing is that I never really cared that much about making money just for the sake of making money. I wanted to be able to take care of my family and to live well which I've done. The rest you never see anyway." 

What prompted this particular comeback was a call from MCA-Universal boss Lew Wasserman last Christmas. "Lew used to be my agent when I first came out to Hollywood in 1940," Arnaz reminisces. "To show how low he was on the totem pole in those days, he used to pick me up at my house every morning and drive me to work and I was only making $1,500 a week! 

"But Lew called me last Christmas and said, 'What are you going to do - play golf and fish for the rest of your life? Why not come to Universal and develop one show at a time? We'll handle all of those administrative details that you hate you just concentrate on the creative end.' 

"Well, that sounded very appealing. I already had the idea for 'Dr. Domingo' from an old paperback mystery that somebody left in our Baja house, and to tell the truth, I was beginning to miss show business. After all, I've been in it since I was 16!" 

SO NOW this onetime boy bongo player (4), bandleader and star of many a film musical before he and Lucy developed TV situation comedy, is back behind a producer's desk. 

"Television comedy has changed a lot since we did 'I Love Lucy,'" he admits. "I don't think you could do a show like 'Lucy' now but some of the things we learned from doing it are still important. "You still have to have a viable premise, not only for the series as a whole but for each individual episode. 

"You also need a cast that works together to produce a kind of chemistry. The audience has to like them as people as well as characters in the show. 

"That's where we were so lucky with 'Lucy.' I found Vivian Vance playing a prostitute in a play in La Jolla (5) and signed her up on the spot. Then I said to myself, 'What have you done, you mad Cubano? Suppose Lucy doesn't like her?' Luckily, they got along splendidly from the start it could have been a disaster." 

How did he invent the rerun? 

"I didn't do it on purpose, I swear," he says jokingly. "I never even allowed reruns of 'Lucy' during the summer which was only 13 weeks in those days. But the reruns got started because we made the big decision to do the show on film instead of doing it live the first time anybody had thought of it. 

"They wanted us to do the show live in New York in front of an audience. Lucy works best in front of people. But we didn't want to move to New York; we had just bought a new house and we liked it in California. 

"When CBS bought the show, they gave us a total budget of $19,500 a week -  you can't even hiccup on television for that now. I said to them, 'Let us film the show in California, that way you'll have a much better quality print... and we can stay here.'  

"They wanted to know how much more it would cost that way; I had no idea so I picked a number out of the air - $5,000 more a week. Now Lucy and I had been getting $5,000 a week between us, plus 50 percent of all rights in the show. 

"CBS came back and said okay, they'd give us the extra $5,000 if we would take a salary cut to $4,000 a week. Again out of the blue, I said, 'Okay but then we have to own 100 percent of the show' never thinking they'd say yes. But they agreed, and we wound up owning everything." 

ASIDE FROM such show business triumphs, Arnaz gets most pleasure from talking about his family his daughter Lucie, and son Desi Jr. 

Desi Jr. began his film career with "Red Sky at Morning"; his latest picture is "Billy Two-Hats." (6)

"I always' knew Desi would make' it," his father says now, "but Lucie was always so stiff and shy when we brought her on the show that I thought she'd be a teacher or something. I never dreamed she'd want to act. But she has just landed the lead role in the touring company of 'Seesaw,' so big things could be happening for her, too." (7)

Arnaz is currently putting his life together into a book, for which he reportedly is getting a $125,000 advance. (8) Despite the stormy scenes he and Lucy used to have when they were married, he says it won't say anything bad about his former wife, co-star and business partner. 

"We're friends now," he insists. "We gave a little family party for young Desi on his 21st birthday last year. I looked over at the two kids standing together and said to Lucy, 'If we never did anything else, that makes it all worthwhile.' And she agreed."

#   #   #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) “Doctor Domingo” did not become a series.  The character was introduced on an episode of “Ironside” titled “Riddle at 24,000″ as a ‘backdoor’ pilot.  It aired March 14, 1974. 

(2) Desi was never credited as director of any episodes of “The Untouchables”. That doesn’t mean he didn’t step in or assist, as he did on some episodes of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”, but he was never credited. 

(3) On March 2, 1963, Desi married Edith Eyre Skimming Mack Hirsch aka Edie in Las Vegas, Nevada. The remained married until her death in 1985, just a year and a half before Arnaz’s passing. 

(4) Conga drums, not bongos. This is a frequent error by journalists. 

(5) Vivian Vance was appearing in the 1943 John Van Druten play “The Voice of the Turtle” at La Jolla Playhouse. Vance had also appeared in the play in the mid-1940s when she had a nervous breakdown, and had to leave the cast.  She played Olive Lashbrooke, described as “a promiscuous, worldly girl, questioning the practicality of the lessons in chastity she received as a child and wondering if she is alone in her passion.”  Vance, who had Broadway credits, did not appear in the Broadway production. When the film was made, Olive was played by Eve Arden.  Vance acted opposite KT Stevens, who played Mrs. O’Brien (the new tenant plotting to ‘blow up the capitol’) on “I Love Lucy.”  In some productions, Hayden Rorke (Mr. O’Brien) also appeared in the play. 

(6) Red Sky at Morning was released in May 1971. Desi Arnaz Jr. won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer, Male. His character was named Billy...

Billy was also his character name in Billy Two Hats, released in March 1974. 

(7) Lucie Arnaz has stated that she never appeared on “I Love Lucy.”  Desi is probably referring to her early appearances on “The Lucy Show” as Cynthia, a character seldom seen but often spoken about.  From Hartford in April 1974 to Los Angeles in September 1974, Lucie toured the Broadway musical Seesaw to a dozen cities with John Gavin and Tommy Tune. 

(8) Desi Arnaz’s autobiography was titled A Book.  It was first published in 1976 by Warner Books. It covers Desi’s life up until 1960.  In 2018, an audiobook was released read by Juan Pablo Di Pace. 

[61below]

20 Questions!

Rule: answer the questions and tag 20 to get to know them better!

Tagged by @thehalfdesertedstreets

Nickname: Q

Gender: ...N/A? My gender’s kind of just along for the ride. Periods suck tho.

Star sign: Gemini/Dragon

Height: 5′2

Time: 8:47

Birthday: May 21st

Favourite bands: Mumford & Sons, Florence + the Machine, the Oh Hellos, Rage Against the Machine, Children of Bodem, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Sleeping at Last

Favourite solo artists: uh... Bey, Lorde, Sufjan Stevens, Hozier, (does Eric Whitacre count as a composer?) this local singer Colleen Myrhe ohmygoshhh

Song stuck in my head: Green Light-Lorde

Last movie watched: ...oh gosh, I had to think. Star Wars TLJ

Last show watched: I...don’t remember? Watching shows pings my anxiety in a dumb, incomprehensible way so I mostly listen to audiobooks/podcasts/use the accessibility function on my phone to listen to fic while I drive/do housework/knit

When did I create this blog: 2012, I think? Hey Darcy Lewis fandom, ilu

What do I post about: Check Please, economic/social justice, politics, lifehacks, fiber arts, more Check Please, a handful of other fandoms, asexuality/trans/queer stuff. I keep a few niche sideblogs, one ‘negativity-free’ aesthetic blog (beautiful things: scenery, things soothingly arranged, fiber arts, some stim-vids) and the other NSFW

Last thing I googled:

Do you get asks: I apparently do??? But I only use mobile and holy good gravy the notifications’ system here sucks cockroaches bc I had asks I had no idea about! (Sorry folks)

Why did you choose your URL: Back in the 90s the township near mine lost the record for 2nd coldest temp recorded in the Lower 48 (-64°F) because their official thermometer froze and NOAA wouldn’t accept their other reading. So the town up the road got it. I remember watching my sister throw boiling water out the back door to watch it turn straight to steam.

Following blogs: (hold please...) 424!

Favorite colors: Green, more green, brighter green wait wait no I have an idea, MORE GREEN NEXT TO GREEN (specifically: MadTosh TML ‘Shire’)

Average hours of sleep: hahahaha 5-6 from start to end, but if I ever sleep through the night it’s a miracle

Lucky numbers: numbers and I don’t really get along. ...21 and 28? These seem to pop up all the time

Instruments: none, but I’m a vocalist who’s sung from tenor to 1st soprano

What I’m wearing: LulaRoe leggings and tunic, bc Fuck It if I have to sit at a desk all day, I’m going to be comfy

How many blankets do I sleep with: one

Dream job: published author fighting Hollywood over requests to edit to my scripts that mess with characters I would defend to the death / alpaca farmer

Dream trip: Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Slovenia, Finland, then a cruise through the fjords of Norway, and a few days in Iceland on the way back

Favourite food: sesame chicken, mongolian beef, lasagna, shrimp Alfredo, fresh chocolate chip cookies dunked in raw milk freshly got from the dairy farmers up the road, ...homemade bread still warm from the oven smeared with my own juneberry-chokecherry jam ohmygodfuckkk fuck this food sensitivity nonsense! I’d say fuck it again but I am literally covered in hives.

Nationality: Finnish/Bohunk American

Favourite song right now: Begin and Never Cease-the Oh Hellos (shush I know it’s a Christmas song but it’s so good!)

If you’d like to do it, then please do! No pressure if you feel like passing

@vateacancameos @silksocks @twistedingenue @tundramor @melifair @missmuffin221 @hildyj @desert-neon @heirsoflilith @jaradel @tokyotheglaive @totheshipsthatneversailed @tiptoe39 @stultiloquentia @usedkarma @yoursummerfrost

[kattra]

What I’m Reading

BOOKS OF OCTOBER The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Carr, O’Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own by Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall (NF) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood ** Celtic Myths by Miranda J. Green (NF) Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected by Erica Jong (P) Ash by Malinda Lo Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson ** The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay ** A Season With the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts by J.W. Ocker (NF) Replica by Lauren Oliver I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (AB) One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul (NF) ** The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy Flight Vol.1 edited by Kazu Kibuishi (GN) Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

currently reading: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist (NF) Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett* ** The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World by Nancy Jo Sales (NF) The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston

(196 books read / 200 books goal)

* - re-read // ** - 4+ star-rating on my goodreads (recommended) GN - graphic novel // NF - non-fiction SS - short story collection // P - poetry AB - audiobook

TBR: The Young Elites* // The Rose Society // The Midnight Star by Marie Lu Heartless by Marissa Meyer Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple Life of Pi by Yann Martel Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss (NF)

WHAT ARE YOU READING? :D

[aion-rsa]

The Handmaid’s Tale: How Will Margaret Atwood’s Book Sequel Affect the TV Show?

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Margaret Atwood’s Testaments, out this September, is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. What is its relationship to the TV series?

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This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

As Game Of Thrones proved, when a TV adaptation overtakes its source material, problems can follow. Invention and expansion is required, but, even with the blessing of the original creator, on-screen continuation of a story is often treated by fans as unwelcome and non-canonical.

When Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale arrived in 2017, its first season covered the expanse of material from the very start to the very end of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel (epilogue aside, it closed on the same final image). For seasons two and three, the show expanded the dystopian world of Gilead, a fundamentalist patriarchal regime that, among other delights, forces fertile women into sexual servitude as 'Handmaids' to the ruling classes, and kept the story going beyond the reach of the book.

Now, with The Handmaid’s Tale renewed for a fourth season, and a sequel to the original novel arriving mid-way between seasons three and four, where does everything stand? 

What do we know about Testaments?

Publication date: Sept. 10, 2019

Published by: Penguin

Announced in November 2018, Testaments is Margaret Atwood's sequel to her 1985 modern classic The Handmaid’s Tale. It joins the story 15 years after the events of that novel. (A framing narrative for the original in the form of a fictional academic paper presented on the historical period of Gilead extends 200 years after those events, so technically, the sequel is filling in a gap instead of branching entirely out anew.)

Testaments' cover art (see above) was designed by artist Noma Bar, whose simplified designs contain hidden images, such as the ponytailed girl forming the collar of the cover star Handmaid. The back cover reverses the two images, with the Handmaid concealed among the ponytailed girl's clothing.

read more - The Handmaid's Tale: The Baby Nichole Crisis's Real-World Parallel

The new novel will have three different female narrators, Atwood has confirmed, though their identities remain under wraps. The sequel was inspired by everything readers have ever asked the author “about Gilead and its inner workings,” and by “the world we’ve been living in,” according to the Penguin press announcement. It will be unconnected to events in seasons two and three of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (which makes sense as they take place in the time directly after the end of the original, and Testaments is set a decade and a half later on). 

When asked by the LA Times why she was writing a sequel, Atwood explained that she’d been asked questions about Gilead by readers for 35 years. “It’s time to address some of the requests.” 

The Trump administration too, was part of her explanation. Atwood described herself “like all Canadians” watching US politics and thinking “What kind of shenanigans will they be up to next? What’s gonna happen next? I’ve never seen anything like it, and neither has anybody else. On one hand, it’s just riveting, and on the other hand, it’s quite appalling.” True and true.

Testaments isn’t Margaret Atwood’s first addition to her original novel

In 2017, an “enhanced edition” of The Handmaid’s Tale audiobook - as read by Claire Danes in 2012 - was released. This version by Audible not only added snippets of music in between chapters (to represent the cassette compilation tapes over which Offred recorded her story in the original novel), but also extended the epilogue. 

read more: The Handmaid's Tale Season 3 Depicts a Seismic Shift in Gilead

Originally, The Handmaid’s Tale novel ends with the ‘transcription’ of a fictional conference paper presented by an academic researcher in Gileadean studies, 200 years after the events of the story. It’s a sly, satirical piece of writing that concluded with the line “Are there any questions?” In the 2017 edition, questions are asked. Audience members – one voiced by Margaret Atwood – ask speaker Professor James Darcy Pieixoto a series of points about his paper and the workings of Gilead. During the Q&A, there’s even mention of the historical discovery of Aunt Lydia’s logbook from the era, which turned out to be a hoax. The session ends with a tease for the sequel, as the Professor tells his audience “I hope to be able to present the results of our further Gileadian investigations to you at some future date.”

On September the 10th this year, that’s exactly what's going to happen.

What is Atwood’s relationship to The Handmaid’s Tale TV show?

Atwood is a Consulting Producer on Hulu’s TV adaptation of her novel, which doesn’t mean, as she told Toronto Life back in April 2017, that she has the final say in story or otherwise, but that she’s part of the conversation: “It means that the only person who knows what the characters had for breakfast is me. I’m the historical consultant.”

Showrunner Bruce Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2018 that Atwood “plays a huge role” in the series as “the mother of us all.” 

“She was in the writers' room very early in the season,” said Miller about the second season. “We've been talking throughout, and she's been reading everything. She's very involved. She's our guiding star, and always has been.” 

The team’s goal, he explained, is to “make sure the "Atwoodness" of the show stays front and centre. Even though we're going beyond the story that's covered in the book, in some ways, we're still very much in the world of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.”

In the season one premiere, Atwood had a dialogue-free cameo as an authoritarian Aunt who strikes Elisabeth Moss’ June during her training at the RED centre, where Handmaids are prepared for their postings:

%u201CI even did a cameo%u2014I got to whack Elisabeth Moss over the head%u201D: @MargaretAtwood on The Handmaid%u2019s Tale https://t.co/l9tmnT3Oke pic.twitter.com/YvMuugvNRv

— Toronto Life (@torontolife) April 26, 2017

Speaking to The Independent in June 2019, Miller confirmed that he is is regular contact with Atwood. “She reads all the scripts. She sees episodes, and so she feels the same way, I think – that it’s a good extrapolation of her world.”

So the expanded Gilead of seasons two and three, which travelled to the Colonies and the Econovillage, locations only mentioned in passing in the original novel, will not influence Testaments.

Seasons two, three and four of the TV show continue to draw from the book

Though The Handmaid’s Tale TV show outran the novel by the end of season one in terms of timeline, elements from the book are still being used up by  the television series. In season two, the first “Prayvaganza” was staged, a Gilead ceremony from the novel in which girls as young as fourteen are married off to men in a mass ceremony. 

In season three, viewers first witnessed the act of “particicution” by hanging as described in the novel, in which multiple Handmaids pull on ropes joined to one set of gallows, as a form of “salvaging.” Also in season three, June discovers and records a message on a compilation cassette in the basement of her latest posting, as a reference to the tapes on which Offred’s original testimony was discovered in the novel.   

Speaking to The Independent in June 2019, showrunner Bruce Miller described how June’s season three inner monologue line about her mother always wanting a "women's culture" and Gilead has created one, but not the one she envisaged, was taken straight from the book. “We spent kind of three years teasing that quote apart,” said Miller. “We have quotes from the book up all over the place."

So even though the timeline has strictly run out, we can expect details from the novel to emerge for exploration in future seasons of the TV show, and presumably the same will apply for Testaments.

Testaments will make the TV show harder to write

Speaking to The Independent about the relationship between the original novel and the TV adaptation, showrunner Bruce Miller brought up Testaments. “But now Margaret’s writing a sequel,” he said, agreeing that would make it “interesting”. 

“The degree of difficulty was 10 and now it becomes 10 plus,” said Miller. Navigating the expanded world of Gilead he and his team have created while remaining truthful to the vision Atwood lays out in Testaments will be some balancing act.

How many seasons will the TV show go on for?

Season four of The Handmaid’s Tale is expected to arrive in 2020. According to a very early plan by showrunner Bruce Miller, there would then be a further six seasons still to go after that. Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that he had originally “roughed it out to around 10 seasons”, but has since confirmed to Mashable that there is no exact target in terms of the number of seasons, more a narrative point he wants to reach.  

“The ideal for the show's longevity is that when it's done there's something kind of nice and perfect that you can put on the shelf next to the book as a companion piece, said Miller. “There is no number, and considering that seasons can get longer and shorter has made that even more meaningless.”

Miller told Mashable he wants to take the story all the way to Gilead’s own version of the Nuremberg Trials after the fall of the regime, when Serena and Commander Waterford are forced to answer for their crimes. “We can go on for a very long time,” he promised.  

Keep up with all our The Handmaid's Tale season 3 news and reviews right here.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature

Books

Louisa Mellor

Jul 31, 2019

The Handmaid's Tale

hulu

Margaret Atwood

from Books https://ift.tt/310hK26

[lainahastoomuchsparetime]

There are four threads for this part of this series, so there’ll be four blog posts (plus a bonus one that isn’t about any plot or content, but just me making jokes for like 10 minutes.)

Warning in advance that these will be pretty image heavy as obviously I took a lot of screencaps because movies are a visual media. Without the visuals, they’re just audiobooks.

(Link to Twitter thread.)

Let’s talk about the 1934 Anne of Green Gables by RKO Radio Pictures!

But first some history.

The first Anne of Green Gables adaptation was a silent black and white film starring Mary Miles Minter who honestly seems like she was a super interesting person. Her wikipedia page was really neat to read.

Now, it’s said one of Montgomery’s inspirations for Anne look-wise was Evelyn Nesbitt, and personally in this aspect, I can see why they cast Minter.

See this picture of Evelyn Nesbitt:

Source: Theatrical Cabinet Photographs of Women (TCS 2), Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University.

And here are two pictures of Minter:

  (Look who learned you can make little collages on wordpress so pictures can be next to each other! Boy, that’s gonna come in handy later.)

Minter has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. I’d like to see that some day.

As a silent film star, much of Minter’s work has been lost to time. As much as 75% of silent film has been destroyed by fire, purposeful destruction, and poor storage leading to decay.

The 1919 silent film adaptation of Anne is considered one of these lost films, which is a shame. However, you can watch a clip of what’s been recovered by Jack and Linda Hutton here on youtube

If you’re ever around Muskoka, Ontario, I’d suggest checking their museum, the Bala’s Museum, out. Since it’s the 100th anniversary of the film, they’re doing a special exhibit this summer about it.

Also if you’re ever in the area, and you hit up their giftshop, I will legit pay you back + the shipping if you send me the DVD they’ve made of the 1919 movie XD (Editing Laina: I’m seriously considering buying this.)

While I find this a fascinating piece of history, Montgomery HATED the 1919 movie. They didn’t seem to tell her it was being made (her publisher wasn’t good – there were later long legal battles) and she only found out about it when her cousin saw it. Her cousin hated it, she hated it, and I don’t think it was too popular in general. Montgomery especially hated that they changed the setting from P.E.I. to New England.

New England.

Sorry, America, you can’t have our Anne.

Apparently there were a lot of other odd choices, too, including a pet chicken, a skunk, American flags, and… an angry mob that Anne fended off with a shotgun?

Some um. Interesting choices indeed.

Montgomery also said Minter was “very dainty, very pretty and utterly unlike my gingerly Anne.” Keep that in mind as we go through adaptations, perhaps.

Back to 1934, though. This version stars Dawn O’Day, who took on “Anne Shirley” as her stage name. Can you imagine that today? It’d be like Daniel Radcliffe deciding he was going to be called Harry Potter the rest of of his life.

Going forward, when I need to refer to the actress, I will call her “Shirley” similar to how I’m referring to the author as “Montgomery”. I want to respect her wishes about what she wants to be called, but calling her just Anne would be confusing lol. Or, what she wanted to be called, since she did sadly pass away in 1993, but I still want to respect that.

She also has a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. That’d be a fun trip, finding all the Anne’s through time on there

Shirley was also a very interesting person. She would later in her career be in a movie called Murder, My Sweet, her last role before retirement at age 26, which was one of the first film noirs and influenced so many that came after it. She also has some interesting history that links her to the Hollywood Ten which I don’t really know about all of that business, but if you ever need a school project or something, it seems really interesting to read about.

We open the film with a lot of beeping and a film company logo I didn’t recognize. “A Radio Picture” or RKO Pictures, was a big company in this time period, but I’m clearly not an expert in 30s film.

Seriously though there was a lot of beeping. I was wearing earbuds the second time I watched this and it was a lot.

I do love the full credits before the movie starts. I love old Disney movies that do that, too. Funny how long they used to be, isn’t it?

The credits roll over some… tbh, somewhat grainy images of a rural area. It is an 85 year old film so, you know. I’m working with the best I can get, but I’m not particularly wowed by the scenery.

Then we move to a pretty little house with a young blonde girl cutting flowers outside. A tall, thin woman with dark hair opens the window and tells the girl, Diana, to look at something.

Wait, Diana? I mean, okay. She could be visiting Mrs Rachel Lynde.

The woman points out to Diana that Matthew Cuthbert is driving by, and Diana says, “Yes, Mother.”

Excuse me, Mother?? Who is this person?????

Well, Diana’s mother wonders where Matthew’s going and says he never goes to town this time of year, never visits anyone, and is too dressed up to just be going for a drive. He also isn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor.

Here we take a minute to pause and ask wtf did this movie do to poor Diana? Why is she blonde??

  The mystery woman says she won’t “have a moment’s peace of mind til I find out from his sister Marilla”. Smooth dialogue there, movie.

We go right into Green Gables’ kitchen where Marilla is polishing silver at the table. She says, “Good morning, Rachel” and asks how everyone at the Barry house is.

Wait. She’s Rachel BARRY?? I… I’m going to need to come back to that.

Honestly this casting surprised me a little. The actress playing Marilla does not fit her physical description of being tall and thin. As Luce said, if you just saw this screencap, you’d probably think the one on the right Marilla and the one on the left Rachel.

However this actress is an amazing fit for Marilla and she’s probably my favourite casting choice in the whole movie. She’s a little prickly and very brisk, but it works great. Ability over appearance being true here. No, she doesn’t fit the physical description of Marilla from the book, but she really does embody her wonderfully.

The talk goes very similarly to how it did in the book: they’re adopting a boy from Nova Scotia to help out as Matthew’s getting older and having heart troubles. The dialogue here is basically straight out of the book.

However, there’s a really out of character line when Marilla offers Rachel a cup of tea, and Rachel replies, “Now, how can a body drink tea when they’re so excited they’re about ready to burst?” That’s really more of something ANNE would say.

Orphans are risky, styrchnine in the well, it’s all very book accurate over all, and the movie takes us out to Bright River.

Honestly I like this set. It looks how I pictured the train station.

The station master says a girl has been dropped off, and Matthew is confused as he was expecting a boy.

And honestly, again, this is a good shot. She looks so alone.

I’ve now given this movie like three compliments. This is where that ends.

Anne introduces herself and my first complaint is that I don’t love this casting. First of all, every actor in this movie is American and they don’t sound right. It’s all like… 30s Hollywood. Which I believe is a mid-Atlantic accent, or like an “affected” accent. If you’ve ever seen Wizard of Oz, it’s kind of like how Judy Garland talks in that. It doesn’t fit the setting.

Second, as Montgomery said of Minter… Shirley is a bit too perfect for me. She’s very pretty and very chipper and perky. Just doesn’t do much for me as an Anne performance.

Third, what is this hair????? Why do the ends look like that??

Fourth, she is not 11. This is a 17 year old playing a 14 year old.

One of my big problems with this movie is that the interactions between Anne and Matthew just feel… off. I think a lot of it is honestly aging her up while keeping her behaviour the same.

And I don’t like the actor playing Matthew. I’m sorry, but he’s kind of creepy.

Matthew agrees to take her home, though with different dialogue. In the book, he’s mostly silently like, “Need Marilla to fix this.” And just apologizes for being late. In the movie, he says, “I guess it’ll be alright.” No, it’s not the biggest change in the world, but his whole performance is off so I’m nitpicking.

She talks his ear off on the drive home, as expected. They pull dialogue from the book, but again Shirley being so much older makes it a little odd. It’s very child-like stuff and it doesn’t seem the same coming from a near-adult.

I do like them including Matthew saying he doesn’t mind if she talks. That’s one of my favourite lines.

Interesting film history note! The background of the driving scene is greenscreened. This is a pretty early example of greenscreen/chroma keying. This studio was a pioneer in the technology. It’s not too obvious considering the time period, either.

I still can’t with her hair, though. And it’s hard to tell it’s red. Not their fault, but a limit of the medium.

Otherwise the scene goes by the book, except Anne says, “My eyes are green.” Book!Anne’s eyes are grey. And it’s said more than once! Normally that’s not something I would care about BUT IT’S A BLACK AND WHITE MOVIE. You can just say they’re grey!

Like that just confuses me.

Anyways, time for our first look at Green Gables!

Honestly, not the worst. Compare Montgomery’s grandparents’ house and the actual real Green Gables and it’s not bad.

  The real Green Gables is on the left, and the Cavendish home her grandparents owned is on the right. Green Gables photo is by Natulive Canada via Wikimedia Commons and I did a quick edit of it to make it black and white so it would match the others better and be better for comparison. The Cavendish house photo is courtesy the LM Montgomery Society which is truly a wonderful site, and the original can be found in the LM Montgomery Archival Collection in the University of Guelph.

It’s not exactly what I personally pictured, but it’s okay.

The movie, however, decides that Anne is to be the one to name it Green Gables. I don’t know why.

Marilla is annoyed to see Anne, as you’d expect. Another nitpick, but they give Matthew extra dialogue in this scene. Not a ton, but it bothers me. And Marilla’s a bit meaner to him, too.

Anne does break down into tears when told she can’t stay, which is book accurate (though she claims she isn’t crying). It’s actually less dramatic than what it is in the book.

We follow the book pretty accurately through the name conversation and I do like the Anne/Marilla interactions. Marilla isn’t cruel, just brisk and exasperated. Her actress is seriously the best of the bunch here.

Matthew suggests Anne could stay, and ugh, just look at his creepy face.

I kind of think the actor is trying to play Matthew as “slow” in a stereotypical, offensive way at the beginning of the movie. I’m forcing Luce to watch most of these with me (I love you @soveryqueer) and I asked them if it was just me, and they kind of got that vibe too. It’s strange and creepy and I’m really not a fan of this Matthew overall.

The next afternoon, Marilla takes Anne to… pick up Mrs Spencer? And then they all drive to Mrs Blewitt’s house, which the credits spell as Bluett for some reason.

If you’re confused, pleased know it’s the movie and not my recapping skills. I was also confused watching it.

Mrs Spencer says she’s sure Mrs Bluett will take Anne. There’s a few little kids running around at Mrs Bluett’s but they seem better behaved than I’d expect. And you know, 4 kids is fewer than I expected, too.

Mrs Spencer says she brought them there as Mrs Blewitt is so anxious to get anyone to help with the children she’s sure to take Anne.

Also the baby is cute. Luce thought it was a fake baby at first XD

This is where we actually learn Anne is 14 and I began to have some suspicions about how the plot would play out.

The scene plays out mostly as it does in the book, with perhaps a touch more obvious annoyance at Mrs Bluett from Marilla, which honestly works as we don’t have her POV here.

The baby is having a great time. Look at the little foot kicking all happy.

JEEZ this baby is almost 90 years old!

Also Mrs Bluett has almost more of a Southern US accent? The actress was from Maryland – is that considered the South? Odd choice for PEI, again.

I do like that they didn’t have Anne say anything. She just looks at Marilla, absolutely miserable, and Marilla says to the others she better talk Anne home to talk it over with Matthew. As in the book, she’s definitely using him as an excuse.

However, we have our first instance of them leaving something major out. The conversation with Marilla about Anne’s backstory never happens. We never even learn about the Thomases or Hammonds. I guess that was too serious.

Marilla’s line is great, though. “I oughtn’t do anything without consulting him.” Sure, Marilla. Sure.

Marilla says if they decide not to keep her, she’ll bring or send Anne back tomorrow.

Aw, they give Matthew’s dog line to Marilla! Matthew also is very casually smoking in this scene which isn’t really in character. He mostly smoked when he needed to think deeply about something.

It’s really weird, though, that they give him random extra dialogue but take away a great line of his from the book that really showed how much he disliked Mrs Blewitt and cared for Anne already since it was so unlike him to say.

The bedtime prayer scene goes pretty much as planned, besides some minor backstory changes. Marilla’s actress is great here. She really nails the balance between flustered and knowing she should disapprove of what Anne’s saying, but actually being amused.

I’m ending the post here, because we hit about the twenty minute mark of the movie and it’s pretty long already. Twenty minutes of this movie took me two hours to thread which again is why there will be four of these posts. It’s a lot of movie.

I’m gonna put all my links in the last post, so this is it for this week! Part two next week.

Anne Adaptations: 1934 Anne of Green Gables – Part 1 There are four threads for this part of this series, so there'll be four blog posts (plus a bonus one that isn't about any plot or content, but just me making jokes for like 10 minutes.)

[theastrophilearchitect]

Recent reads #2.

Hello! ‘Tis the day after the first one of these was posted, but I already have another book to talk about. So, here’s ten books I read recently.

1. Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab (Cassidy Blake #3)

This is book three in Schwab’s Cassidy Blake series, a middle grade series focused on a twelve-year-old girl who recently had a near-death experience, and, ever since, has been able to see ghosts. More than that, her parents have started filming a TV show about haunted places, and Cassidy has to learn to navigate the Veil beyond the world of the living while trying to fend off malevolent spirits.

Book one takes Cassidy to Edinburgh, book two to Paris, and this brings us to New Orleans. It’s just a short, easy read, without complicated subplots or hundreds of pages of build-up. It’s not one of those books where you have to reread the series to understand the sequel, because it gives you a recap, and it’s just great. Great for someone of middle grade age, and great for a reader who just loves Victoria Schwab.

Rating: 4 stars.

2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (The Kingkiller Chronicles #1)

This book is absolutely enormous, and reads like the longest prequel ever written, despite the fact it’s the first book in a series.

I listened to the audio version of the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles, and I don’t even know how to blurb it. I liked it, but not enough for a 28-hour audiobook. I liked it, but not enough to listen to its 42-hour sequel. I want more from such a long book.

This book has insanely high ratings and is so raved about, so I gave it until about halfway through before I realised it probably wasn’t going to pick up. But, I’d already invested so many hours in it, I had to get that one extra for my Goodreads goal, which I now realise makes no sense considering it took me an entire month to get to the end of this, in which I can usually read four or five.

It didn’t feel like it followed a typical story structure, and it felt less like a series of plot lines weaved together than a domino effect, which feels to me very much like a prequel. It was well written, with interesting characters and an interesting world, but I expect more from a book so long.

Rating: 3 stars.

3. Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo (Nikolai Duology #2)

Oh. My. LORD.

This is the second book in the Nikolai Duology in Bardugo’s Grishaverse, and I can barely breathe (speaking of which, Shadow and Bone, out now, on Netflix). Book one, King of Scars, was enjoyable, but not especially exciting, especially as the successor to Crooked Kingdom, speaking of which: I was unaware there was going to be a fourth Six of Crows book. As I was reading this one’s denouement, it definitely felt like Bardugo was setting up at least one more book in this world, another heist, starring my beloved, Kaz Brekker. Nina Zenik, the Crows’ resident Heartrender (ish) has had a perspective throughout this series, but the other Crows (bar Matthias, for obvious reasons) were also in it, and I was trying to figure out the relevance, but I suppose it’s for the next Crows book.

ANYWAY. This was so much more exciting than book one, though there were certain things that felt irrelevant aside from as the set-up of the next book, but it was so entertaining, and I liked how it wrapped up--a note though: I don’t see how Nina could be involved in the next Crows book, but we’ll see.

I just barely even know what to say, except that King of Scars was relatively standard, but this blew it out of the water (not quite Six of Crows level, but I just love the grey morality of that duology).

Also: yay for trans rep.

Rating: 4.75 stars.

4. Scythe by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #1)

I read this a couple years ago, got bored, and finished it as an audiobook. It was pretty standard, but then the last book in the trilogy, The Toll, came out, and I realised just how big this series is, so I wanted to give it another shot.

Scythe is set in a utopian future, in which death has been eliminated and immortality has been reached. The population still increases, but the AI that governs Earth can provide for it. However, people still have to die eventually. Citra and Rowan are taken on as apprentice scythes, the Reapers of the world, the only sources left of death. But one scythe has never had multiple apprentices before, so it is decided only one of them will be ordained, and when they are, they will have to glean the other.

I’m so glad i reread this. Initially, I felt very similarly to how I did the first time round: the characters were flat and unlikeable, and there was too much telling. However, this bothered me less over time, the characters became more interesting, more likeable, and oh my lord the ending. Rowan really reminds me of Julian Blackthorn, except i actually like Rowan. But not Julian. Screw Julian.

I would still argue this book is a little overrated, but this time, I’ll definitely be moving onto the sequel.

Rating: 3.9 stars.

5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Oh, my Lord. This book is so hyped up, and I wasn’t expecting it to be nearly as good as it was. I didn’t particularly enjoy Monique’s part of the story, but I was so invested in Evelyn’s story, I listened to the whole thing in two days.

This is told in the form of a journalism interview, in which an unknown journalist is invited by Evelyn Hugo, aged Hollywood starlet, to write her biography, to be published upon her death. Evelyn tells the story of having to ignore her heritage and go through seven husbands just to be with the love of her life against the odds of the film industry, and you can’t even imagine how good this book is.

I so rarely cry at books--have never ugly-cried unless it brought up something in my real life--and I have never, ever cried at a standalone, yet here we are.

I don’t want to say anything else, because only an hour into the audiobook, I googled fan art and spoiled myself. So don’t do that, just read.

Rating: 4.9 stars.

6. Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare (The Last Hours #1)

My Lord. Honestly, I tried to pick up The Red Scrolls of Magic before this, and though I love Malec, I found I just didn’t care. Also, the font in my copy is different to in every other Shadowhunters book I own, which sucks.

As for Chain of Gold: this is book one in Clare’s fifth Shadowhunters series, set in 1903 and following the children of The Infernal Devices characters as demons begin to appear again in London after a period of silence.

This is absolutely the more hyped of the recent Shadowhunters books, and starting this, I really thought I was going to give up. It’s 590 pages and I’d already read thirteen books in this world (now fourteen), and it reads so much more like a period romance than it does a fantasy book. I didn’t think I’d care, but then I hit the 300 page mark, picked up motivation, and finished it in two days. I don’t think I enjoyed this as much as The Dark Artifices (though I can’t comment on The Infernal Devices, because I read the trilogy two years ago) but it was excellent.

It took me a while to learn who was who, who was related to who (it took me at least 400 pages to figure out whether Thomas or Christopher was the son of Gideon or Gabriel, though I somehow never forgot Anna was Gabriel’s daughter), and all I could think was that Shadowhunters must be incredibly inbred.

TID/TDA spoiler: I knew Tessa was with Will before Jem, but it was still weird seeing her with him, she and Jem having been together throughout TDA.

By page 100, I already wanted James and Cordelia to be together, but part of me was also shipping her with Matthew. Part of me still is, and his conversation with Lucie (I think) at the end my god. Ouch. 

The social norms in this seemed a lot more prevalent and old-fashioned than in TID, but that may just be because I don’t remember TID so well, or because there were just more people about in this one.

This book is 590 pages long, but the climax was done with by page 510. Falling action/denouement is my least favourite part of a book--I know they have to set up the sequel, but I hate it, because it barely feels like it’s building to anything. And eighty pages. 

I remember when Chain of Iron came out, everyone was complaining about Alastair, so I was really expecting him to be evil, but he wasn’t. At least not by the end of this.

I hate Grace so damn much, but this did manage to keep me interested in the world of Shadowhunters. This is probably the most beautiful Shadowhunters cover (sans maybe its sequel) but the spine looks weird on my bookshelf--it doesn’t match the TID or TMI ones, where they form an image, and it doesn’t match the TDA ones.

Rating: 4.4 stars.

7. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I read Circe a couple years ago, and enjoyed it, but I was just waiting for it to end. Circe was good, but The Song of Achilles was so much more human.

People talk about how sad this book is, and I see why, but it didn’t do it for me. Like I said for Evelyn Hugo, I don’t cry often at books, especially audiobooks, but Evelyn proved it was possible, and this is meant to be such a sad book.

That said, Achilles and Patroclus’s relationship was so cute, and so very, very gay, as you’d expect. 

Anyway, this is essentially a retelling of the life of Achilles, Ancient Greek demigod, told through the eyes of his mortal lover, Patroclus, throughout his training with Chiron, legendary centaur, and into the Trojan War.

I listened to this in a couple days, because it’s not that long, and, needless to say, I can’t wait for Miller’s next novel.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

8. Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #2)

Oh. My. God. Scythe was good. It was incredibly well-written, but it was fairly standard enjoyment-wise. This one, on the other hand... I don’t have words. Mostly I’m still just reeling from the ending.

A couple comments: this book’s protagonist was very much Citra, where book one was more balanced between her and Rowan, and this is basically a sci-fi The Raven Boys. Maggie Stiefvater and Shusterman have very similar writing styles, and I love it.

I really don’t want to say too much--I was unsure where the series would go in this book, and it’s very clear where it’s going next, and I can’t wait to get to it. (Though I am reading the next Last Hours book first.)

Rating: 4.66 stars.

9. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (The Carls #1)

I feel like I open every summary with ‘oh my god’, but here’s the thing: I’ve been having such a good reading year, and I also just don’t finish books I don’t enjoy. I DNF them, I don’t rate them, and I leave them be.

I started following Hank Green on TikTok last year, then I started watching vlogbrothers on YouTube, and figured I ought to read their books, see what their writing’s like. I haven’t got to one of John’s books yet, but I did get to this. This and its sequel are Hank Green’s only original novels (though I’m sure there’ll be more) and I’m so, so glad I read this. (I’m also so glad I enjoyed it, because I would hate to watch today’s vlogbrothers video having hated this)

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing takes place as April May (yes, that’s her name. It’s weirdly adorable) and her friend come across an enormous statue in New York City, and, assuming it’s some art installation, they make a video about it. Then they find out their video blew up as sixty-four of these statues appeared in cities across Earth out of nowhere.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Go read it.

The audiobook was excellent, and I think it was a really great format for this story. The last chapter is from somebody else’s perspective, and we’re treated to the beautiful voice of Hank Green.

Rating: 4.8 stars.

10. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

I think it’s becoming clear I get through a lot more audiobooks than I do physical ones, which is partly because I just have more time for them, and partly because the books I listen to are generally shorter than the ones I read. Also, I’ve been reading a bit of manga recently, which I don’t want to talk about until I finish the series (but I will. I may even write a whole post about it).

Turtles All the Way Down follows Aza Holmes as she and her best friend investigate the disappearance of a billionaire whose son she used to know, but the story isn’t about that. It’s about Aza’s anxiety, and it’s a really beautiful insight.

I’ve struggled with anxiety myself, but never to an extent like Aza, which I believe is based on John Green’s experiences. Books like this are so important for representation, so people suffering similarly don’t feel like they’re going crazy.

I’ve actually owned a tote bag for this book for a couple years--I got a free one from the bookstore when it came out, and I’m so glad I can now say I actually liked the book on my tote bag.

Rating: 4 stars.

And that wraps up this Recent Reads.

[zahramalik]

♥️ — EXPANSION.

They weren’t all predators, but in Tybee she was always someone’s prey. She had willingly let the beautiful, golden quarterback slide his hands under her skirt after school every day for six months, a precious secret they both looked forward to keeping every time. He’d blast Sum 41 in his car, a soundtrack for the way their bodies  It was the purest thing she had at that point, their stolen kisses becoming only thing that was selfishly hers and untouched by the ugliness of the world she grew up in the last fifteen years. For the first time in her life she got to see stars, passionate constellations strewn across the roof of his car. The lights faded into dust when he balked at her suggestion of attending the high school formal together, and Zahra quickly learned that there were two types of girls and only one type of man. She was the Jezebel that made him gasp her name in dark and he looked at her body like she was sent from heaven, but he would never say her name in front of his parents or look at her with anything but lewd desire in public. There were two types of women, and she denied him the privilege to have both; he got another girl he could plan dates with and she got her heart broken. He married his sweetheart immediately after high school, Rima said years later, right on the beach in front of Aphrodite herself. But Zahra knows it’s far from a blessed marriage, because he still sends desperate emails to her dead account, writing words she wished he would’ve said back when she was young and naive enough to believe them.

Her obsession with old Hollywood started when she was just growing out of Sesame Street, and her mother forgot to pay the cable bill. The local video store was closing down and Zahra was able to snag a large, deserted box of VHS classics to take home. She fell in love with the black and white starlets, and spent most of her nights falling asleep to “Moon River.” She never grew tired of rewatching the same movies over and over again, memorizing all the words and attempting to mimic the old timey accents. Her obsession didn’t wane after she learned about Hollywood’s dark, torrid history, how behind the scenes everyone was horrible to each other and to themselves but they still created a legacy that left ordinary folks starry-eyed and envious. Zahra figured that life had already dealt her a lousy hand, and seeking to be immortalized in film was as good of a plan as any.

You’ll have a hard time getting Zahra to admit her favorite movie. It’s one of many secrets she keeps close to her chest, locked up in the confines of her heart. Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable’s last film, The Misfits, speaks to Zahra in a way no other film does. She’s always been enchanted by the stunning performances on screen and the drama that occurred on set behind the scenes. Zahra’s heart ached for Monroe and Gable and Montgomery Clift’s untimely ends; she cried for these icons that she would only ever know through the black and white scenes penned by Arthur Miller. Just like her, they kept putting on a spectacular show no matter what turmoil stirred beneath their made-up skin. On the rare occasion when she does pour her heart out about why she loves The Misfits so much (to the point where she cried once she wore out her original VHS tape), it’s clear that she is just as passionately in love with the actors as much as, if not more, than the characters. It’s impossible for her to not go off on a tangent about why Monroe’s romance with Miller was always destined for failure or how without Elizabeth Taylor, Clift wouldn’t have been alive to make the film.

Is very picky when it comes to what she puts on her phone, which is several generations old. Zahra likes her apps organized in a very specific way but there’s no rhyme or reason to her method; doesn’t allow any unread alerts stay on for too long, the red bubbles like little zits she needs to pop off her screen. Zahra doesn’t keep any embarrassing photos on her phone, and deletes all the unflattering selfies from the cloud immediately. Her photo album is as well curated as a museum, housing only art, no mistakes or rough drafts. Social media bores her to death — she doesn’t need validation from strangers on the internet, because she’s self-aware enough to know it’s shallow and given too freely to mean anything. And if she desperately wanted to share her opinions or air out her grievances, she’d just talk to a person or write in a diary. But ironically, she enjoys watching beauty tutorials on Youtube, because it’s as though she has someone to talk to without having to actually talk to someone. And she wouldn’t be as skilled with makeup application without the Internet. Music takes up a small percentage of the storage on her phone — her preferred media are movies, podcasts, and audiobooks. Most of her favorite movies are from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the books she listens to are all biographies about famous women in film or the histories of theater — historic movies and books about history. The podcast she keeps up with the most is “You Must Remember This,” and recommends it to anyone who actually thinks to ask her for her opinion, which isn’t often.

Has a secret, deeply passionate love affair with David Bowie’s music. Zahra doesn’t know his birthday or any trivia to prove that she’s a “real fan,” but she can recite every song by heart and she’ll insist that’s what truly matters in the end. Bowie makes up 85% of her abysmally limited music library, not that anyone would ever know. Zahra could never imagine herself as one of his underaged groupies or devout fangirls but Bowie speaks to her soul in a language too profound to be made up of just mere words. He made spectacles out of everything and relished in it — his music, his performances, his wardrobe. All too often, Zahra felt like an outsider, an extraterrestrial from Mars that people wanted to dissect until they grew bored with whatever mystery initially let them in. And Bowie made music for the weird little alien in everyone, including her. No matter what she’s doing off-camera, Bowie’s always bouncing off the walls of her home day and night. She’s incapable of getting ready until “Rebel Rebel” is blaring, no matter how late she’s running or how many people are waiting on her. Yet Zahra would sooner drop dead than ever admit that she actually shed a tear when she found out he died in 2016. She doesn’t place people on pedestals but Bowie is the one man who will forever own her heart.

Zahra makes the best spaghetti and meatballs. This is the hill she will die on, and she’s not afraid to trash your Italian grandmother in order to prove it. Her homemade marinara sauce is loaded with tons of onions and garlic, served with golf ball-sized beef that’s been stuffed with fresh parmesan cheese and a variety of fresh herbs she’s collected from the community garden. She first attempted the recipe when she was ten, with a jar of sugary sauce from the grocery store and a spare box of ground beef that was about to expire. No seasoning but salt, and the noodles that had been broken into pieces just to fit the tiny pot on their finicky stove. Rima licked her plate clean that night, the perfect temporary remedy for their mother’s neglect.

[willreadforbooze]

Hello fellow boozie readers!

If you haven’t heard about #Booziebookathon, it’s our week long readathon we host every year! We had such a blast hanging/reading with you guys!

Sam’s Update:

I got a lot of reading done this week, it was Booziebookathon, Dewey’s Reverse Readathon, AND NEWTs.

What Sam finished this week:

  Booziebookathon Gin: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid: There was the Sam before Evelyn Hugo and the Sam after Evelyn Hugo. I will never be the same. I’m gonna drunk review it.

Booziebookathon White Wine and Smirnoff Ice: Demon in the Whitelands by Nikki Z. Richard: I did not enjoy this very much. I wanted to, it was such a unique concept but it was choppy and very little was answered.

Booziebookathon Beer and NEWTs Charms A-level Exam: Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed: This was a really cute quick story and I really enjoyed it! It shows the ins and outs of indentured servitude on this planet. 3.5/5 shots.

NEWTs DADA A: Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel: These books are fab. It’s really hard to say what I did and didn’t like because the audiobook is just so good and so much happens that it’s hard to describe.

What Sam’s reading now:

  NEWTs Transfiguration A: Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera: This is a book about a newly-out lesbian on an internship on the other side of the country. I’m still at the beginning but I’m loving the bits of Spanglish, and the crazy hippies, and the tone overall. I can’t wait to keep going.

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad: Buddy reading with Ginny and Liz and also for book club. I’m ready for more, but I don’t want to say any more thoughts because we still have to discuss as a group. I might figure out how to work this into my NEWTs but it’s not currently there…

Ginny’s Update (Aka Reads-with-the-wind):

Hi Everyone, good to have wrapped up the BoozieBookathon! Happy August, we’re only a few weeks away from going back to tolerable weather. I’m already looking at my closet looking forward to jackets and jeans and basically not being a walking sweat-being as soon as I walk outside.

Currently Reading

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad: This is still for a book club, I’m still reading it slowly. There was a pretty big twist and I’m enjoying seeing it ripple out. 

The Ten thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow: I grabbed this book from bookcon and I am so looking forwarding to reading this.

Finished (aka ALL THE MF BOOKS)

Leap Days: Chronicles of a Midlife Move by Katherin Lanpher: this was one of my books for Boozie Bookathon and it fulfills my Gin challenge (book on tbr forever). Also technically fulfilled white wine. This book is an autobiography that focuses on change and really how to move between what you expected things to be and what things actually are. I really enjoyed some of the chapters, but I also don’t necessarily feel ridiculously drawn to the city of New York and found some of the descriptions a little tedious. 3/5

The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman: IT’S THAT TIME! I’m reading the fifth book in this series that I adore. Irene is being called in to act as mediator in a conversation between the Dragons and Fae. This book was delightful. I also enjoy a mystery where all of the players are on the table early. (If you’d like to start at the beginning, my first review is here.) Most definitely writing a review.

Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews: Some people have crazy wild powers and one of those people is going crazy. Neva is tasked with bringing him in ssafely. Except dude is kind of a psycopath. Neva ends up working with pretty much the strongest other person, Mad Rogan (I know, that name…) who is trying to snag one of Adam’s (I think it was Adam) co-conspirators. I’m unsure of how I feel about this book. The plot was wild and a lot of fun, but some of the romance felt weird due the question of where consent should come into play…. I’m going to keep reading because I like the universe but will keep an eye out for consent issues.

All the Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle: This is a bookcon book (that I finally got around to) and I’m planning on writing a review, so brief summary. On Deena’s 17th birthday, her sister goes missing. She follows some loose threads to learn a lot more about her family history and the “family curse.”

Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh: I’ve read a few of the books that come much further in this series but I really liked them and decided to come back to the beginning. Sascha is a Psy who has been taught emotion is weakness but is struggling to uphold the “Silence.” Lukas is the head of his clan and is trying to find a serial killer. Also they fall in love. Sascha is a lot of fun and it would have been completed different to read this book first when I didn’t already know about some various things. Still, a romp of a read! 4/5

A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole: Alyssa Cole is an always read for me now. I might prefer her contemporary things, but dear god is this series great. Marlie is the illegitimate daughter in a white family, which has given her a protected status but still a status of “other.” Ewan was responsible for torturing the Rebs captured by the North and then was captured himself. He escapes from prison and hides in Marlie’s house with her help. Due to circumstances she ends up as trapped as she is. This book was lovely. Ewan had a slight level of autism (I assume, it’s never directly diagnosed) but is one of those people who one sees his deficiencies rather than the things that made him wonderful. Marlie is just a brilliant character and the way they worked together was great! I enjoyed watching them learn their own self-worth. 4/5

Minda’s Update:

Booziebookathon is complete! Now full focus is on NEWTs Readathon for the rest of the month.

What Minda finished this week: 

  The Liar’s Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson (Beer) – This book was kind of a trip—girl taken from her cult family resents having to readjust to life in society. Definitely recommend!

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (Whiskey & Champagne) – Slog is the best word used to describe how I felt about this one.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Shot & White Wine) – Loved this one! Super short and just what I needed after the above. Counts for the first part of the Ancient Ruins exam for NEWTs Readathon!

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon (Vodka, Gin, and Red Wine) – I did like this one and it was on the shorter side, but not as much as I feel I could have from the premise. I thought it was a weird decision to have only one person tell the perspective of three. Also counts for Ancient Ruins exam.

What Minda is reading now:

  Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – My final read for the Ancient Ruins exam, this has been on my TBR for a bit. Excited to see how it goes! 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – Counts for the first part of this History of Magic exam! I got really excited about this when everyone picked it up at BookCon.

Linz’s Update:

Booziebookathon is OVER and I can finally get back to The Starless Sea *takes nap*

What Linz read (jmj what didn’t I read):

  Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay: Published this summer, this book is about a Filipino-American teen who goes to the Philippines to find out the real story behind his cousin’s murder. This book could not have spoken to me more and it was EVERYTHING.

Our Dark Duet by V.E. Schwab: I’m glad I finally read this sequel to This Savage Song but it wasn not nearly as solid a book

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi: I sat on this book foreeeever; it’s about an alien race approaching a Hollywood agent to help them be introduced to the human race. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, and it was super tell-y and monologue-y

Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas: EXCELLENT romance novel, could have used like 1-2 more sex scenes

All Systems Red by Martha Wells: A bombass novella about a science team’s mission gone wrong and the android sent to protect them, told from the android’s perspective.

SLAY by Brittney Morris: Thanks Jesus I managed to get a copy of this book at BookCon because I do NOT know what I would have done if I had to wait til its release. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is about a black teen girl, Kiera, who created an underground computer game for the black community. One of the players is killed in real life over a dispute in the game, and a lot of shit happens. It’s an incredible book and I’m absolutely reviewing it.

What Linz is currently reading:

  The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: a forthcoming novel about women’s relationships and racial identity, told by a mixed-race mother in the modern day and her ancestory, a former slave. It’s the only challenge I didn’t finish for Booziebookathon, but it’s not a book that you should rush through.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: THANK GOD I CAN FINALLY GET BACK TO THIS, I don’t know what I was thinking starting it 2 days before Booziebookathon.

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Melinda, Linz, and Ginny

Weekly/Booziebookathon Wrap-Up: July 29 – August 3, 2019 Hello fellow boozie readers! If you haven't heard about #Booziebookathon, it's our week long readathon we host every year!

[audiobookers]

New Audiobook has been published on http://www.audiobook.pw/audiobook/warren-beatty-a-private-man-4/

Warren Beatty: A Private Man

Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read. -Warren Beatty Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the Grass. When he started acting, Beatty kept secret the fact that actress Shirley MacLaine, already a star, was his older sister. Over time, he has cultivated a mystique, giving few interviews and instructing others not to talk about him. Until now. Through years of groundbreaking research, lauded biographer Suzanne Finstad gained unprecedented access to Beatty’s family, close friends, and film colleagues, including such luminaries in the arts and politics as Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Leslie Caron, Robert Towne, Mike Nichols, and Senators John McCain, George McGovern, and Gary Hart. Weaving hundreds of these candid interviews, photographs from private albums, personal letters, diaries, and the previously unpublished papers of the late Natalie Wood and mentors such as directors Elia Kazan and George Stevens, playwrights Clifford Odets and William Inge, and agent Charles Feldman, Warren Beatty unveils the real Beatty-a complex, sensitive visionary torn between the fairly puritanical, football-playing boy from Virginia and his Hollywood playboy image. Finstad paints a rich, fascinating portrait of the secretive film legend, taking us back to the unrealized genius parents who molded arguably the most famous brother and sister in Hollywood history, tracing the family influences and events in Beatty’s past that directly inspired McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Ishtar, Dick Tracy, Bugsy, Love Affair, and Bulworth, and led to his political activism, culminating in a near-bid for the White House. Finstad constructs the definitive, myth-shattering account of Beatty’s evolution from Hollywood’s enfant terrible to producer of the revolutionary Bonnie and Clyde, launching him as the premier actor/director/writer/producer of his generation, the only person to twice earn Oscar nominations in all five major categories. Here also is the truth about Beatty the lover, setting the record straight on his storied relationships with such iconic actresses and beauties as Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Michelle Phillips, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani, and Madonna. Finstad’s astute insights illuminate Beatty’s private struggle to attain happiness, his complicated bond with his sister, Shirley, and the deeper reasons why, at fifty-four, the archetypal bachelor married actress Annette Bening. Stunningly researched, engrossing, and exquisitely detailed, Warren Beatty: A Private Man gives us a new understanding of the enigmatic, fiercely intelligent star who embodies the American dream.

[audiobookers]

New Audiobook has been published on http://www.audiobook.pw/audiobook/shopaholic-to-the-stars-2/

Shopaholic to the Stars

Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood) is in Hollywood! It’s as if all her life has been leading to this moment. She’s hanging out with the stars or at least she will be, when she finally gets to meet movie superstar Sage Seymour, whom husband Luke is now managing. There’s so much to see and do! And getting Minnie through the hurdles for her A-list Hollywood pre-school will require someerhelp. Becky sets her heart on a new career – she’s going to be a celebrity stylist. Red carpet, here she comes! But Becky soon finds it’s tough in Tinseltown. Luckily her best friend Suze comes over to keep her company, and together they embark on the Hollywood insider trail. But somehow…things aren’t quite working out as they’d hoped. Then Becky’s big chance comes, and it’s an opportunity that money can’t buy. But will it cost her too much?