Gianna:
I have only read one…maybe two celebrity memoirs so it’s hard to say which one is the most fun to read out loud. [At this point we all can just call Gianna a liar, right?] I just don’t have that big of an interest in Hollywood to take the time out of my life and read about celebrities.
Not buying that? Yea…I read them all. I stopped reading People Magazine when they got too wordy. I moved on to US Weekly (if there is anything better/dumber than the “they’re just like us” page, please let me know). I love my celeb gossip but it’s always better when it comes straight from the horse’s mouth. [Tori Spelling?]
Anyone who has worked at a bookstore knows that when these babies come in the back room (twss*) you must dip in. And if they are as good (as in terrible) as they seem, you must read out loud. I am sure most of you know about Celebrity Autobiography – where actors and comedians read celebrity memoirs on stage. It's hilarious but we in the book world have been doing this for decades.
I purposely avoided politicians or political “figures,” i.e. Joe the Plummer, Sarah Palin and that annoying Carrie Prejean. Ugh.
I should also note that there are a few…very few…celeb books that I have let slip by, so if you have had the privilege please let me know how they are. I am particularly interested in David Hasselhoff and certainly Naomi Campbell.
Okay, so I have nothing against this celeb but my favorite book is Melissa Etheridge’s memoir The Truth is…My Life in Love and Music. Now this book is deliciously bad for a few reasons. First, Melissa reveals way too much (thank you!), second she tends to trash her ex with whom she shares children (tacky), and most of all she really attempts to be a bit poetic.
Let me summarize my favorite part from the book. Melissa is revealing things about her relationship with Julie Whatsherface, things that I just wouldn’t admit to, by the way. [Yet she'd make up whole fake convict romances for me. Sigh.] For example, apparently Julie asked Melissa, or maybe told Melissa, that she wanted to go outside of their relationship and share “special times” with K.D. Lang (I know! Super dishy). I can’t remember if Etheridge gave the a-okay for the romp, but clearly it ends up ruining their relationship. (Personally I think if your relationship can survive your partner telling you she finds someone else so desirable she just can’t help herself…well maybe it wasn’t so strong to begin with.) Anyway, their relationship ends and Melissa mentions that they had just purchased an old house together and the house had a leaky roof. She then gets super poetic here and writes that it was like the house was crying for them. It was like the house was crying for them…wow. See, you read that and you want to share. This book is tons and tons of fun to read with your friends, but please do not read this alone. Liz:
There are people who remember a time when I wasn't above reading celebrity "poetry" over the store intercom at BookPeople. Lookin' at you, Jewel. You managed to destroy any passing appreciation of poetry I might have developed after four years of reading the canon in college. William Blake has nothing on your exploration of sausages at the airport. A Night Without Armor (or as we called it, A Night Without Protection) was pure poetic bliss. But we're not talking about celebrity poets here. We're talking memoirs.
And therefore we're talking about Rosie O'Donnell. Let me tell you about Rosie's Find Me, in case you weren't one of the dozens of people who actually read it. (I read it...and so did Gianna...and we both read it before we knew each other.) Rosie is a huge talk show personality at the time, the "Queen of Nice," and basically she was in the business of fake-lusting after Tom Cruise and pretending that those pant suits were the start of a fashion trend. Rosie calls a viewer one day and leaves a message, basically a "buck up little camper" for a 14 year-old girl pregnant with a rape baby. You should know that I would not mock an abused child. This was not an abused child, however. It was, as Rosie later discovered after developing a long phone correspondence with the "girl" and rallying her celebri-pals for the cause, an adult woman with a mental illness and fame whore issues. The woman didn't need Rosie's help, she needed a psychiatrist's prescription pad. Anyway, the book was extra juicy because it was allegedly Rosie's coming out story because she made, like, two references to her partner Kelly, and it also hinted at abuse in Rosie's past (the alleged reason for her celebri-gullibility). And Rosie is not a writer, but she's not above pretending to play one on TV. This is a book that for totally horrible, cruel, selfish reasons makes me terribly happy.*TWSS is the work-safe abbreviation used to denote "That's what she said," because yes, we really are that juvenile. And TWSS makes conference calls tolerable. "Anyone else have burning issues?" TWSS!!
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