Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

This biography, begun in the late 1980s and abandoned after Frank Sinatra found out about it, was finally published in 2013. The reader doesn't get much from Ava Gardner's Sinatra years, but there is plenty (perhaps too much) on her first marriage, to Mickey Rooney. The account of Gardner's rural upbringing is excellently done. Her stories of old Hollywood, even half-true, reveal both her power as a sex object and her lifelong insecurity. She called herself a simple farm girl, but the transcript reveals a Bertrand Russell compared to dull-witted actors in the spotlight today.

Curtain

The last time I read this final case of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot was in 1976. The end of Poirot affected the adolescent reader strongly, and it is possible tears were shed. The puzzle's solution, long since forgotten, satisfies. I count it fortunate to have discovered Christie's books as a young reader. They expand the vocabulary (I looked up words like "postern" and "interstice"), teach Shakespeare and foreign phrases (French), take the reader to exotic places, and provide a sense of accomplishment on finishing that can lead (did lead, in this case) to a lifelong love of books.

The Circle

The Circle is not a great novel, but it is a necessary one. The explosion of technology and the erosion of privacy have been met with barely a peep of skepticism. Dave Eggers takes up a sledgehammer, not a scalpel, in dissecting how today's shibboleths can lead to tomorrow's horrors. In the 1950s, Bill Buckley said his magazine "stands athwart history, yelling Stop." Eggers, at least, is yelling today.

Doomed

In the second part of Chuck Palahniuk's religious fantasy, young Madison Spencer of Damned returns to Earth as a mischief maker and possible prophet. In her world, Darwin is a myth and the Bible is real. A practical joke played on her parents has turned people on to Boorism as a ticket to Heaven, and bad behavior is the norm. Madison's adventures are entertaining enough, but the real nourishment comes from Palahniuk's humor, social criticism, and aphorisms about theology, philosophy, and love. There is: "Why do the impulsive notions of a would-be do-gooder always translate into the ideals of the next civilization?" Or: "The avant-garde in every field consists of the lonely, the friendless, the uninvited." And: "What two people don't say to each other forges a stronger bond than honesty."

Bookart #6

The design is eye-catching, and the hole in the cover (through which the red part shows through) is a first in my experience (outside of children's books).

Bookart #5

Given that this is Chuck Palahniuk, it's probably best to not wonder what the white dripping stuff is. The creepy multicolored eyes are a nice touch.

Rickles' Book

Don Rickles' autobiography leaves a taste of sweetness, not bile. He is probably too old-school to settle scores publicly (if indeed he has any to settle). While some of the anecdotes trail off into awkward cul-de-sacs, there are enough bits and pieces and photographs to carry a reader through.

Here's Johnny!

Ed McMahon's book, not surprisingly, is less an appraisal of Johnny Carson than an appreciation done in superlatives and half-remembered anecdotes. Amid the fluff there are nuggets pointing to what made Carson special. His rapid wit and insistence that the show not be overly planned were two halves that made a bigger whole. Late night today lacks anyone who excels at both parts of this equation. Jimmy Fallon has a reasonably quick wit but his show is overplanned; Jimmy Kimmel is lacking on both fronts; Craig Ferguson's show is unplanned (obnoxiously so) but his wit is not sharp, just weird; Conan O'Brien can't pull his eyes off that blue card telling him what to talk about; Letterman hasn't been funny for 25 years; and I'm not sure Leno ever was.

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

The Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic taps into the folkloric figure of Baba Yaga in two stories that demonstrate the marginalization of women, particulary the old. The third section is a primer on mythic witches and their fables, including an analysis of the stories the reader has just finished. The stories themselves lack propulsion, but their themes are worth pursuing in our youth-obsessed culture.