5 comments about Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club.

1. I bought this book for my brother-in-law. So I had to ask him what he thought. He told me how much he enjoyed the book. So buy this book for anybody that is a biker or a biker at heart.



2. Kept him busy until...well he's still reading it. He keeps it in the "library" so he only reads a few paragraphs at a time. Then he comes out and tells me about what he read. Like I care! Bought to keep him entertained, not me.
   MsStretch



3. But why wouldn't it be? Clearly, being the founder and long-time leader of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club would require a huge ego and huge confidence. Barger has both in spades, on display for all in this very readable book.
   
   I enjoyed this book not only for what it contains but also for what it doesn't contain. Barger gives us a taste of what the Hells Angels used to be in their glory days, and doesn't try to whitewash SOME of their behavior. Very obviously what started out as a bunch of guys out for a good time evolved into a different animal. However, he does whitewash some of the nastier aspects of the club and completely ignores or denies others, but that is no surprise. Openly discussing or admitting some of their documented crimes would open Barger up to further investigation and further incarceration.
   
   In order to get a complete picture, read this book along with George Wethern's informative, interesting, gripping but badly ghost-written account. Something closer to the truth can then be seen after absorbing both accounts.



4. I like the way he writes, he says it like he feels it, and I appreciate that. I did not feel like I was being lied to, no sugar coating here.



5. Ordered two books from Amazon. This review is for the 1st of the two. Order was relatively low priced. Delivery and shipment was good. Still reading and loving the book.

5 comments about Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story.

1. This delightful story is like watching a wonderful old movie from the 30's-40's! And I learned a thing or two about history!!! I'll be urging my book group to read this.



2. Zelda Fitzgerald died on March 10, 2005. Hers was a terrible death --- she was a patient at the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, and the building caught fire, and because the patients were locked in, Zelda and eight others died. She was 48.
   
   Her life had, effectively, ended years earlier, when she had the first of her breakdowns and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Or had it ended earlier than that? Perhaps with the death of her estranged husband, the once glamorous, then ruined F. Scott Fitzgerald, in 1940. Or maybe even earlier, on the Riviera, in 1924, when she had a dalliance with a French aviator that so enraged that her husband she tried to kill herself a few months later. Or even earlier, when Scott started appropriating her personality and her ideas for the characters in his novels.
   
   Yes, but for a few years there, they had it all, didn't they? They were the Golden Couple, the personification of the '20s: young, beautiful, gifted. But not smart about fame, although, back then, almost no one understood how the flame of media draws you in, consumes you for the amusement of an uncaring public, and leaves you with ashes in your mouth and regret in your heart.
   
   No, wait. Some people did grasp that. The Murphys did. And, as Amanda Vaill tells their story, they are considerably more interesting than their friends, the drunk and disorderly Fitzgeralds.
   
   And can we talk about turning life into art?
   
   Late each morning in the summer of 1922, Gerald went outside his home in Antibes and created something never seen before --- a beach! --- by raking the seaweed and stones. For this, he is said to have invented the idea of the Riviera as a summer destination.
   
   Moments later, Sara would join him and, on a blanket, read or write. She wore a white linen dress or bathing suit. And, always, a long strand of pearls, which she looped around her back so she wouldn't mar her tan (and, she said, because the sun was good for them). For this, she became a style-setter and muse.
   
   Gerald and Sara together were not two but one. They were "The Murphys," a young and rich American couple who used their youth and money to establish themselves at the center of a cultural elite in which everybody was young, talented, acclaimed. Cole Porter, Stravinsky, Picasso (who was in love with Sara), Cocteau --- though they were stars on their own, they orbited the Murphys. "There was a shine to life wherever they were," Archibald MacLeish said. "It was as though custom and habit had been wiped away and the thing itself was, for an instant, seen. Don't ask me how."
   
   Then F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway showed up.
   
   If you've read Tender Is the Night, you know that Fitzgerald took the Murphys as models for the Divers. Whatever its merits, the novel reduced the Murphys to "Beautiful People." In fact, Gerald was an accomplished painter, an American Leger. He and Sara were experts on African-American spiritual music. They financed theatrical productions and helped worthy friends (Hemingway, for just one).
   
   And they were far from untouched by the troubles of ordinary mortals.
   
   First their young son Patrick came down with tuberculosis. Then, suddenly, their younger son died of meningitis. "Fancy. There's no other word for it," John Dos Passos said. "They could have thought & thought for a million years and they wouldn't have been able to think of one like that." And then, "fancy" again, a few years later, when Patrick died, and the Murphys had to carry on for their one remaining child.
   
   It gets, if possible, more intense. Gerald returned to America to run his family business, a posh New York leather store named Mark Cross. He sent money to the faltering Fitzgerald. He had some deep poetic attachments with young men. And then he died. Dorothy Parker sent his widow this telegram: "Dearest Sara Dearest Sara." The widow staged a funeral that was described as "courage disguised as taste." But that was his life. And hers.
   
   It's easy to read a book like this for the anecdotes about the mighty. But Fitzgerald comes across here as an eternal college boy and a bit of a fool, Hemingway as cold and manipulative. In contrast, the Murphys seem like explorers of the rarest kind --- blessed with money, they set out to find beauty and harmony. That they also found tragedy only makes their story more fascinating.
   
   College kids majoring in Gender Studies can find much in the life of Zelda Fitzgerald to ponder. I'm not knocking that --- there are lessons galore in that roller coaster of a life. But when you're further along the road, the Fitzgeralds start to be, at bottom, a lot of noise --- spoiled children breaking things.
   
   The Murphys, in contrast, look more substantial, more worthy of a sustained view. The Murphys, for all their money and privilege, seem real. These days, I don't want to read about the Fitzgeralds; I want to read Fitzgerald. But the Murphys --- they're well worth 500 pages.



3. I had to go out and buy this book after seeing "Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy" at the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA. The book is terrific, but if you're interested in this period, its writers and artists than track down this exhibit. It's a wonderful and extraordinary show about the Murphys and those they were friends with. Paintings, theater pieces, diary entries, letters, amazing photographs, home movies and more illustrate that the Murphys were really an essential part of the 1920s and 1930s. An argument can be made that they were the center that everything spun out from. It is absolutely sensational.



4. The world of the rich-and-famous is ever fascinating. Here we're given entree into the Murphy world. If this is your favorite genre, you'll like this. However, I became satiated very early on too much richness, too many names, too many details. I found it over written, over talky. Everyone is charming (one way or another) and I can see why celeb advocates would adore this. Not I.



5. I recently discovered this book so will try not to repeat the favorable reviews of others. I have visited most of the locations in this book and will try to search out the Murphy's history the next time I go. They lived magical lives in a period of tremendous artistic creativity. The 1920s in Paris were a unique period for American literature. That the Murphys were at the center of it makes this book required reading for anyone who wants to study the period. I have been in Sylvia's Beach's Shakespeare and Company, still there on the left bank, but the magic is gone. What must it have been like to be part of this generation of expatriates ? Read the book and find out. It is terrific.

5 comments about The Diana Chronicles.

1. This book was a little too long, and could have dispensed with some of the endless trivia about England's nobility. But the saga of Princess Di is otherwise written in an entertaining style, and I believe the subject herself would have approved. The book shows just how stultifying royal life really is, and how difficult it was for a young woman to adjust to what she thought she wanted. It also gives me some qualms at the thought that Charles might someday become king. From what Tina Brown writes, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who should be given any real power...luckily, the monarchy doesn't have much!



2. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown do not add much to our knowledge of the life and death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Nonetheless, Tina Brown's access to people and the 2007 publication date which allowed her to review all that was known before the inquest of that year and the next, does provide us with the most extensive compilation of quotations yet assembled in one place.
   
   While venturing to comment frequently on Diana's psychological state, Brown refers to but does not take into account her mother's alcoholism, the double-dealing of her sisters especially Jane Fellowes or similar bonding difficulties in Diana's life. Brown does, however, clearly emphasize the princess's astounding isolation in her early palace years.
   
   Brown also seems a bit bemused by the continual reports, from those who were present, of the healing touch the Princess seemed to have had, and of the gift of light Diana so willingly brought to so many. Brown does agree that Princess Diana always `rose to the occasion' and never disappointed those waiting for her, regardless of her personal state, even from the earliest days of her marriage.
   
   One of Brown's main contributions is the clear statement that El Fayed's ten-year shouting campaign about a murder conspiracy has almost obscured the fact that it was his son, his hotel and his staff that in the end were responsible for the death of the Princess of Wales.
   
   The other point Brown makes is that, on the evidence, Diana and Charles liked each other, cared for one another and that without Camilla might have made a go of their reationship. Thus Brown hints at but again does not develop the story of Camilla's tenacity. Perhaps especially because of Charles' inability to resist Camilla, it seems impossible for Brown to paint a picture of Charles as someone fit to be king and defender of (the) faith, at least according to the standards set by his mother and grandfather. Brown reluctantly, and almost in spite of herself, reveals Charles' failure to be courteous to the young woman he was escorting as she struggled to cope with their early engagements.
   
   Roy Strong, the fastidious director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, met the couple at the unveiling of an exhibition at his museum and told Brown « I don't think he - Charles - looked after her enough. » Patsy and David Puttnam, a film producer, were present at a dinner in 1984 at the London home of Lord Waldegrave and his wife Caroline. While Diana was being `watched' and reported on to the palace, Brown tells us that « In fact, it was Charles' bad behaviour, not Diana's, that made an impression on the Puttnams that night. While Diana was solicitous and affectionate towards the Prince, he was openly dismissive towards her. `He behaved as if she were an irritant,' said Patsy. `He would have liked her to be invisible and she knew it.' »
   
   Brown is, overall, another Charles apologist, but then Diana is dead, Charles is alive and likely will be king and Brown is still a working girl in need of the next good job. Still, on two key issues of interest - was it Diana or Camilla who rendez-vous'd with Charles in the train before the marriage, and is it Charles or Hewitt who fathered Prince Harry - Brown only repeats already aired information and gossip, without even trying to put the pieces together in ways that might suggest new readings.
   
   In places the book seems poorly edited or awkwardly written, trying to `bridge the pond' in a way that sometimes leaves it stranded in the mid-Atlantic. Nevertheless, if you are a gossip hound who loves to know what key players in any drama `really said' this book will probably be of interest. If you have not read the « Diana literature » as it has emerged, this book offers a very good summary overview.



3. I bought the book as a gift.
   The person got really happy with the book.



4. I loved this book because there was a lot to read, and it was all well-researched. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Diana got married when I was 5 years old, so I grew up reading about her. As a teenager, I devoured a lot of what was written about her. With these references floating around in my head, I was pleasantly surprised when I found the events I had read about in the papers described in greater detail, or when I read about events I didn't actually know about. Ms. Brown's accounts of a typical summer holiday at Balmoral were insightful and helped me to appreciate the lifestyle of the British Royal Family much better. When I watched The Queen, I noticed that much of the information in Ms. Brown's book was corroborated. I finished reading the book without taking sides. If anything came away with the impression that if Diana and her relatives were less arrogant, they would have been more compassionate or intervened more forcefully. Diana might have received counseling that would have saved her life. I can't quite understand why I was so taken with Diana as the mythological princess come to life. This incisive biography definitely broke the spell.



5. This is a well written and compulsively readable book, which captures the essence of Diana better than any other biography I've read - and I've read many. Most books about Diana seem fall into one of two camps: either they are overly gushing and sympathetic (eg Andrew Morton, Paul Burrell) or they are critical in the extreme (eg Lady Colin Campbell, Patrick Jephson). Tina Brown is neither. She calls Diana out on her untruths (it's highly unlikely that Diana deliberately threw herself down the stairs) but also points out where her paranoia was justified (yes, the Squidgeygate tapes were deliberately released).
   
   There's not a lot of new material here (what was there left to find out?), but it's a very comprehensive look at Diana's life that pulls together all the various things that are known about her in such a way that you feel that you are viewing the truest and most complete picture yet. It also gave me a strong sense of what life behind the Palace walls is actually like and why Diana felt so isolated and uncomfortable there.
   
   Tina Brown is particularly good at getting inside Charles and Diana's heads: explaining Charles's misgivings at the time of the engagement or Diana's thoughts when she agreed to the divorce. At one point she refers to Diana being a tactician rather than a strategist (always going for the short term win rather than thinking of the long game), which I thought was a very astute observation. She discusses the Charles/Diana/Camilla triangle at great length, and ultimately concludes that quite possibly the marriage could have worked had Camilla not been ever-present (Camilla doesn't come across very well at all).
   
   This is a long book which starts a little slowly, but from the time that Diana meets Charles it races along. It's entertaining, it's insightful and it leaves you wistful for what could have been.

5 comments about Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family.

1. The book is very interesting but kind of hard to follow. I don't like the format with all the interviews of different people. Most of the people in the book come across as snobbish and since I don't speak any other language except English, some of the words they use in another language I cannot pronounce and therefore don't know the meaning of, so I just had to guess at what they meant. Hard to follow but interesting in the relationships of these people. Definitely not one I can't put down!



2. Please don't waste your money buying this book, unless you appreciate authors who are too lazy to put a story together and instead rely on transcripts of the interviews with the people they interviewed to write the book. The actual "narrative" portion of the book is very sparse, and by about a third of a way through the book I found myself skipping huge sections of transcripts of interviews that were boring and uninteresting. It just seems to me that the writers gave up sifting through their research material in order to write their story, and, instead, just printed it verbatim as filler to make a "whole book". What a waste of time and my money. I don't even know if it deserves two stars! I suspect the other reviews were written by the publishers or people pushing the movie. Amazon recommended this book to me, but I will certainly not do the same for others.



3. An industrious European peasant immigrates to America at the end of the 19th century, invents plastic, becomes a gazillionaire and leaves his heirs a terrible lot of money. A couple of generations later, the fortune begets Brooks Baekeland, a wannabe-genius writer/adventurer/snob, who "marries down" when he makes middle-class Barbara Daly his wife. Barbara's extraordinary beauty is her ticket into the exclusive terrarium of the super-rich. She embraces social and talent-climbing like a religion and, together with Brooks, lives a loud, indulgent, hedonistic life without parameters. Their tempestuous marriage produces one child, Tony, who grows up to eclipse his father in terms of raw talent and then, later, to stab his mother to death with a kitchen knife in a London flat.
   
   Theme-wise, this book has everything - trashy money, smothering mothers, hyper-competitive fathers and sons, closeted homosexuality, sexual thrill-seeking, jet-setting, incest, murder and madness - it's Dominick Dunne meets Oresteia. It's the greatest book you'll ever take to the beach. It's the book that keeps you up all night. It's one of the most scandalous, salacious stories ever told - and it's all true. But the real accomplishment of the book is the format. In lieu of the straightforward black and white factual narration of most true crime books, Steven M. L. Aronson and Natalie Robins collected and artfully collated the remembered vignettes, fragmented glimpses, personal impressions, and eyewitness testimonies of family members, friends, acquaintances and survivors of the Baekeland's dark world. It's a looser but more compelling design that lets the colorful, lively voices of Baekeland contemporaries tell the story all the way to the terrifying, hair-raising, murderous destination. The denouement is at once shocking and perfectly ironic. Two decades after Savage Grace was first published, I am still turning friends on to it and still getting breathless, gushing phone calls about it. Can't wait for the movie.



4. Did not like the format of this book at all, would rather it had been
   all in present tense. Too much info of no use from people who did not matter. Also not enough family background.



5. I first read this book when it originally came out. I was in high school and like many teenagers I was prepared to see parents as the source of most teenage troubles. After reading this book, I promptly wrote my parents a nice letter about what swell people they were. I was that grateful not to have had Brooks and Barbara Baekeland for parents.
   
   This is the rare book that proved even better than I remembered when I reread it last month. It starts with the murder of Barbara Baekeland by her son then goes back in time to beginnings of the Baekeland fortune through the passionate but ill-fated marriage of Brooks and Barbara until it catches up with the murder and the sad denouement of Tony's life. As one reviewer here has noted, this is not a traditional narrative but an oral history. The transcripts of interviews are presented without comment - very much like Jean Stein's great Edie and Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil - and the speakers reveal far more about themselves than any narrative could.
   
   If there is a villain in this story, for me it wasn't Tony Baekeland, who clearly suffered from serious mental illness but his father Brooks Baekeland. Rarely have I come across a character in fiction or nonfiction who made me want to slap him so hard or so often. Early on one former friend of the Baekelands' talks about wanting to kill Brooks in the street with a brick. By the end of the book you may, like me, find this to be a perfectly reasonable response because Brooks is a piece of work. In fact, he's a complete jerk. If I'd been Tony's lawyer I'd have used the fact that Tony had the opportunity to kill his father yet didn't as Exhibit A in the fact that Tony was insane. Whether he's yammering on about how much he was like his brilliant grandfather, complaining about the fact that Tony couldn't stick with anything (this from a writer who only managed to write one short story and didn't finish his PhD!) or basically abandoning Tony after he's released from Broadmoor, Brooks Baekeland is a loathsome individual. His blatant homophobia and sheer lack of compassion will take your breath away. Other characters come across as clueless or careless but Brooks is downright diabolical in his self-absorption.
   
   As an evocation of a time, a certain type of ultra-privileged couple (the sort with artistic pretensions but little talent or commitment) and a mind boggling selfishness, Savage Grace is a book to read and reread. It's suited for True Crime and biography fans. As noted, if you don't like oral histories you probably won't like it - there is very little narrative holding the interviews together. When the author wants to describe Riker's Island, she presents her description as an interview, for example. If you enjoy hearing the story from the mouths of those who lived it, Savage Grace is a book you won't soon forget.

5 comments about Bunny Tales.

1. It was okay, but not written very well. The author's mind seemed all over the place. I kept wondering if anyone had actually read the book before publishing it. It just seemed like I was reading the first draft of someone's book.



2. If you are looking for a book to divulge secrets about the Playboy Mansion and Hugh Hefner, this is not the book. It pretty much sums up exactly what you already know about the mansion. It jumps from topic to topic with no real outline. At one point she says she hates her life at the Mansion and the next minute she loves it. She makes it out like she is so much better than everyone else, yet she stays for the "free" ride. Also, there are numerous spelling and grammatical errors in the book. Very poorly edited. Total waste of money and time!



3. This woman tries to make herself sound good. She trashes all the other 'girlfriends' in the house while making herself sound educated, entitled and completely validated. She's not. She bashes Hugh Hefner and tries to make the pampered life of a 'girlfriend' sound tedious. She flaunts her law school education and tries to make light of the fact that she never passed her boards. She also tries to make it seem she wasn't basically a prostitute as a paid employee of Hef. I was bored and I ended up not liking her at all.



4. I got this from a friend, and because it was free I didn't feel like I had to get my money's worth out of it. I enjoyed it a lot and found it a trashy, shocking at times, strange, and engaging book that blows apart the image Hef tries to create for himself.
   
   The grammatical errors were all over the place and that drove me nuts, but the actual content was fun. Yes, she divulges bedroom gossip - but it was about the least interesting part of the book. I enjoyed the parts about the dynamic between the gals and Hef much more.
   
   By the end I was pretty sick of all the drama and silliness. In many ways, Izabella is right that Hef wasn't very generous or understanding at times, but I think she misses the point that they had a business arrangement, not a relationship. She admits herself that she never had any alone time with Hef to really bond with him, so why is she surprised that when she has to leave, for whatever personal reason, she doesn't get an allowance? Her naiveté is surprising.
   
   Overall this is a fun book to read if you are curious about that lifestyle, but the writing and story aren't quite compelling enough to make it worth the cover price. I'd borrow it from the library.
   
   If you want to read a book about the sexy life, try Callgirl by Jeannette Angell. Written with much more style and savvy, Callgirl has a lot more in the way of juicy details about what that life is really like.



5. Interesting if you have ever been to one of the Mansions Parties or if you ever watch "The girls next door" you gotta read this. Lets say "there is always two sides to a story"
   Nice book

No comments about The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

No comments about Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door.

4 comments about Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People.

1. Photography is extraordinary. The people featured therein, not so much. Still, it's a beautifully done publication and worth the cash but buy it at discount.
   Stylemaven



2. Flash review: The perfect gift book for this season.
   
   This new book, timed for Xmas giving, features a selection of the best homes shown in Vogue in the past several years. It is a large-scale book, filled with wonderful color photography. Although Elle Decor and Architectural Digest have come out with similar books this season, neither can hold a candle to Vogue's tome. If you are familiar with the 1968 publication, "Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People", which now sells for $400 and up if you can find it, you will know what is in store for you.
   
   Maximum emphasis on homes you would love to see in person, owned by people of impeccable style: Janet de Botton in the south of France, Marella Agnelli in Marrakech, David Cholmondeley's stately, etc.; minimal number of celebrity digs done by decorators of questionable taste which you tend to see in Architectural Digest. The style and taste of the featured houses, gardens (and, yes, people) are on an entirely different plane than those shown in the new books by the other two lifestyle magazines.



3. There is no disputing that this is a sumptuous volume. Lavishly produced, its oversized 384 pages are crammed with images of exquisite rooms and lush gardens from 36 unique homes, owned by the rich and/or famous in Europe, America and North Africa and into the likes of which you and I will never set foot. (Which is the reason, thankfully, such books are produced and why we lesser mortals buy them.)
   
   There are rooms modern and rooms classic, arranged with the taste, elegance and restraint of the world's best decorators and captured by the world's greatest photographers. And yet the rooms are not museum pieces, but are demonstrably inhabited by their owners, their well-scrubbed children and their adorable dogs, such as the greyhound on page 317 filching a piece of cheese from the dinner table.
   
   My favourite room which is featured on the front jacket cover is of Janet de Botton's breakfast room in Provence, its French chateau décor a study in white, cream and faded pastel, the background, literally a wall of china - floral motifed white plates and platters displayed on white-painted, floor-to-ceiling wooden plate racks built into the walls. (Already I've been measuring my walls to see how I can incorporate something similar - though less vast - into my old house).
   
   At the opposite end of the décor spectrum is Amanda Brooks NYC loft, all kitsch and brash eye-popping colour like a Barbie Doll house with Brooks herself photographed in a Barbie Doll style gown in a Barbie Doll pose. (It's not to my personal taste but cleverly done & I had to look twice to be sure the figure lying stiffly across the bed wasn't a mannequin).
   
   If you are a fan of décor books you will find plenty more here to inspire, amuse and entertain you and your like-minded friends and family.
   
   So why did I hold back from a five star rating? My quibble is with the empty 14 pages devoted to Madonna which might have been put to better use: Madonna's cow pastures, M. with (admittedly cute) children; a gowned & high-heeled & coiffed M. feeding the chickens (as if!); M. canoodling with husband, a double-page shot of M's sheep -- & only one tiny interior shot, a sitting room that was rearranged by the photographer & does not reflect the actual décor of Madonna's house - which might have been of real interest even to a non-fan like me.
   Thus the book falls just a little short of being, for me, the epitome of the coffee-table décor genre.



4. you have to love decor and fashion to understand this book.it is Vogue after all!!!! the book is full of fabulous properties and fabulous people.I went through it already many times and got inspired by it.
   Buy it f you are a fan of vogue magazine !!!

5 comments about sTORI Telling.

1. This is really a smartly written book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it's a great read. Tori is very candid in here and seems honest throughout. She doesn't pull any punches when it comes to talking about her relationships with her parents (especially her mother) and her collegues and the press and almost everyone else.
   She starts off talking about her childhood and the dolls given to her each and every birthday that were really more for her mothers pleasure than for Tori herself. To some people she might sound brattish and spoilt, but she admits that she is fully aware that the average reader of her book might think "She wanted one car, but her parents gave her a different, more expensive care. The poor thing.", but she goes on to explain that her parents never bought her things that she would care for; it was more about what they wanted. She tells about how her best memory of her dad when she was a little girl, is helping scoop poop from their lawn. It was always the little things she loved and cared about more than the flashier things.
   She talks a little bit about Shannen Doherty and what she and the other 90210 cast mates thought about her, Tori's abusive relationships, trying to get roles on her own merit, her first marriage and her second and the birth of her son Liam. All the things you might want to know about her are in here and it really is an interesting read and not totally superficial. I enjoyed it a lot and hope you do as well.



2. I never had an opinion either way about Tori. I thought she was fun in Scary Movie 2, and then got totally addicted to So NoTORIous. I couldn't believe how down to earth and self-deprecating she was, and it seemed so sincere. Her book confirmed that too! And I learned that in the end, little girls (rich or poor)are the same, and all we really want is that damn Barbie dream house :-)



3. I always have been a fan of Tori Spelling, even though I don't particularly remember why I started to be. Certainly with Beverly Hills, 90210, but most likely more from her campy TV movies like Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? and her excellent performances in movies like Trick and The House of Yes that really made me a fan. In the past few years, I've started to like her even more as she has started to show off her friendly and genuine personality in interviews. This book is hilarious, seems completely believable, and Tori comes across as a girl who works hard and has a true sense of herself. I want every person who has ever been surprised when I mention how funny I think Tori is to read this book. Her ridiculously brief show So NoTORIous is hilarious as well. When Tori dedicates this book to her gay fans, she finishes an excellent memoir on an appropriate tone. I hope her career only goes up from here; she deserves to be considered a great comedic actress!



4. "sTORI Telling" was a light, easy read, but informative as an entertainment-based book could be in this day and age.
   
   I guess I was a social outcast of my generation because I wasn't glued to the TV whenever Beverly Hills, 90210 was on during high school (and I never watched Seinfeld, Friends or Sex and the City, either). And yet, for never watching 90210, I knew a lot about the cast members as well as the plot lines courtesy of those beloved tabloids (why bother watching anything when you know what's going to happen? I still believe in mystery and being surprised - pleasantly and unpleasantly) and the one thing that I constantly read about was how privileged Tori Spelling was growing up as the daughter of one of the most successful producers in television history.
   
   Yes, I read all about how she grew up in the biggest house in Los Angeles (a big-time lie) and how her father had practically given her the part of Donna Martin in Beverly Hills, 90210 (another big-time lie) and what a monster she was for not being there when her father died (a total fabrication), the ugly feud she had with her mother (greatly exaggerated), and the rest of it. I never gave a second thought to the level of ugliness the tabloids sent Tori's way, but I now realize after reading her story that I allowed the tabloids to shape my opinion of someone that I didn't even know and had never seen act on TV, to boot. It was extremely refreshing to see just how much those tabloids blow everything out of proportion and her story has strengthened my resolve to never spend another red cent of my hard-earned money on them ever again (and I honestly hope those tabloid hacks don't remotely consider themselves journalists in any way).
   
   Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at Tori's story. I concur with just about everyone else here that she came across as pleasantly down-to-earth and this is going to seem as though I'm loving someone else's misery, but it must be said that it was almost nice to see another example that money, indeed, cannot buy happiness. In the case of the Spelling family, it can't buy effective communication, either.
   
   The more I read about Candy Spelling, the more I was reminded of the character of Jillian from the V.C. Andrews novel, "Web of Dreams." With some modifications, I wouldn't be surprised if Jillian was based, even loosely, on Candy.
   
   I would have given this book five stars, but, quite frankly, I was disappointed that Tori did not go into her family history (unless she doesn't know it and/or doesn't care). I would have loved to have known where her parents' families came from (especially from what country her Jews came from). Also, it wasn't until Page 234 that she explains the origins of why her father was afraid of flying. This is something that should have been revealed when she first explained why he never flew so we weren't left guessing why until the end of the book. I also thought she was a bit hard on her first husband, Charles Shanian, but that's the price one pays for being brutally honest, I guess.
   
   Speaking of her time with her first husband (who was a hot piece!), I loved it when she stated on Page 113 how little going to church meant to her. I share those sentiments and I'm glad someone else was able to put into words what I've been feeling all these years - "For me spirituality is abstract and very individual. I believe in God and past lives and afterlife and angels, but not in a defined, 'Here's how it all works' way.'" Describing church as "...a giant game of Simon Says" was the big "BINGO!" moment for me of this book.
   
   But she admitted, though not directly, that she didn't understand why "Charlie" (as she kept calling him throughout the book) was so adamant about religion. In his defense, the fact that he's Greek Armenian says it all - both Greeks and Armenians identify with religion as part of their national identity. They're gung-ho about it because it's part of who they are (and, let's face it, after all both groups have been through, why the surprise?).
   
   Tori's book was overall entertaining and, believe it or not, a bit of a lesson in how not to communicate with your family (primarily via email). Folks who have communication issues should definitely pick this book up, absorb it, and then do the exact opposite of what the Spellings did to "resolve" any conflict that arose.
   
   I give Tori credit for being so forthright about her childhood and her current family situation and for publicly admitting the steps she's taking to change her ways. It takes a lot of courage to open up in front of millions of people (and then have those same people make judgments about you later on). The general praise for this book is well-deserved. - Donna Di Giacomo



5. I really enjoyed reading this book. She is so sarcastic at times and it makes you laugh. If you are a 90210 fan, there are some great stories for you.

5 comments about Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time.

1. 
   
   I always liked Valarie in the tv shows,
   she was in so decided to have
   her book, I collece movie star books and added hers to the collection.



2. I was impress with Ms. Bertinelli's frank honesty here. She's got my vote. It's a quick read - and worth the weekend!!
   
   Sami



3. I grew up watching Valerie on ODT, but wasn't a huge fan of the show. I do read a lot of books and wanted something light to break up the historical group I've been reading lately. Well, I definitely got it here. I'm sure she's an adorable person in real life and a fine human being, but if she speaks anything like she writes, I'd be bored to tears listening to this woman. I completely relate to her struggles with weight and that's why I picked up this book, but I'm reading it thinking to myself, "my God, I can't believe you even think this way!" and "you obviously don't have to be bright to make it in Hollywood".
   
   I wish Valerie a happy and successful life, but next time...get a better editor. And lastly, it's Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, WISCONSIN...not Michigan. Someone should have proof-read this better.



4. This was so easy to read that I finished it in 1 day. It's not just for someone looking to lose weight. It's also a great book about sadness, alcohol and the complications of marriage. This is a real life story that testifies to the fact that you can't change someone until they are ready to change themselves.



5. As a child of the 80s, I really related to what was going on in this book. Valerie makes you feel like her best friend while telling the story of her life. Really enjoyed it!