Portrait of Miss L. L., 1864, James Tissot/Young Woman in Orison Reading a Book of Hours, ca. 1520s, Ambrosius Benson

My Continuing Education of the 1960s and 1970s

Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit by Catherine James
Miss O’Dell by Chris O’Dell
Bohemians: The Glamourous Outcasts by Elizabeth Wilson
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth
The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night by Anthony Haden-Guest

A year later, I can’t resist the siren’s call of a groupie memoir. Catherine James was kind of useless in the grand scheme of everything, and boy, she had the meanest mom ever. Bob Dylan inspired her to walk out of juvie and into the magical world of musician boyfriends. Chris O’Dell sang on the chorus for Hey Jude! She was on the roof when the Beatles performed for the last time! She banged Mick Jagger! Or was it Keith Richards? She also managed their tour and found time to do Ringo Starr too. Renaissance Woman.

Bohemians covered the culture of Bohemianism starting in the nineteenth century up until Anita Pallenberg runs around with weird performance artists. What I took from this book is that everyone is a poser nowadays. Keef mentioned The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones a few times in Life, so I thought I’d give it a try. It was funny. Mr. Booth made everything sound so grand, it would have been a great blog. Any bands want to take me on a whirlwind tour as their official blogger? Duh, The Last Party was so campy and great. Studio 54 sounded like something caught between the best thing ever and a total nightmare world.

A Moment of Distraction, mid-1860s, Gustave Leonard de Jonghe/Junge Dame mit Zeichengerät, 1816 Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein

A Potpourri of Fiction

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
Beautiful Days by Anna Godbersen
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Another series which calls to me and I cannot resist answering is Sookie Stackhouse. I don’t even like these books anymore, it’s just an instinctive reaction or something. I can’t even tell you what happened in this particular installment but I think there was a plot line involving vampires being forced to work in a club and wear sexy uniforms. I swear, this has happened in multiple vampire series I have read and I cannot fathom why. Hey! Why did I never think of writing Gossip Girl set in the 1920s? Oh, someone did it for me? Thanks. I will read Beautiful Days in two beautiful days and hide its cover on the Skytrain.

Boy, I sure didn’t like Swamplandia! What a load of misery. But I sure enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, it helped fill the void of the Reichenbach Fall for about three days. Now I just feel empty again.

Carl Herpfer/Lesbia, James Sant. English

Non-Fiction Potent Potables

Beauty, Disrupted by Carré Otis
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model by Ashley Mears
Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Carré talked about her chihuahuas a lot and man, Mickey Rourke sure sounds like a jerk. Once he made Carré’s purse shoot her. Mindy Kaling’s book was really cute and funny, but it spent a lot of time explaining dated pop culture references in order to set up jokes for current pop culture references. What will happen if someone reads that book in five, ten years? They will need to be continually reprinting updated additions with new pop culture references to explain the now dated ones. I know, right?

Pricing Beauty lacked the gaudy drama I’ve come to expect with my books about models (see: Carré Otis). Actually it was a pretty interesting look at the modelling industry from a sociological perspective, but no one’s purse shot anyone, so it’s a wash. Female Chauvinist Pigs felt like I was reading someone’s thesis. I had a hard time taking it seriously.

If you listen to any of Jon Ronson‘s bits on This American Life, your enjoyment of The Psychopath Test will soar tenfold.

This Books installment features books read from December 2011 to February 2012.

I’m well on track for reading a book a week this year! Here’s what I read since my previous reading list was posted:

Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women by Michael Gross: An in-depth history of modeling. A little dry at the start but things definitely picked up once the modeling business started getting all scandalous in the 1960s and 70s. Anja recently posted about the blog Youthquaker, it’s fun looking at it now that I am more familiar with those classic models.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by John Krakauer: An interesting and disturbing look into the fundamentalist Mormon church. Recommended to me with great enthusiasm by Jessica, who always knows exactly what I’ll like.

William and Harry by Katie Nicholl: I forgot to include this on the last book list! Jessica lent me this unauthorized biography of the Princes for a ferry ride home. Like I said, she always knows what I like.

A Free Wheelin’ Time by Suze Rotolo: Rock star girlfriend book! Written by Bob Dylan’s ex-girlfriend, also known as the girl in the green coat on the cover of The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan. I ended up liking Suze a lot, her journey in making an individual life for herself and learning to be an artist was refreshing, since a lot of those rock star girlfriends ended up playing housewife while their famous partners lived the wild life on the road. Despite this, 90% of the book focuses on her relationship with Dylan. Thanks to Anne for recommending this to me! Still taking recommendation for rock star girlfriend books. Anyone?

Life by Keith Richards: Rock star book! I really enjoyed Richard’s “voice”. In some reviews people complained it was too rambling but I imagined just hangin’ out with Uncle Keef and listening to all his wacky tales. Marianne Faithfull talked about how sweet he was in Faithfull and I totally got that vibe.

Hotel Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones: This is from a fun series of books where the author takes stories and rumours from anonymous sources and weaves them into a narrative. In Fashion Babylon, the story follows a young designer creating and showing a collection; Hotel Babylon spends 24 hours in a luxury London hotel. I looooooove tawdry gossip!

Just Kids by Patti Smith: So heartbreaking, so lovely. One of my favourites for 2011. Patti Smith’s sweet story about her and Robert Mapplethorpe becoming artists in 1970s New York City. Funniest part about reading this book was that I kept thinking about this one plot line on Gossip Girl in which a nude photo of Lily Van Der Woodsen taken by Robert Mapplethorpe goes up for auction.

I picked up a new stack of books from the library and am almost done whatever the new Sookie Stackhouse book is called, so I’m getting close! Also, I love book recommendations, so please drop me a line if you have anything to suggest!

One of my goals for 2011 was to read more books and I am pleased to say I have kept up on my promise. At the rate I am going I think I will have read a book a week– crazy! I get a lot of reading done on the Skytrain– it’s 45 minutes, five days a week, of furiously trying to block the outside world with a book. To be fair, some of these books take less than two days to burn through because they are targeted at a young adult reading level… and sometimes a dumb adult level. This is a recap of books read so far, divided into helpful sections.

All images from the Life photo archive.

Classic Rock History with an Emphasis on Rock Girlfriends & Lady Rock

Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac by Carol Ann Harris
Faithfull by Marianne Faithfull
Stoned by Andrew Loog Oldham
Electric Ladyland: Women in Rock Culture by Lisa L. Rhodes
Wonderful Tonight by Patti Boyd
Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown
I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie  by Pamela Des Barres

I was really into rock star girlfriend bios at the start of the year. I learned all rock stars were assholes, especially in the 60s and 70s, but maybe that’s cause weirdos like Phil Spector and Andrew Loog Oldham were working with them. Marianne Faithfull’s book was the best. She seemed the most honest and upfront about all the crazy stuff that happened to her. The Fleetwood Mac book was hilarious.

Non-Embarrassing Fiction

Dune by Frank Herbert
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messuad
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
A Man with No Country by Kurt Vonnegut
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Wolf Hall is my favourite book of the year thus far. I read The Rum Diaries in Honduras and told Lori that she would sell it instantly at her Roatan bookstore to a young male backpacker. My prophecy came true in less than 24 hours. Man, all those dudes in On the Road were so annoying. Always whoopin’ and eating a bajillion sandwiches. Dune, of course, was amazing. I have a feeling Wicked the play is nothing like Wicked the book– it was not quite what I expected.

Young Adult Fiction Read Without Shame

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen
Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce
Wither by Lauren Desteffano
The Hunger Games by Susan Collinson
Catching Fire by Susan Collinson
Mockingjay by Susan Collinson

Sometimes if I see young adult fiction that I know I would have loved as a teen, I will read it– hence Bright Young Things, a sort of Gossip Girl set in the 1920s. Tamora Pierce is a fantasy author whose lady heroines are always amazing. Her Song of the Lioness series and Wild Magic series were favourites of mine when I was around 13. Terrier and Bloodhound did not disappoint. I wish I knew some young ladies to whom I could recommend these books! And duh– Hunger Games trilogy ripped my heart out of chest and mercilessly stomped it in a terrifying future death game.

Non-Fiction Accounts of Stuff

Bossypants by Tina Fey
The World According to Mimi Smartypants
Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
A Man with No Country by Kurt Vonnegut

Mimi Smartypants has a great blog that I love reading. I read Joan Didion lying under a shade tent at Speed Week after I got burnt out by cars and relentless salt flat sun. Here’s a secret: I didn’t really care for Bossypants! Oops!

Books Whose Covers I Hid the on the Skytrain: A Tellingly Lengthy List

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice
Beauty’s Punishment By Anne Rice
Beauty’s Release by Anne Rice
Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans
The Vixen Diaries by Karrine Steffans
Narcissus in Chains by Laurel K. Hamilton
Guilty Pleasures by Laurel K. Hamilton
The Laughing Corpse by Laurel K. Hamilton
Circus of the Damned by Laurel K. Hamilton
The Lunatic Café by Laurel K. Hamilton
Descent into Dusk by Jacqueline Lepore
Immortal with a Kiss by Jacqueline Lepore

All those Sleeping Beauty books are wacky erotic fiction– there’s a reason Anne Rice originally wrote them under a different name. The Vixen Diaries was a fairly amusing romp but then the sequel consisted of the author talking about how her crazy fucked up life was now validated because she was a best-selling author (for writing about her crazy fucked up life). Lepore’s books are about a Victorian vampire hunter, which is a cheesy concept but was executed fairly well (until she committed the unforgivable sin of having her fictional characters interact with a real person– in this case, Bram Stoker).

All those Laurel K. Hamilton books are (gulp) supernatural romances. The first few books were super weird for this genre because the protagonist was basically a born again virgin until around the fifth book when suddenly she has crazy sex with EVERYONE. The editions I was reading had been republished with a new afterword from the author and at the end of the fifth book the author revealed that in the process of writing the book, she had divorced her super conservative husband who had basically pressured her into censoring the sex and violence in her writing. I actually read the tenth book in the series first and was pretty amused by all the weird sex scenarios in which the heroine constantly found herself, which were totally absent in the first few books. I guess once the divorce went through, some kind of wacky porno switch turned on in Hamilton’s brain.

Fashion Industry Tell-Alls (A List in Progress)

The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake
Fashion Babylon by Imogen Edward-Jones

I’ve got a book called Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women started now and one called Chic Savages is next in line. Both look hilariously outdated.

(Note there are two books I could not complete: The Half-Life by Jonathan Raymond and Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal. Pretty bummed about the SVH book.)

After reading the thoughtful and wonderful Wolf Hall, I was in the mood for something dramatically different. The Nardwuar vs. Best Coast interview got it in my mind that I was to read some wacky rock biographies. Namely, I wanted to read about Stevie Nicks and did she or didn’t she get coke blown up her ass?

I was delighted to learn that the Vancouver Library does in fact carry rock n’ roll biographies — they just hide them up on the 7th floor. I checked out Storms: My life with Lyndsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac by Carol Ann Harris, Faithfull, the autobiography of Marianne Faithfull, Stoned by Andrew Loog Oldham and Electric Ladyland: Women in Rock Culture by Lisa L. Rhodes.

So far I’ve read Storms and Faithfull, two girlfriend-of-rock-star-bios. Carol Ann Harris  (above, right) dated Lyndsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac for eight years, starting right before Rumours went big. Harris’ book is pretty fluffy. Her presence really only serves as a means of relating numerous scenes of Fleetwood Mac snorting all sorts of stuff.

Faithfull, however, is a bit more of an exotic creature. Daughter of an aristocrat, ancestor of the guy who invented S&M, her appetite for self-destruction and honest accounts of her drug addiction are alternatively engaging and devastating. It’ also a fun and unflinching glimpse into London of the 1960s and its fashion, music and drugs.

I still have to find Stevie Nicks’ biography though! Harris’ experiences with Nicks (the ex-girlfriend of Buckingham) were pretty funny– “crystal visions”, anyone?

Recently I read a wonderful book, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and it has rekindled my interest in Tudor England. Coincidentally, I’ve been fighting some illness that, while thankfully not sweating sickness or any other sort of Tudor plague, has kept me in bed for the last few days. It’s given me plenty of time to watch The Tudors, however, and to reflect on my trip to London in 2009 where I finally got to visit the National Portrait Gallery and see some of the Tudors face-to-face.

Back to Wolf Hall, I was very taken with it, it’s a great account of Tudor life and Thomas Cromwell becomes a magnetic and charismatic character. I love that he’s played by James Frain in The Tudors, who I will always think of as Franklin Mott on True Blood. In contrast, I have been slogging through The Half-Life by Jonathan Raymond, which is historical fiction doing everything I hate.

The blog Screenwriting Tips advised “Don’t show off your research and world-building — sneak it in as incidental dialogue and background detail”, which is precisely what Mantel does and Raymond doesn’t. In Christopher Tayler’s review of Wolf Hall in The Guardian, he sums up Mantel’s dexterity with research, saying:

Without clobbering the reader with the weight of her research, Mantel works up a 16th-century world in which only a joker would call for cherries in April or lettuce in December, and where hearing an unlicensed preacher is an illicit thrill on a par with risking syphilis. The civil wars that brought the Tudors to the throne still make older people shudder, bringing Henry’s obsession with producing a male heir into focus. And the precarious nature of early modern life is brought home by the abrupt deaths of Cromwell’s wife and daughters, carried off by successive epidemics in moving but unsentimentally staged scenes.

As a sometimes writer and great lover of historical fiction, I really appreciate this aspect of Mantel’s work and hope to apply it to any projects of my own in the future. In the meantime, I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel to Wolf Hall (though I was somewhat horrified to discover Mantel also wrote Beyond Black, a book I really could not get into).

I bought new shoes (above). What is with my never-ending attraction to grannyesque petit point florals? They were satisfyingly on sale.

I saw True Grit and Tron and now I have a minor obsession with Jeff Bridges in vaguely kimono-inspired robes. I also watched The Town and thought it was an entertaining but shallow effort. Blake Lively was LOL.

I went to Deer Garden in Richmond for noodles on Saturday and it was very good. I went to Hapa Izakaya on Friday and it was also good but not necessarily better than Guu, where I believe my allegiance still lies.

I am going to dance my face off at The Twelves! So excited. I love their mixes.

I finished the year in reading with Diana in Private by Lady Colin Campbell. It was a perfect example of tawdry tabloid sensationalism, written before Charles and Diana had even divorced. You’ll note the author is a bona fide Lady– my favourite part of the book was actually her rambling asides on being a member of the titled class.

Carrying over into 2011 was Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey. I wish Carey would just focus on Terre D’ange, I get pretty bored of her tired “reimagining” of other cultures. Also, if you’re going to feature a magical talisman of deadly seductive powers, then someone better get seduced, damnit.

Now I’m reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I never had any interest in the book until Sean mentioned it contained “courtly intrigue”. Hello!

I finally got a library card for the Vancouver Public Library! The downtown library is a little overwhelming so I hit up the biography section and chose a bunch of books at random. Also, I ride the Skytrain to work every day and I feel a little crazy if I’m not shielding my face with a book. Some of my recent books have been rather embarrassing though. I always look at what people read on public transit, so I hope no one is looking too closely at my picks.

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
I’ve read a good chunk of the Austen canon so I figured it was time. I really enjoyed it! The best scene is the dinner party where all the characters meet and Marianne doesn’t give a fuck anymore and shit goes down. I was pretty bummed when that scene wasn’t in the movie. I also wasn’t really into Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon. Now I’m like “What is Snape doing here”. Here’s some really cute Sense and Sensibility related stuff: A very big house in the country by Miss Moss and Living In: Sense and Sensibility.

Hungry – Crystal Renn
It was really bad. Sorry Crystal Renn, but I’m not sure your life so far warrants an autobiography. This book was full of insights into Renn’s life like “I loved meatballs as a kid!”. Pretty much skim read half the book.

Envy and Splendor – Anna Godbersen
Pretty sure this author went into my brain and stole my idea for a Gossip Girl series set in the 1890s. Execution in The Luxe series isn’t great and it’s young adult fiction so there’s not as many tawdry bits as I prefer but still good for a brainless (but embarrassing) Skytrain ride. On a related note, why weren’t any of these Historical teen dramas being written when I was actually a young adult? I would have devoured these. The only ones I can remember reading were the Sally Lockhart series by Phillip Pullman and everything by Judith Merkle Riley (all non-tawdry).

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper – Diablo Cody
Pretty entertaining, I think I read it in a day. Every sentence was a totally over the top metaphor or simile. I’m sure everyone has seen Juno, so just imagine that movie but Juno is a nerdy stripper.

Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr – David Bret
Joan definitely deserves a biography! I really enjoyed this tawdry gossip fest. Reading some reviews, people seem to hate this book but if you look at the comments on youtube videos of old Hollywood stars, you’ll learn people are very weird and protective of their favourite old school actresses. (p.s. wouldn’t it be awesome if this was written by David Brent?)

And, as an addendum to a previous Reading Roll post, I forgot to mention I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson in September. Now when I see office ladies reading these books on the train, I like to imagine they’re reading one of the really violent scenes.

(Wish I could remember who took the photo– it was saved on my computer a long time ago. Any ideas?)

I thought this was really exciting:

Even if it appears she replies to everyone. I love New Orleans! Thanks Anne.

This reading roll stretches all the way back to July. Got in some great summer reading this year!

Kaiulani: Crown Princess of Hawai’i
My mom brought this book back from Hawai’i for me. My interest in Kaiulani stems from a memory of being transfixed by her achingly beautiful and youthful portrait (Either in Kawaiaha’o Church or the Bishop Museum, I can’t recall) while visiting Hawai’i years ago.

My mom and I have always been suckers for a tragic or unusual princess story (not that being a princess is a usual thing by any means). One of our favourites is Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898). Her life was filled with tragedy — the death of a young child, the murder-suicide of her only son and his lover, her alienation from her husband and her perpetual pining for her homeland of Hungary. We visited her imperial apartments while in Vienna and saw her personal gym where she worked on maintaining her 20 inch waist. Sisi was an anorexic who often subsisted only on broth to keep her weight down. She was also famous for her ridiculously long hair. She was murdered in 1898, stabbed with a sharpened file in the heart. Apparently she was not aware she had been injured until she removed her corset, the pressure of which had contained the bleeding.

We also love Princess Diana for all the obvious reasons. Check out those Hunters! Now all the girls in Vancouver look like Lady Di too.

The content of Kaiulani was definitely interesting and of course, tragic. Born to a Hawaiian mother and Scottish father, and in line for the Hawaiian throne, Kaiulani had an idyllic childhood growing up in tropical pastoral paradise on land that is now Waikiki. While away at school in England, her heritage and right to the throne were taken away by Americans living in Hawai’i who, in classic American fashion, wanted Hawai’i’s riches for themselves. The writing style was… unusual. It made more sense when I realised the book was actually first published in 1962. A movie based on Kaiulani’s life was recently released to little fanfare, starring Q’orianka Kilcher, who is as Hawai’ian as Taylor Lautner is Native American.

The Golden Spruce
Jordan really loved this book and I was equally fascinated by the story. The golden spruce was a tree with a rare genetic mutation that caused its needles to appear golden in colour. It was considered a sacred tree by the Haida people of the Haida Gwaii islands, off the west coast of British Columbia. In 1997 it was felled by Grant Hadwin in protest of the logging of old growth forests in BC. Hadwin, a skilled outdoorsman, mysteriously vanished on his way to trial. This book was really interesting. John Vaillant weaves together the history of logging in BC with the story of the Haida and the climax is alternatively frustrating and oddly beautiful. Probably the best book I read this summer. Warning: seeing photos of the old growth stands that once covered Vancouver is mega depressing.

Valley of the Dolls
Does this book really need an introduction? It was pretty amazing. I read sections of this aloud to Blair on Brady’s Beach on our west coast camping trip. I especially enjoyed reading up on who the characters were based – Neely O’Hara aka Judy Garland, Helen Lawson aka Ethel Merman. I watched the movie and it was pretty disappointing. Gotta check out Ebert’s sequel for the real camp, I guess.

Barney’s Version
Jordan’s been hinting that I should read his favourite book forever and I finally picked it up this summer. Of course I loved it – Mordecai Richler is one of Canada’s best authors and for good reason. His black humour, his wonderful characters, his scotch and cigars! A movie version starring Paul Giamatti as the titular character has just been released. The trailer reeks of romantic comedy and apparently Giamatti never read the book. Fuck you, Paul Giamatti.

Lolita
I was apartment-sitting for the month of September and the residents had a bookshelf packed with classics. Lolita was wonderful. It goes without saying that Nabokov’s writing is pure artistry.

Middlesex
Jordy lent me this book and it sat around my apartment for a while before I picked it up. Why did I wait so long? I had no idea “hermaphrodite” was a mere slice of the plot. I love a good multi-generational family story and Eugenides is so good at filling in all the wonderful details to make each generation vivid. Apparently Middlesex is in the works as an HBO series, which is awesome. Nothing warms my heart like the words “HBO series”. I can’t think of a better forum to translate this book to the screen.

I feel like I have been reading a lot less since I came back from Lousiana. Maybe it’s because I’m finishing up the Mayfair Witches trilogy by Anne Rice and have been immersed in nothing but flowery, gothic, weird, incestual plotlines for the last two months?

I read A Confederacy of Dunces as “homework” for my trip. I actually enjoyed the book quite a bit, it really reminded me of Youth in Revolt. Book smart, street stupid protagonist (if you can even call Ignatius that), an intelligent love interest whose motives are often questionable and everyone else existing solely to give the protagonist proof of his own (false) superiority.

The Witching Hour was my saviour when our flight was delayed, resulting in an extended layover in Houston and another night in Seattle. It’s well written tawdriness and Anne Rice’s descriptions of New Orleans are absolute perfection. She really captures the decaying beauty and southern gothic spirit of the city. There are about a billion characters in this book but luckily I love a good dynasty and I found the Mayfair family history utterly absorbing. I immediately recommended it to Jessica (that means I loved it).

Lasher verged on being a bit too “sci-fi” for my tastes. I’m really more of a ghost person than weird what evers. It was still a fast read for me though, even if I had to be Jessica’s “sponsor” for some of the more… ahem, challenging scenes. Now I’m reading Taltos and after that I think I am due for another ten year Anne Rice break.

Book-to-reads: Ka’iulani: Crown Princess of Hawai’i by Nancy Webb and Jean Francis Webb, Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Sussan, Barney’s Version by Mordechai Richler (I owe it to Jordan, even if I doubt he’ll ever read MY favourite book, Kushiel’s Dart).