I’m reading a book now that I nearly brought back to the library unread, and I’m glad I didn’t; I’d have missed an enjoyable nostalgic trip. It’s Hollywood Remembered by Paul Zollo. In the 1990s Zollo interviewed a lot of oldsters who’d worked in Hollywood near the time of its beginnings when the place was still more citrus grove than Capitol Records. He interviewed people you’ve heard of: Karl Malden, Evelyn Keyes (she played Scarlett O’Hara’s sister), Johnny Grant (honorary mayor of Hollywood), Steve Allen, Charles Champlin, and a lot more people you haven’t heard of; behind-the-scenes people: secretaries, set builders, producers.
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Hooray for Hollywood
by dean.smith
Mother-Focused Memoirs
by carolyn.rogers
Memoirs prove that our lives are not our lives alone. These recommended mother-focused memoirs show the influential role mothers play in molding future writers and artists.
Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Graphic novelist Bechdel is writing Fun Home and seeking her mother’s reluctant approval.
Where have all the novellas gone?
by reference
In the current New York Review of Books J.M. Coetzee discusses a new translation of Goethe’s epistolary novella The Sorrows of Young Werther*. My interest piqued as Coetzee is one of my favorite writers and Goethe’s novella provided one of my most enjoyable reading moments. Werther has fallen in love with a betrothed woman and writes longing letters to his friend Wilhelm. The letters are hilarious.
APL Recommends
By Joachim Fuchsberger.
Er ist alt. Er ist bekannt und beliebt. Jetzt macht der Schauspieler Joachim Fuchsberger seinen Altersgenossen und allen Jüngeren, die ja auch irgendwann mal alt werden, Mut, locker mit diesem unvermeidlichen Vorgang im Leben umzugehen. Launig und charmant, nachdenklich, aber nie weinerlich, plaudert der große alte Mann des deutschen Unterhaltungsfilms über die Blüte seines Lebens und darüber, wie es sich anfühlt, wenn sie langsam dahinwelkt.
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