Slim : memories of a rich and imperfect life by Slim Keith

If you have a mental picture of Lauren Bacall, the sexy girl in those black and
white movies with Humphrey Bogart, then you come closest to visualizing the
subject of this book, a lady called Slim Keith. She was the wife of famed
Hollywood director Howard Hawks, and a good friend of Bacall's. In fact, Keith
claims that she "discovered" Bacall.

Born Nancy Gross, Slim was a rich child who grew up in the land around Salinas,
California. Her father owned some of those businesses made famous in John
Steinbeck's novel "Cannery Row," and her family knew his family. It was not the
only time Nancy would come in contact with a great writer. She was also good
girlfriends with Truman Capote, author of the true crime classic "In Cold Blood".
They had a falling out after he used her in a scathing short story. She was
lifelong friends with Ernest "Papa" Hemingway, and although he was eager to
become her lover, if her story is to be believed, she declined. He wasn't her type.
They remained friends, however, until he killed himself.

So Slim Keith was not what you'd think of as a good girl. She seemingly followed
the advice of Lois Griffin on "The Family Guy", which is "Make yourselves
available, ladies." And Slim was available. She lived with filmmaker Hawks
before his divorce from his mentally-ill wife was final. She slept with famed
Broadway producer Leland Hayward in New York City while his wife, a film
actress, was at their beach house taking care of their mentally disturbed children.
And while married to those rich and powerful men, she spent the night with other
people casually. But finally, husband Hayward dumped her for another famous
girl-about-town, Pamela Churchill, and author Slim retired to the British
Country side with Me~ third and final husband,--Sir Kenneth-Keith. And as the book­
reaches a close, she is quoted as saying to her third husband that she had no
idea how much money she had, just that she had enough to buy anything she
wanted. And to that I say, must be nice!

Still, in the process of partying around the world, Slim led a fascinating life. She
was able to meet and hang out with some of the sexiest men on celluloid at the
time, movie icons like Cary Grant, Montgomery Clift, William Powell and Gary
Cooper. She traveled all around the world as casually as I would take a trip to
Wiseway or Walmart. She paints a portrait here of herself as witty and desirable,
kind and intelligent, and perhaps hardest to believe, as a great mother and
stepmother to the children of her three husbands. And yet ultimately she is the
victim of these men who use and discard her as easily as they would toss away a
worn out script, and she herself calls her autobiography "memories of a rich and
imperfect life." But like Keith herself, her life story is always interesting, even
though it has its flaws.

Submitted by Gerti

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and their World by Hugh Brewster

My sister has a new favorite word, "meh", and that word is precisely how I feel after having finished this book "Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage" by Hugh Brewster. While discussion of the sinking of the luxury liner Titanic on her maiden voyage is always interesting, this book seems to drag with facts and therefore loses much of the drama of the episode.

I have no doubt that this book is exhaustively researched, and that every fact listed herein is accurate, but I have both read and seen other works that are far more engaging to me as a reader/viewer. The movies "A Night to Remember" and James Cameron's "Titanic" come to mind instantly, but even a made-for-TV
movie that was on just this year was more compelling than this book, and it was complete rubbish.

"Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage" reminds me of how author Hugh Brewster describes a book written by a man lost in the tragedy; Archibald Gracie IV apparently wrote a book about the battle of Chickamauga that was so weighed down in facts, that it bored even those who has been in the Civil War battle and might have been
especially interested in the subject matter. To me, this book has the same feel, leaving me as the reader drowning in facts when what I was really hungering for some human drama.

Submitted by Max

The Digest Diet Cookbook by Liz Vaccariello

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(3 out of 5)

This is a follow up to The Digest Diet book.  If you are looking for a new way to lose weight you may want to check this diet out.  It incorporates drinking shakes for breakfast and lunch and then having a sensible dinner.  Before starting any diet you should consult your doctor.  The cookbook has 150 all-new fat releaser recipes to keep you on track.  Even if you are not wanting to lose weight or follow this diet it does have some really yummy looking recipes that are good for you.

Madhouse Cookbook by Jo Pratt

Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
(4 out of 5)

The Madhouse Cookbook is all about how Ms. Pratt's life changed when she got married and had children.  It is a survival guide of sorts on how to make it through a hectic week and an even busier weekend.  She also gives you tips on how to cling to your social life.  The pictures in here of the food look fabulous.  The colors are just so vibrant and wonderful.  I wish the picture of the book did it justice, but it doesn't.  You will just have to check the book out to see what I mean.

Compulsively Mr. Darcy by Nina Benneton

I am what you would call a completer. I compulsively need to finish the things I start. So there are very few movies that I haven't watched to the end, including "Easy Rider," which becomes utterly intolerable after the graveyard scene. And
there are very few books in my life that I have not been able to finish; I think the count up till today is one, although there may have been another back in my pre­ school days before I started really keeping track of such things. I tell you this
because Nina Benneton's "Compulsively Mr. Darcy" is challenging even my deeply rooted compulsion to finish reading it. I am on page 83, and I must admit defeat.

This is the second time tonight I have wanted to stop reading this book. While I'm now on Chapter 11, the first I wanted to stop reading altogether was when I got to Chapter 7 and read the title "Charles Bingley is a Lucky Whore." Now, if you've
ever read Pride and Prejudice," Jane Austen's great novel of society, love and manners, you know the character of Charles Bingley, who falls in love with the
Bennet family's oldest daughter Jane. He is a sweet, gentle, bumbling teddy bear of a Regency millionaire, and also Mr. Darcy's best friend. To call him "a lucky whore" is so totally wrong on so many levels, that I almost feel as though I need to throw up. And to have that offensive phrase come out of Benneton's modernized version of Elizabeth Bennet, the clever but innocent heroine of
Austen's novel, is also 50 shades of wrong.

The only real question for me, then, is why I read this far. I've got to give it to Benneton. The initial concept was clever. Darcy is travelling with buddy Bingley to Vietnam, because the Hursts (Bingley's sister and her husband) want to adopt a baby. Elizabeth is an infectious disease doctor at the local hospital there, and Jane runs the orphanage. I don't mind the characters being placed in a uniquely
different situation. I actually think it's clever. But what I like about the many Austen redux novels that I have read, is that the characters retain their basic natures. And I knew this author had lost her course when Elizabeth mentioned that her sisters Mary and Kitty has asked her for prescriptions for birth control. Funny, since those are the 2 sisters in Austen's original novel who do NOT get married, but wrong and perverse. And while to me it's OK for Joan Aiken to take a character like Mary Bennet or Jane Fairfax and make her more adventurous, or give her more of a social conscience. But to have the young girls ask their Berkley hippie doctor sister for the Pill is a little much for my sensibilities!

I apologize to the author for not being able to finish this book, and to Sourcebooks publishing for therefore not being able to judge it fairly. But I just can't live in a world where Mr. Darcy tells someone to "F off."

Submitted by Gertie

National Library Week Question #2

What would you give up for one million dollars, chocolate or books?

Even though I am a huge fan of chocolate I would have to say chocolate because I can't live without books!

National Library Week: Question 1

What is the first sentence of the book you are reading right now?  I will tell you mine when I have it in front of me!