March 2021 Books

* Bunny Mellon ¹ by Meryl Gordon - I first heard of this woman thanks to Frank Langella's incredible memoir Dropped Names. It was the moment when a young (college-age) Frank was visiting the Mellon's home with his friend, Eliza, Bunny's daughter. He was reading aloud at Bunny's prompting and he mispronounced Descartes' name, causing the young crowd to chuckle. Later, when it was just Frank and Bunny, she asked him to re-read that passage, the one about Descartes. I was so struck by how regal and polished she came across and I wanted to learn more. Knowing I don't have the discipline to sit and read the book version, I bought the audiobook off Audible. I was able to finish it in a handful of days and thoroughly enjoyed it. A unique and fascinating woman.

Exuberance ¹ by Kay Redfield Jamison - I so wanted to like this but my god was it mega dull. 

* Julia Child - A Life ¹ by Laura Shapiro - I really like this woman and so enjoyed reading about her life before and after living in France. What's scary as hell is that I listened to this in June 2019 and completely forgot. A lot of what I knew this time I chalked up to having read My Life in France this past December. It was a nice refresher course on the life of Julia Child!

♥ A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dune

* The Neverending Story ¹ by Michael Ende

♥ The Way We Lived Then by Dominick Dunne - I loved reading this mini-autobiography from Dominick Dunne with all the photographs through the years. I admire and adore him more with each of his books that I pick up. I loved it so much that when I found a signed copy I snapped it up with the quickness!

* As Luck Would Have It ¹ by Derek Jacobi - Not the most riveting of memoirs but it was so lovely to hear that Derek Jacobi had such a good relationship with his parents and that they genuinely loved him unconditionally. As a fan, I especially liked hearing the little bit about his work on Dead Again and Last Tango in Halifax. Oh and of course his relationship with hubby Richard Clifford.

* A Fine Romance ¹ by Candice Bergen - I knew very little of Candice Bergen, except that her father was a well known ventriloquist, she was married to a famous French filmmaker named Louis Malle, and she played the title character on Murphy Brown. I think the only performances  I was familiar with were her appearances on Sex and the City (and that she properly pronounced Diane Arbus' first name!) and when I was a kid I saw her in The Wind and the Lion. This audiobook is about her later life - meeting and falling in love with Louis Malle, their daughter, Chloe, her work on Murphy Brown, Malle's death, and her finding love again with Marshall Rose and their life together. It was a long-ass listen (roughly 14 hours) but it was never, ever boring. 

* The Cool Side of My Pillow ¹ by Bruce Campbell - Little brother Xavier told me about this book available on Audible and I threw down a credit and hit play. Bruce Campbell is an impossible man to dislike and this brief book was just what I wanted to hear to get in a few laughs and hear what the man himself has to say about things. 

¹ - audiobook
² - abridged version
* - liked
♥ - loved
Any unmarked titles were, in my opinion, so-so.