A Lapful of Books

We stocked up at a library book sale. You never know, here in So. Calif., when there's going to be a snow storm. I scored two Agatha Christies, a John Sandford, a Maeve Binchy (writer of "British cozies") and a book on Louisiana plantations and recipes from them.

"Moon River and Me" by Andy Williams Viking 308 pages $25.95
Williams has an engaging, conversational style (or else his ghostwriter does) and he recounts his career and dishes about famous people -- best friends with Bobby and Ethel Kennedy; tidbits about Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I was particularly interested in the infamous Claudine Longet whom you may remember, married, then divorced Williams, took up with skier Spider Savitch and shot and killed him. She did a scant 30 days in jail, eventually married her lawyer and continued to live, head held high, in Aspen. I think she's now 63.

Since there is no Table of Contents or referral pages in the back of the book, I couldn't immediately zero in on these events. Sloppy editing.

Today Williams owns and performs in his Moon River Theater, Branson, MO.

"Wacky Chicks" by Simon Doonan Simon & Schuster 243 pages $12
Doonan is the Creative Director for Barney's, NY, and writes a column for the New York Observer.

He's a Brit and he's quite witty; very descriptive prose. He defines "wacky" women as "fearlessly inappropriate and fabulusly eccentric women." One of several profiled is Isabel Garret who drives around the US in a large motor home selling fetish wear at sites such as Dressing for Pleasure or the Lifestyle Convention, Las Vegas. She winters at a nudist park in Florida.

Brigid Berlin, the Warhol Factory Girl shares a chapter with Sunny Chapman, the glue factory girl (she escaped from an industrial life.) Even that loser Amy Sedaris ("Will no one rid me of this troublesome woman?") is included in a chapter entitled "Vermin and Cheeseballs."

All of the fads are represented - New Age crystals, macrobiotic diets -- by the women who share them.

Doonan defines "wacky chicks" as "a burgeoning and highly entertaining phenomenon. They dare to annoy, they empower themselves and others without acting like a bloke" and adds that they have more fun than most regular chicks and all men, except maybe gay men.

I recommend it heartily -- Suze, Leslie, Sue -- let me know if you want to borrow it.