Tina Fey's Bossypants was sent to me by a friend back home. If you aren't familiar with Tina Fey, she used to write for SNL and wrote the screenplay for the movie, Mean Girls (if you haven't seen it, watch it- watch it now!). Thus her biography is filled with sarcastic, dry humor that had me laughing out loud at the schools I read it at. I will say that it is a little choppy and sometimes read more as a collection of essays rather than an autobiography, but it is good. I am not really a feminist, but Tina Fey makes me want to take up the cause, and not in a bra-burning way.
She talks about being an awkward little girl, falling in love with gay men in high school, and then having to fight her way to be taken seriously in the world of comedians. She then goes on to tackle comedy in politics, being a working mom, and breaking glass ceilings in the world of TV production. I don't have the book with me at work or otherwise I'd quote it, but seriously, if you are looking for a good laugh, read this book. I finished it in two days and that is with family visiting (although, with this being the end of the school year, I had a lot of free time at work).
Now I'm in the middle of reading The Paris Wife, a fictional account of Ernest Hemingway's first wife. I've read Hemingway but was never a big fan, and yet this book is making me interested in going back and read his stuff again. I am also liking this book as it is going into detail about the lives of expats in Paris during the years between the two world wars. I love the book, The Book of Salt, which is about Gertrude Stein's cook during this same time and I also enjoyed the movie, Midnight in Paris, that also touched on this age of writing.
Anyway, even if you have no interest in Hemingway or don't know anything about him, the book plays out as a romance about a couple from the midwest who, at a young age, moved to a foreign country. Though the book isn't heavily filled with action or humor, it has been reading fast and has me constantly turning to wiki to refresh myself with names like Ezra Pound and incidents like the Greco-Turkish war. I feel like I am getting a history lesson along with the love lesson, which is my favorite combination. Though the main character is a little weak at times (I have to remember that this was during a different age when women were far more dependent on men), her voice is strong and you can emphasize with her.
Loved Bossypants, good choice!
ReplyDeleteI have The Paris Wife on my Kindle, I should bump it up in the queue.