How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young

This book should really be called, If You Ever Wanted to Write for Vanity Fair, Here are Fifty Million Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Bother, because, really, that’s exactly what I got from it.

Toby Young moved from London, England to New York City in the mid-90s to become a contributing editor for my favourite magazine, Vanity Fair. The LA Times called it “an undistinguished six-month stint at the magazine”. It was a little longer than that—three years, but who’s really counting?

This book is his memoir of his time in New York City amid the people who make up NYC: the rich, the famous, and those who think they are.

It was eye-opening. I suppose a part of me knew already what he had to say about life in NYC. Life is shallow, it’s hard to make friends or get a date, and ultimately people will leave in the lurch when you need them most. I’m sure there are lots of people in NYC who aren’t like that, but the world that I’ve always wanted to live in—the one Toby moved into—is that one. It really is Sex and the City, only it’s much more ruthless and everyone is trying to get into it. Who am I to compete with that?

It’s hard living in any large city without succumbing to the jadedness. Yesterday, Michael Bryant, a former Attorney General of Ontario was charged with dragging a cyclist to death with his car. It’s a sensational story getting a lot of coverage in the city. But I can’t seem to work up any feeling towards either the victim or the man who allegedly killed him.

I’ve only been living in Toronto for a year, but I feel like I’m already turning “cold”. Where is my innocence going? Is it possible to remain guileless while living amid the soot and grime? Or does it get beaten out of you by the people you meet and the things you see?

I thought about all of this after reading How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. In a way, I feel like it saved me from going down a path that would find me facing the same people Toby did. I don’t know whether to thank him for saving me the trouble, or steam forward, regardless of the warning signs I saw in his book.

No matter what the city’s affect has been on me, I don’t think I’m a lost cause just yet, though. My favourite part of his memoir was his story of Caroline, his wife. It gave me comfort to know that there are people out there who still fight for their love.

Anyway, I think I’ve veered a little bit in this review. If you want a great memoir from someone who lived and breathed the glossy magazine world for several years (and anyone who loves the zeitgeist would), you should pick up How to Lose Friends & Alienate People. Plus, it was hilarious.

Book Review: My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

I've been meaning to review Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life for awhile, but I've been dragging my feet here at the ol' Punnery. My apologies. I'll strive to get back on track. The list of books that I need to review is starting to get long and unwieldy and I'm afraid I might just give up on some of them soon enough. But anyway! Onto the book review:

My Horizontal Life is a collection of memories from Chelsea Handler's life growing up as a young, hot sex-kitten and the sort of antics that I could only dream of experiencing, given that I was never a hot sex kitten, not even in my wildest dreams. So to say that My Horizontal Life is my way of living vicariously through the glory days of some blonde skinny chick is a pretty good sum up.

The best part about the book is that it's actually good. Handler's funny as hell in a way that only fearless women can be. Her good looks have allowed her to get away with essentially murder, and she knows it, and she rolls with it. She recounts some of her most embarrassing morning-afters (the ones that we've all had but are hesitant to admit to). Midgets, male strippers, black guys, rich guys, weirdos, Chels has done 'em all.

Plus, she's funny. You can't hate a girl who willingly admits she has a drinking problem and it's led to some incredibly awkward situations in bed. All you can do is laugh and thank God it wasn't you. Unfortunately, I don't think her brand of humour really translates well to TV (thus, I've never been able to get through an entire episode of the Chelsea Handler Show), but I'll keep reading her books if she's willing to keep embarrassing herself further.

Rating: 3/5 stars

George W. Bush Writing His Memoirs

He didn’t want to come to Canada first when he was in office, but yesterday George W. Bush gave his first speech post-retirement in Calgary, Alberta. Figures he chooses the oil sands first.

Anyhoodle, don’t mind my political grumblings. I reserve those for the other blog.

As is expected, Bush is in the midst of writing his memoirs. Unlike previous presidents, though, he plans to focus on twelve key decisions in his life. Topics he plans on discussing include the juicy ones: 9/11, Katrina, Afghanistan and Iraq.

As much as I hate to admit it, I want to read this book. I’m not expecting much, though.

The book is set to be published in 2010 under Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House.

Link via Book Ninja

Book Review: The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford

I broke my recent reading stalemate with The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford (Riverhead Hardcover, 2005).

The name attracted me to it when I was in the library looking for Young Stalin. While I couldn't find the Stalin biography, I decided to take a chance with Crawford's tale. The title seemed interesting, and I liked the movie Jarhead, so I figured this was a good bet.

I promptly fell into my reading hiatus and forgot about it until last week. When I finally picked it up, I read it in one sitting.

The title says it all, frankly. This is a tale of an accidental soldier—a man who took advantage of the National Guard's free school tuition for the price of a weekend a month. He's deployed to Iraq where he spends three years as an infantryman patrolling the streets of occupied Baghdad and collecting his stories.

Crawford's writing is simple and straightforward, the prose of a man who isn't interested in crafting a beautiful tale. Yet, there are lines of real beauty in the book as well. The story is propelled by his words and how well they fit together.

Despite the title, I feel no pity for Crawford's situation. Yes, most soldiers sign up so they can go to school, but they make the decision to take the risk and Crawford is no different. His story happens to be well-crafted, though, and worth telling. No one can really explain to you what it's like to go to war, but you can get a small sense of it when you read accounts like Crawford's.

There are moments when you can almost feel the regret in his mind, especially in the final moments of the book as he recounts his final days in Iraq. After three years of patrolling a war-torn country as an American conqueror, he is suspicious of everyone, right down to the children. He makes no attempt to hide the fact that the Iraqi people considered the occupying forces as conquerors, not saviors. So you can understand his motivation when he spots a child holding a gun. It still chills you to the bone, though. You don't know whether or not he shoots the child in the end, but he does tell the reader that the gun was merely a shell with no chance of being a threat.

It's a sad story, but there are funny parts, despite the grim subject. If you liked Jarhead, you'll like The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell.

Rating: Four Stars

Book Review: I'm Not the New Me by Wendy McClure

I'm Not the New Me was recommended to me several years ago by a friend. It was on my original To Be Read challenge book list, therefore I consider this a win for that first challenge. Sure, I didn't read it two years ago, at the time of the challenge, but it's now off my pile, so there's something to be said about that, right?

She recommended this to me as a memoir of a fat girl. She failed to mention that Wendy McClure is a fat girl with a blog. I've never actually read a memoir by a fat girl with a blog. Being one myself, it was a little jarring at first. Kind of like looking into the window of a shop and seeing your outfit on a mannequin.

What did I see? A lot of self-loathing and introspection. Did I see myself in her, though? No, not really.

The thing about being a fat girl is that I tend to base my opinions of myself in relation to how different I am to someone else. Okay, my arms are thinner than hers, I don't have a double chin like she does, oh god she's got nicer legs than me, etc. etc.

The thing is, I don't think I overly obssess about my fatness. Essentially, Wendy and I are the same person. We both work in publishing, we're both big girls, and we both write blogs. That's where the similarities stop, though. This is where I begin formulating an opinion about myself through her. Her weight is a major issue in her life. It haunts her from her earliest childhood memories and carries through into her adult life like a scale attached to her ankle.

I found myself disliking Wendy in parts of the book. Part of it is because she's so consumed by her own low self-esteem, but mostly it's because she has this successful online presence, yet she seems taken aback and suspicious of the other women who reach out to her through her website.

I realize this book is written in 2005, and a lot has changed in the mean time. The nature of the weblog itself has changed drastically and I'm sure Wendy's opinion of the community that grew around her is not nearly as negative as it once was.

But I still can't help but feel like she's really just a bit of a whiner.

Rating: Two Stars