Simply magical.

The following excerpt is from Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking:

People who have recently lost someone have a certain look, recognizable maybe only to those who have seen that look on their own faces. I have noticed it on my face and I notice it now on others. The look is one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness. It is the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylght with dilated eyes, or of someone who wears glasses and is suddenly made to take them off. These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themsleves invisible. I myself felt invisible for a period of time, incorporeal. I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themsleves recently bereaved. I understood for the first time the power in the image of the rivers, the Styx, the Lethe, the cloaked ferryman with his pole. I understood for the first time the meaning in the practice of suttee. Widows did not throw themselves on the burning raft out of grief. The burning raft was instead an accurate representation of the place to which their frief (not their families, not the community, not custom, their grief) had taken them. On the night John died we were thrity-one days short of our fortieth anniversary...
I wanted more than a night of memories and sighs.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted him back.

Rather than risk the possibility of farkeling up a review of this book with my amateurish opinions, I will just say that Didion's memoir of grieving following the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne stayed with me for quite a while after I had finished it. There's been a lot of critiques of the book, especially since it won the National Book Award, and while some may call Didion's prose too removed or cold for a book on grieving, I felt that her tone was that of someone trying genuinely to cope, to rationally think through a process that isn't rational at all. But reading Didion's strong, unique voice, simply contemplating the emotions and memories that accompany the loss of someone so close can be its own comfort. The Year of Magical Thinking does all the things that a good memoir should--deeply honest and beautifully written, it takes us for a brief moment into the mind of its creator.

For more on Didion and her memoir, check out an interview she did with NPR's Terry Gross.

Forget the stickman--cue the gunman.

In no less than three places in and on The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards, is a terse statement: 'This book is not affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.' This little disclaimer is vital, lest the reader assume that the Academy (those folks behind the Oscars) wanted to reveal the inner workings of its annual bash. From the stage, it's all glamour and stars, a night where the film industry gathers to recognize those deserving films that epitomize the art of cinema.

Whatever. Anyone who's ever sat through an entire Oscar telecast (admit it, you've done it, and you cheered when Titanic won) has to know that whomever is involved in mounting the production has to have a few loose marbles by the time it's all done. Thanks to Steve Pond, we now have proof. Pond (he's the one between Chris Cooper and the very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones in the back flap photo) gained backstage access to over a decade's worth of Oscar productions, revealing a process that tries sanity and could be reasonably blamed for at least one premature death. The story here isn't so much the stars, although there is plenty of humanizing (and demonizing) tidbits about them. Rather, Pond concerns himself more with the people planning the show, revealing the struggles to do the impossible: bring the show in at a three hour duration, avoid any nasty surprises from overly profane or political winners (or hosts) and ban the tedious thank-you lists from winners determined to have their minute (or five or ten) in the spotlight.

Pond reveals some surprising and humourous aspects to the show, such as the ticklish situation presented by the explicitve-laden nomination of "Blame Canada" for best song, and the potential for the use of rubber bullets in case some acceptance speeches carry on too long. In retrospect, the powers that be behind Oscar might have regretted pulling back the curtain for Pond's little book, but certainly with all the disclaimers, no one will be the wiser, right? At any rate, when you tune in on the 25th for the 79th incarnation of the Oscar bash, keep your fingers crossed for anyone who goes too far over the time limit--they may be in the crosshairs.

How the 0.0046% live.

I'll admit it: I love looking at home decor books. Not so much for the decoration or design of the places (let's face it--it's unlikely I would ever be able to afford the contents of a single room, much less an entire house), but for what the homes reveal of their owners. In most cases, the homes in such books are owned by very wealthy, but fairly anonymous figures. Architectural Digest, however, occassionally features homes of the rich and famous, thereby merging star oggling with the voyerism of looking at their homes.

Part of viewing other people's homes is the smugness that comes with assessing their tastes, and in that sense Hollywood at Home does not disappoint. Never a town (or nowadays, industry) known for restraint, many of the homes easily reflect their owners' larger than life personalities. The best example of excess goes to Jayne Mansfield's infamous Pink Palace, with its bathroom boasting pink shag carpeting on every flat surface (including the ceiling), but is also apparent in Cher's Italian Renaissance villa overlooking the beach, John Travolta's hangar-like home (complete with runway) or Jack Warner's 9-acre estate. Still, for every gargauntuan spread, there's a home that almost looks like mere mortals could reside within its walls. Not surprisingly, these most often belong to Hollywood stars of the past--James Stewart, Katherine Hepburn and Danny Kaye's seem almost quaint in their homey style.

The quality of the essays and photos varies across the book. Some essays concern themselves with the architectural or decorative characteristics of the house, while a few seem more like mini biographies of the famous occupant. The selection of homes is nicely mixed (including some in New York, New England and Ireland), as is the mix between old and new. Some stars are included for who they are rather than for their homes (Marilyn Monroe is here, in spite of the poor quality of images of her homes). But the point of Hollywood at Home's large, glossy format is for display on a coffee table or persual during viewings of Entertainment Tonight, and in that sense it serves its purpose admirably.

A walk braving bears and Katz.

If one were to undertake a 2,100 mile walk through much of the eastern United States, it's likely that a number of memorable incidents would occur in the course of the trek. If it happens to be Bill Bryson taking that walk, then it is fairly guaranteed that every bizarre possibility imaginable will occur, along with the likelihood of a few other unforeseeable calamities. Thankfully for readers, Bryson did attempt such a stroll, and lived to write about it in A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

For anyone unfamiliar with Bryson's work, A Walk in the Woods is pretty representative of his humourous travelogue style. Irreverent in tone, Bryson has the uncanny knack of revealing the subcultures and history of a particular part of the world, all while displaying an astounding ability to attract the most bizarre characters and experiences during his travels. In tackling the Appalachian Trail, Bryson gets plenty of material to work with. Joined on the trail by his woefully out of shape but divinely humourous companion Stephen Katz, Bryson sets out on the trail in Georgia, hoping to avoid the fearsome black bear and inbred hillbillies. The bears never appear, but Bryson and Katz do manage to stumble across truly frightening examples of humanity, including the annoying Mary Ellen, the forever lost Chicken John, and Ralph Lauren-clad day trippers whom Bryson and Katz get the better of.

While tromping through the woods (or seeking out the least scary motel in he can enjoy some of humanity's comforts), Bryson tells of the trail's convoluted history and reflects on the changing environment of the trail as it falls under heavier use. Part travelogue, misadventure story, cultural study and environmental cri de coeur, Bryson's walk never fails to entertain, even if it won't help you avoid a black bear.

Message in a bottle.

I have to say that I'm impressed with Koren Zailckas. Not so much for the fact that she's written an engrossing memoir while only in her mid-20s, but rather for the fact that she even remembers anything of the period of which she's writing. For much of her teens and early 20s, Zailckas spent much of her time getting drunk, drunk, or recovering from binging. Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood is both the story of Zailckas' struggle with alcohol and a warning of how the dangerous drinking has become a destructive means for young women in particular to overcome feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy.

Zailckas points out early in her book that she was never an alcoholic: she never physically required the buzz from a couple of drinks. A good student from a middle class family, she turned to alcohol beginning at the age of 14 to compensate for her perceived social awkwardness. Stories of increased sexual assult and alcohol poisoning in women often appear in the news, but when Zailckas recounts (or sometimes reconstructs from recollections of more sober friends) her experience having her stomach pumped or memories of relationships that revolved around bar hours, her struggle becomes more personal, or in some cases, familiar. Occassionally Zailckas uses grandiloquent language in describing her drinking, an aspect that I found rather annoying, but when she reins in her language, the reality of her experience comes through strongest.

There are several points at which Zailckas makes attempts to curtail her drinking, but when she falls off the wagon she is frank in pointing out her own poor choices. But she also reveals the pervasiveness of alcohol in society and the often contradictory stances toward what is, at its root, a drug. There's a sense of struggle in Zailckas' writing, that the craving for the courage offered by a drink will be something that may never leave her. Her story isn't likely to leave her readers.