3 comments about Bluegrass Days, Neon Nights: High Rolling With Happy Chandler's Wayward Son, Dan Chandler.

1. Great stories related by chandler of the vegas high roller comp system and the clebs he incountered.Do not miss.



2. I have never submitted a review, but feel compelled to do so after reading this book. I am a huge fan of John L. Smith's writings and have purchased and read every one. This book, however is NOT, repeat - NOT - written by him! In the preface, the real author, Dan Chandler, says this book is written in his (Chandler's) own words and, clearly this book is. It is not up to the usual very high standard of Smith. It is a rambling, name dropping, everybody loves me chronicle of Chandler's relationships with known personalities and leaves the reader with a sense of how important Chandler thinks he is (or was - he's dead now). If you even think this is a biography (or autobiography) of Chandler's life you are wrong. Even though he brags about being employed by Caesers Palace seven times and working several other casinos as a casino host, there is not one sentence about how he got fired and rehired seven times. He only wants people to know how many of the rich and famous were his "best friends" or in his words "my man ..." What Smith's role in the book is unclear, except to think that he somewhat edited Chandler's words. Very disappointing book "authored" by a great writer with a biting, humorous way with words. I will still by Smith's books, but this one is a stinker!



3. In John L. Smith's latest book, Bluegrass Days Neon Nights, he travels through the life of Las Vegas casino host Dan Chandler. The son of Kentucky Governor and Baseball Commissioner Albert "Happy" Chandler, Dan Chandler often joked that he started at the top and spent his life working his way to the middle. His rise or descent can be argued but as a casino host in Las Vegas Chandler led a riotous life filled with the greatest celebrities of politics, sports, music and movies.

No comments about George Bernard Shaw - A Playwrights Biography.

No comments about Elton John's Flower Fantasies: An Intimate Tour of the Houses and Garden.

No comments about Sex and Money: How I Lived, Breathed, Read, Wrote, Loved, Hated, Slept, Dreamed and Drank Men's Magazines.

3 comments about Desperately Seeking Madonna: In Search of the Meaning of the World's Most Famous Woman.

1. Whether you're a devotee or detractor of the lady in question, "Desperately Seeking Madonna" never fails to entertain (and even educate). Sexton features an impressive array of contributors (where else can you find essays by both Camille Paglia and Henry Rollins?) and himself uses Madonna as a springboard for such thought-provoking questions as "does our culture need to pigeonhole women in order to understand them?" An intelligent, fun and fascinating read.



2. Where else can you read about the relationship between Madonna and man's desire to bowl?



3. This book contains 51 different articles, thesis', poems and rants about Madonna, by authors varied as Camille Paglia and Vincent Canby to Henry Rollins and Liz Smith. It includes various one page cartoons and strips from "Mad" magazine and the Village Voice, and also in the mix are Rolling Stone poll results, a David Letterman top ten list about "Truth or Dare", and Sandra Bernhard writing about her Madonna dreams from her book "Confessions of a Pretty Lady". This book is chock full of more useless information about Madonna that us fans crave, new and old...The information covers roughly the 1984-1991 era (her most active IMHO) and is very entertaining, though not for the average reader. Madonna fans will find this book a great resource and companion to "The Madonna Companion", also a collection of written works about Madonna, though it is more on the scholarly edge. So this book is recommended to Madonna collectors, and all others...Borrow it from your own "Madonna freak".

1 comments about Female Icons: Marilyn Monroe to Susan Sontag.

1. I've included two chapters that were cut from the Sontag biography my wife and I wrote and a long essay on the difficulties of researching Sontag's life. Other pieces such as "Marilyn Monroe and the Idea of Biography" and "Writing about Women" give an overview of how I have constructed my biographies, of the nature of icons, and why icons tell us so much about ourselves and biography.

5 comments about Requiem: Diana, Princess of Wales 1961-1997 - Memories and Tributes.

1. Yes, this book is now 10 years old. And it's been 10 years since Princess Diana died, but this book is a very vivid reminder of that horrible week following her death. That week where I, and I'm guessing millions more, stayed glued to the TV not quite believing what had happened. This book brings the chaos of that tragic time back, but gives us the most beautiful remembrences of the late princess from people she touched. People she visited at hospitals where she shined her brightest helping people.
   
   I was hoping there would be pictures in this as well, but the picture on the cover is the way I'd like to remember her. Beautiful, happy, radiant. And really I wouldn't want to see pictures from that week anyway. It was too sad to remember it just reading about it. This book captured that one week in a tiny time capsule in a way I've never seen any book on history do. Because now that is what she is believe it or not-history.
   
   During the 10 year memorial stuff my 5 year old niece asked who the pretty blonde woman on the TV all the time was. We told her she was a princess who was very kind to sick people and cared for others, but had died before she was born. She looked up at me and asked, "A REAL princess?" When she's older I'll gladly give her this book to show her how the entire world stopped to grieve over the most amazing woman in the world. And tell her how one ordinary person CAN change the world. Princess Diana was proof of that.
   
   So YES! This is a book for anyone's collection!



2. I think Princess Diana was one of the most loved royal family members of England and the world and this book proves that! I felt like she connected with everyone she met. I never met her but I was in a car traveling through the streets of London once and her royal auto passed by, it seemed to glow with her warmth. Review written by the author of Bruised But Still Strong which contains a poem about Princess Di called HRH.



3. at least in a very long time. I picked up the book as soon as received and had a difficult time putting it down. Its been a long time (over 2 years) since Diana's passing but this book made it feel like it was last month. All the feelings and emotions came flooding back & made me remember what a great loss this was to the world. Obviously the writers of the essays etc had very strong emotions towards Princess Diana. The feeling of love for this lady comes pouring out of each story.



4. While dozens of pictorial testimonials to Princess Diana have already appeared Requiem offers more than eighty written tributes and recollections. Dont buy this book for pictures it leaves that to others. But this 43 year old does not mind saying the tributes and recollections moved him to tears. If you are a Diana fan this book is a must have.



5. THE GOSSIP AND SNIPING THAT SURROUNDED HER IN LIFE IS CUT TO THE QUICK BY THE HONESTY THAT CAME THROUGH HER DEATH. THIS BOOK PROVIDES A REALISTIC LOOK AT DIANA. A MUST HAVE FOR DIANA COLLECTORS AND DEVOTEES.

No comments about Coco Chanel (Women in the Arts).

5 comments about "You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again!": The Adventures and Misadventures of a Hollywood Nanny.

1. I loved this book - I laughed and laughed as I read it...... Highly recommend !!!!!



2. Just keep in mind that there are 2 sides to every story! Just as there are some crazy families out there- there are some crazy nannies too!
   I do question the ethics of writing about this (without disguising names/families) You are exposed to such an intimate circle of family life it just does not seem quite right.
   I once had the pleasure of sitting next to (on a plane) a lifetime nanny, who had nannied for a royal family and was with her current family (a beautiful young woman with a fairly old gentleman!)
   She said "oh if I could only write a book, no one would ever believe me!"
   That's the point- she would never write an expose, she was a trained nanny and viewed herself as a proffesional. Someone with a high level of ethics is the type of person I would want as a nanny, not someone who wants to cash in!



3. I love all the tell-all books written by former nannies, so I thought I'd love this one too. But this book really suffered from a lack of an editor. The format (in which the book is "organized" according to a movie theme, and the author creates imaginary scripts for how scenes could have played out) is just SO ridiculously cheesy that I actually rolled my eyes several times. I see that it will be published soon by a major publishing company, and I can only hope that they will have subjected this work to some major editing. Hopefully they ditched the movie theme too - it made it read like a high school report. Read this only if you really don't care about how well a book is written or if you are that desperate to read any former nanny's tell-all story. There's not really that much dirt here to make it worthwhile.



4. I absolutely LOVED this book and the author! I felt for her and could so relate to what she was going through. Llike Suzanne, I grew up in a small town and left home at 19 to become a live-in Nanny. I was paid $150.00 a week to care for three kids 24/7, clean house, and cook. Unlike Suzanne, I had NO ONE to talk to except my Mom, IF I could afford the long distance phone call. Anyway, I felt her pain and LOVED the book. She is also VERY funny!!
   
   PS. Steve Swartz REALLY IS Mike Ovitz:
   
   Mark Ebner -- investigative journalist and contributor to the jaded, snarky, underground Hollywood rag LA Innuendo -- has a new book out on February 24. "Hollywood, Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon -- The Case Against Celebrity," co-written with Andrew Breitbart (Matt Drudge's right-hand guy). Basically 416 pages of celebrities behaving badly. Read how Mike Ovitz's then six-year-old son once peed on a tree in the front yard, yelling "My mom said I could, and mom is in charge of you, I could have you fired!" to his nanny when she scolded him.



5. This book is so poorly written, it is almost embarrassing to read. It just isn't funny, it's boring; in fact I read it with a morbid fascination wondering how much worse it would get. I finally gave up after asking myself why am I making myself read a book that is making me cringe at the author's lack of literary skill, humor, and artistic talent. The Nanny Diaries it isn't.

No comments about Josephine.