"Some remarks, like radioactive elements, have a lingering half-life that allows them to poison one generation after another. One that still contaminates our body-obsessed popular culture is the Duchess of Windsor's notorious admonition that no woman can ever be 'too rich or too thin.'
"As the age of anorexia has succeeded the age of anxiety — or perhaps simply compounded it — we've learned just how wrong the duchess really was...."
(Please read the rest of my review of de Rossi's book -- a meditation on the pressures of Hollywood and working out one's identity in the glare of celebrity -- in the LA Times today!)
(Photo by Lori Shepler.)
Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has become" the publishing phenomenon of the young century, with international sales exceeding 45 million," according to a very cool story in today's Los Angeles Times by my former colleague Scott Timberg.
He writes that Larsson's books have managed, in the 25 months since the first novel's U.S. publication, to go through almost 200 printings here. And next month, publisher Knopf will release its Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Sara Nelson, books director of O: The Oprah Magazine, told Timberg that the heroine's ambiguity is part of her appeal. "She's not terribly well defined," Nelson says, pointing to her complicated sexuality. "Is she lovable? Yes, but she's not necessarily likable. Lisbeth is a hybrid, but the books are hybrids too — a chronicle of the media business, a comment on society.... It's not a standard police procedural."
UPDATE: Here's the link to the NYT's review of the Hornet's Nest movie.
(Illustration by Helena Lloyd.)
The Royal College of Arts is preparing to hold its "secret" postcard sale on Nov. 20. This is how it works: Every year 1,000 artists, designers, illustrators -- some of them would renowned -- donate their works for a one-day only sale.
The postcards are signed on the back, so the author's identity remains a secret until the cards are purchased. Last year, Tracey Emin, Gerhard Richter, Bill Viola, Julian Opie and Grayson Perry, well as fashion designers Sir Paul Smith, Manolo Blahnik and Erdem participated in the event, which raises funds for the arts college. (There's a flat rate per postcard: £45, and only four cards per person.)
There will be several special viewings of the cards, starting on Nov. 12, at the RCA campus in London -- but you have to register online first.
Do you have running shoes and a good eye? Give it a try. (And let me know how it goes!!)
I was very excited to discover today that the Barnes & Noble Review has a special section for books on clouds.
This is how they describe "The Invention of Clouds," by Richard Hamblyn:
"A fascinating study of the amateur meteorologist who, in the early 19th century, 'forged the language of the skies.' Creating the classifications -- cirrus, stratus, cumulus, nimbus -- which are now familiar, Luke Howard captured the imagination of contemporary artists and scientists, as well as generations of their heirs."
It also reminds me that I need to get out more with my Polaroid camera. (I took this photo, above, last year.)
