Francesca Penchant

Original writing. Sharp character studies. Suspenseful plot. Nicely captures the argot of the time.

This was too dry and scholarly for me. Hard to get through.

Best book on writing!

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters.... To work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.”

The best of what biography can be. Drake takes two artists, Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld, and describes their decadent times by comparing and contrasting them, their rivalry, and their mutual obsession with one man, Jacques de Basher.

Good design saves lives. I tell people about Tufte's redesign of the Challenger disaster data to describe the highest purpose of graphic design. Tell it to those who say, “Make it look pretty.” The Challenger was a tragedy that could've been averted. O-rings break down at low temps, and it was cold when it launched, and so it launched and blew up.

The scientists who tried to prevent the launch of the Challenger presented NASA with a tome of data and tables and words that should've been clearly presented with a simple graph.

Absolutely fabulous document of girl-next-door styles from 40s Hollywood!

A satisfying book that surveys the history of detective fiction. It was valuable to learn the names of other Golden Age writers besides my beloved Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Still, I would've liked more personal insights from James–about her life and the reasons that she is drawn to the genre. (I listened to the audio version of this book.)

The best things about this book are that it demystifies genius and that it is really specific about how to improve in your field. I gave it four stars bcs I started listening to it a second time immediately after it finished the first time. I've never done that. However, the book has too much of a business slant for my taste to give it five stars.

Loved this.

Profound book. Profoundly sad. Profound investigation of unhappiness.

The thesis that runs through this book is how the physical, emotional, and incestuous abuse that Hayworth's father inflicted in her teen years stamped the rest of her life.

Rita Hayworth was naturally shy and introverted, but was forced to dance from the age of 12 to earn money for her family. She traveled on the road with her father to perform alluring Spanish dances with him as a partner. To make matters worse, she was expected to take care of her father's sexual needs in her mother's absence.

The rest of her life was a quest for love, safety–to be taken care of. She sought out controlling, often abusive men, yet eventually would rebel against them by cutting them out of her life. She felt that she had to be a highly sexualized love goddess onscreen, while constantly wanting to escape Hollywood.

There was no solace for her in the end, because she developed Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age.

(I listened to the audio version of this book.)