Julia Vysotskaya Vysotskaya من عند نيويورك
Engrossing autobiography of the woman who was David O. Selznick's wife and Louis Mayer's daughter before escaping from them and becoming a theatre producer. Despite her affectionate tone, it's clear that Selznick was a freaking lunatic. Perhaps she could stand it for so long because her father was a freaking lunatic, so maybe she thought that was normal behavior. Anyway, it seems to have given her a talent for dealing with difficult people, which stood her in good stead in her later career dealing with such jerks as Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando for whom, surprisingly, she also professes fondness.
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I fell in love with the characters and thought it was absolutly fantastic. A must read!
Whenever I buy this book as a gift (quite often), I make people promise that they'll drag themselves through the first fifty pages, no matter how difficult they find it... The first time I tried to read Dune, I couldn't get past the first few pages. Herbert's universe is complex, textured and foreign; orienting yourself in Dune is part of the initial difficulty of the book and constitutes much of the ultimate pleasure of reading. Well-developped world. Plot: somehow both epic and personal. Love, war, politics, religion, Imperialism. A lot of intersecting elements in the novel that come together at the end. Everything is cosmically choreographed into the jaw-dropping climax and conclusion, made me want to re-read it. Immediately. (Whoa! What just HAPPENED!?) Don't usually like science fiction, but Dune is definitely a keeper!