As She Said: Vanity Fair's Women on Women

A compilation of profiles of women written by female contributors to Vanity Fair magazine, going back to the 1980s. Many of the pieces are outstanding, a few, well, not so much to my taste. The subjects are household names and icons – everyone from Audrey Hepburn to Whoopi Goldberg to Emily Post and Julia Child – as are, mostly to a lesser degree, the writers, including outstanding journalists like Gail Sheehy, Leslie Bennets and Marie Brenner, and a few who write as guest contributors.

I particularly enjoyed the piece on Audrey Hepburn, written by Amy Fine Collins, which described her rise as both an actress and a woman of unique style. The profile of Michelle Phillips, by Sheila Weller, gave wonderful insights into the folk and pop music scene of the 60s and 70s. I learned a great deal about Emily Post, as written by Laura Jacobs, and how she impacted so much beyond America's social mores. Those articles have a timeless feeling about them and need no explanatory notes or references.

Others, written at a certain moment of history, serve as background to what these women accomplished in later years – Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem are the perfect examples.

The benefit of a collection like this is that you can skip past anybody that you are not interested in without missing anything – I read them all, but it's completely unnecessary. You can cherry pick as you like.

My one overall criticism to this collection is that the pieces are arranged by "types", "The Comedians", "The Renegades", and so forth. I would have preferred to read them in the chronological order in which they were originally published, as that would have made the book also function more effectively as a social history, which it very much is. The odd concession to this is the final grouping, "In Their Own Words", which is the section afforded to the non-journalists writing in 2017 and 2018. The outstanding piece among those, for me, was by Lucy McBath, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2018. She is truly an inspiration, and what we saw of her in sound bites on TV during that race, is so much less than the sum total of who she is. I'm hoping to hear more from her in both our national conversation, and hopefully, on the printed page.

No End to the Rainbow: Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts

A wonderful book that's hard to put down.

Author Elizabeth Letts has novelized the life of Maud Gage Baum, the wife of L. Frank Baum, the writer of The Wizard of Oz, but even quick research will reveal that the book is squarely based on fact. Several of her relatives, including Baum himself, her mother, a leading feminist of her time, and her sister Julia are major characters in the book. Many incidents in Maud Baum's life are faithfully recounted.

Maud Baum was a consultant to MGM during the filming of The Wizard of Oz, and the book moves back and forth in time through earlier periods of Maud's life to that time. The depictions of Maud's inner life and her interactions with Frank Baum and her relatives, and then with Judy Garland, the other actors, Yip Harburg, the lyricist of Over the Rainbow, and others, are where the novelization comes in. Whatever imaginings Elizabeth Letts has created make Maud all the more multi-dimensional and compelling as a character.

For those of us who have delighted for decades in The Wizard of Oz, the later Oz books and the movie, this novel is a warm, loving tribute to their contributions to American culture, and a great read about how they came to pass. Highly recommend!

Pourquois? The Cheffe: A Cook's Novel by Marie NDiaye

Was it because it was badly translated from the French, or was it simply the writing style? I can't decide...but I was utterly disappointed by this novel. I read about ten pages, and thought I must be missing something, or that maybe it was a baffling prologue, but I continued a bit farther. Then I tried leafing through the book to see if there was anything that grabbed me. Sadly, the answer is no.

The book is written from the point of view of a long-time would-be lover of a renowned French female chef. It read as cold and impersonal, yet fawning. Very odd.

There are far too many compelling books out there on which I would rather spend my time. This one is going right back to the library.

She Reigns Supreme: Queen Meryl by Erin Carlson

A fun, if fairly slight, biography of the great Meryl Streep. After a brief discussion of her early life, it mainly chronicles her history as an actor with an account of her roles, along with some personal detail and references to her political activism.

There are wonderful pen and ink sketches of her in character proceeding each chapter.

The author is reverential, to say the least, but the book is entertaining and a quick read.