Friday Flashback: Rec. #118: Ripple Effect

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: This volume collects Elaine Equi's poems from more than two decades. The poems are, delightfully, mostly focused on the consumption of popular culture. This, and their witty tone, means they are rocky good fun.

Comparable to: Heaven help us, one reviewer described Equi's work as "sassy." Don't do that.

Representative quote: "History/ makes/ many bad movies."

You might not like it if: You look to poetry for contemplations of nature. Not much nature here.

How to get it: In print; buying online might be your best bet.

Connections to previous Wreckage: On a poetry kick? Also check out Wislawa Szymborksa's Monologue of a Dog (Rec. #19) and Kay Ryan's The Best of It (Rec. #50).

[Originally posted 5/3/11.]

Rec. #223: Bill Cunningham New York

What: Bill Cunningham, the subject of this documentary, is many things. He's a noted fashion photographer in New York City. He's a grown-up boy on a bike. He's the eye behind the New York Times "On the Street" columns. He's an eccentric who lived in the same studio apartment for fifty years and wears the same outfit every day. He's an idealist who won't accept free drinks. He's a man who should have been played by Jimmy Stewart.

Comparable to: Fashion documentaries are very big these days! (The September Issue, Valentino: The Last Emperor, L'Amour Fou, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior: The Man Behind the Myth, Lagerfeld Confidential, etc.)

This doc, however, has much more in common with Public Speaking, a portrait of another stubborn New York eccentric, Fran Lebowitz. 

Representative quote: "If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do. That's the key to the whole thing."

You might not like it if: You get so anxious about this frail-looking octogenarian riding his bike around the streets of New York City without a helmet.

How to get it: It's available to watch instantly on Netflix.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Fran Lebowitz's essay collection Metropolitan Life was Rec. #188.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #95: Hark! A Vagrant

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Are you amazed and/or alarmed that it's taken me three months to spotlight Kate Beaton? You should be. Kate Beaton is a heroine of the web comics community. On her blog, Hark! A Vagrant, she specializes in Beaton-ized snapshots of history (Napoleon eating cookies, a dating show for Elizabeth I) that are as meticulously researched as they are irreverent. (Without the knowledge from the research, the irreverence wouldn't be so spot on.) She also gives us "younger self" comics, mystery solving teens, some general nonsense, comics about dead authors, and --- oh yeah --- a fat pony.

Representative comic (actually most are longer, but this gives you a taste):

You might not like it if: You find it criminally unfair that she can make squiggly lines that become perfectly nuanced facial expressions, while the squiggly lines you make just look like squiggly lines.

How to get it: Kate Beaton is all over the place, thank goodness. First, there's her blog. She's also on Twitter (@beatonna), and she often shares quick sketches there. Plus, there's a store where you can buy, among other things, prints of many of her comics and some excellent t-shirts. And also, she has a new book that will be released in September. You can pre-order it on Amazon.

[Originally posted 4/4/11.]

[Beaton's book ended up being a huge, whopping success, by the way.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #112: Tristram Shandy --- A Cock and Bull Story

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: When you try to film an unfilmable novel, you have a few options. 1) You can put blinders on and forge ahead with your adaptation while yelling, "La la la, I can't hear yoooouuu!" 2) You can alter the story to such a degree that it no longer resembles the original source material. 3) Or you can choose the path that Michael Winterbottom did and go all meta. 

Tristram Shandy is, yes, based on the novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. But really it's a movie about making a movie based on the novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, and how utterly impossible it is.

Comparable to: Charlie Kaufman? Are you sure you weren't involved in this?

Representative quote: "This was a post-modern classic written way before there was any modern to be post about."

You might not like it if: You can't stand self-referential loops like Steve Coogan playing Steve Coogan playing Tristram Shandy (and also his father, Walter).

How to get it: Easy to find the DVD. And, if you're interested, the book is in the public domain.

Connections to previous Wreckage: We have a Brit actor extravaganza here. A quick sample of the cast: Keeley Hawes, who was in a miniseries adaption of the Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend (Rec. #88); Dylan Moran, star of the series Black Books (Rec. #68); Kelly Macdonald, who was in State of Play (Rec. #104); Shirley Henderson, from Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (Rec. #108); and Rob Brydon, who is absolutely delightful in Gavin and Stacey (Rec. # . . . wait, I haven't done that yet?!).

Special note: The U.K. title of the film is the U.S. subtitle --- A Cock and Bull Story. Presumably they changed it because they thought U.S. audiences would get too giggly about the original title. Frankly, though, Michael Winterbottom probably has other things to worry about.

[Originally posted 4/25/11.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #100: To Say Nothing of the Dog

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: It's the middle of the twenty-first century. Ned Henry and Verity Kindle are historians and, in 2057, that means they do a lot of time traveling. Ned and Verity have been taken from their usual work and conscripted to retrieve the elusive bishop's bird stump (don't worry; they don't know what it is, either). They've been working separate angles --- Ned in the 1940s and Verity in the Victorian age. Once their paths cross, they have to contend with obstacles like time-lag, jumble sales, World War II, a false medium, brief stopovers in 1395 and 1933, slippage, and a menace named Lady Schrapnell. Just to name a few.

It's a comedy of manners. It's science fiction. It's a farce. It's a meditation on chaos theory. It's a satire. It's a puzzlebox mystery. It's layers of literary allusion. It's a broad sweep of historical drama. It's one of those rare books that just makes you happy to be alive, and not for anything that at all resembles maudlin drivel.

Comparable to: Not exactly like anything else, but a little like almost everything.

Representative quote: "History was indeed controlled by blind forces, as well as character and courage and treachery and love. And accident and random chance. And stray bullets and telegrams and tips. And cats."

You might not like it if: You actually think this book is about retrieving the bishop's bird stump.

How to get it: Buy it, either paper or digital. Also, could someone please convince a Coralie Bickford-Smith-ish designer to do a new, gorgeous edition of this book? (I wouldn't say no to other books by Connie Willis, either.) I would buy so many copies.

[Originally posted 4/10/11.]

Rec. #222 (abbrev.): The Headhunters

What: Murder mystery by Peter Lovesey, hypothetical "I could kill my boss" game gone wrong, double date, dead body on a beach, the Slug and Lettuce, missing colleague, fossils, Hen Mallin, gardening center, flood, CID, bowling, printing company, Mill Pond, woolly mammoth

Opening lines: "'I could cheerfully murder my boss,' said Gemma."

Representative quote: "On another website Jo was startled to see her own name. Little else was accurate. Described as a resident of Selsey (wrong), she was supposed to have stumbled over the body (she didn't stumble over anything) whilst exercising her dogs (what dogs?) on Medmerry Beach (East Beach). A salutary reminder not to believe everything on the internet."

Connection to previous Wreckage: The Headhunters is very good fun, but The Reaper (Rec. #21) --- also by Peter Lovesey --- is a triumph.

List #15: Adam Goldberg, Why Are You All Over My Netflix Instant Queue?

Do you know why? I don't.


Exhibit A: Dazed and Confused

   

Netflix says: "Director Richard Linklater's coming-of-age comedy follows a group of teenagers -- stoners, jocks, and geeks -- on the last day of school in 1976."

I say: I know one day I'll wake up with the uncontrollable urge to watch this again. In the meantime, it's in my queue, ready and waiting.

Exhibit B: 2 Days in Paris

Netflix says: "On their way home from an ill-fated Venice vacation, Marion and Jack stop in Paris to visit Marion's parents on an equally disastrous excursion."

I say: Julie Delpy, stop being so cool. You're making the rest of us look bad.

Exhibit C: (Untitled)

Netflix says: "After falling in with an unfamiliar social circle of critics of every persuasion, avant-garde composer Adrian becomes smitten with an art dealer."

I say: I would like to have many pieces of Marley Shelton's wardrobe from this movie, please. Trash bag trench coats and confetti skirts, oh yes. And you can go ahead and throw in Eion Bailey while you're at it, thanks.

Exhibit D: The Unusuals

Netflix says: "A dysfunctional squad of New York homicide detectives has developed eccentric ways of dealing with on-the-job pressures."

I say: This was Rec. #173, and I really like it. A lot.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #104: State of Play

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: State of Play is possibly the most suspenseful thriller about research that's ever been made. Newspaper reporters chase a story that starts with an apparent suicide and an apparent drug hit, and that leads them quickly into personal, political, and corporate dirt. Soon all the characters, no matter how well-intentioned, are mired in corruptions both big and small. No one gets away completely clean.

Comparable to: As in All the President's Men, the minutiae and occasional glory of newspaper reporting becomes heroic.

Representative quote [imagine this whisper-growled by Bill Nighy]: "It's a big story. Big day. Big hitters."

You might not like it if: State of Play has a brilliant script, a well-paced plot, non-gimmicky twists, fully developed characters, a sustained momentum of suspense, and a fantastic cast (John Simm, David Morrissey, Kelly Macdonald, Bill Nighy, Deborah Findlay, James McAvoy, Polly Walker). I don't know what else you could want. Seriously, right now the only negative review on Amazon is someone complaining about the swearing.

How to get it: Go for the original British miniseries (2003) and not the U.S. movie version (2009). I mean, watch the movie later if you want, but please start with this.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Creator Paul Abbott definitely has his favorite actors. He gives James McAvoy a scene-stealing part here, and a year later used him again in the marvelous Shameless (Rec. #14). Also, I consider my favorite episode from Shameless (episode 1.4) "the State of Play episode."

[Originally posted 4/14/11.]

Rec. #221: Middlemarch

What: George Eliot's Middlemarch is a "classic." Generally speaking, that usually implies that it is a British novel, it is from the mid-nineteenth century, it is roughly 800 pages long, tragic things happen in it, and sometimes people are very, very smug about reading it. This is all true.

But! It's also very modern and biting and relatable and even funny. I can't explain how George Eliot came to know everything there is to know about life, but she did.

Comparable to: Other long British books from the mid-nineteenth century that seem intimidating until you actually start to read them. 

Opening lines: "Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress."

Representative quote: "Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them."

You might not like it if: "Ugh, that seems like something for school, I can't, I can't, I don't believe you, I just can't, I can't bear to."

How to get it: Public domain! It is all over the place. There's even a Coralie Bickford-Smith edition of it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: I previously mentioned Middlemarch during Personal Wreck Week (List #3).

You can continue the British mid-nineteenth-century novel kick with Elizabeth Gaskell (Mary Barton was Rec. #57) and Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend was Rec. #88).

Friday Flashback: Rec. #106: The Hudsucker Proxy

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: With The Hudsucker Proxy, the Coen brothers indulge in their fondness for mid-twentieth-century rat-a-tat. The film stars Tim Robbins in his blank-faced geniality mode, Jennifer Jason Leigh using her "1940s dame" accent, and Paul Newman grinning wickedly around a cigar. Robbins is Norville Barnes, a mailroom schmuck who becomes a company president as part of a stock market swindle in 1958. Leigh is a Stanwyck-esque reporter working undercover. Newman is the bad guy whose plans go awry when Norville gets ideas. I miss Paul Newman.

Comparable to: A Capra/Sturges/Wilder mix, in a very wink-wink nudge-nudge sort of way.

Representative quote: "Finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together, even if it keeps them apart spatially."

You might not like it if: You've sworn off of all Coen brothers films that don't include Frances McDormand.

How to get it: You can watch it instantly on Netflix or Amazon. Or you can get the disc.

[Originally posted 4/17/11.]

Availability note: Not currently available to watch instantly on Netflix.

Friday [er, Sunday] Flashback: Rec. #96: Zuleika Dobson

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Max Beerbohm, otherwise known as "the incomparable Max," was a satirist and caricaturist of the early twentieth century, and Zuleika Dobson is one of his most delightful creations. The premise: A young, beautiful woman arrives at the all-male Oxford campus and wreaks havoc. By "havoc," I mean that all the undergraduates fall in love with her at first sight and end up taking drastic measures to prove their devotion. Very drastic.

Comparable to: As if Rose Macaulay and Jerome K. Jerome teamed up to re-imagine Chronicle of a Death Foretold with some visual inspiration from Edward Gorey.

Representative quote: "The Duke had an intense horror of unmarried girls. All his vacations were spent eluding them and their chaperons. That he should be confronted with one of them in Oxford seemed to him sheer violation of sanctuary."

You might not like it if: The payoff of the satire is a little too macabre for you. Or maybe the path to the payoff is too flowery (remember it's a satire).

How to get it: Not only is it in print, it's also in the public domain. (Hint: That means you can download it to your Kindle for free.)

Connections to previous Wreckage: Not quite sure what I'm on about, with my "Rose Macaulay"s, my "Jerome K. Jerome"s, and my "Chronicle of a Death Foretold"s? Crewe Train, by Rose Macaulay, was Rec. #84. Rec. #64 was Chronicle of a Death Foretold. We haven't gotten to Mr. Jerome yet, but we will.

[Originally posted 4/5/11.]

Also: We have gotten to Mr. Jerome now. His book Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) was Rec. #208.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #110: Green Wing, series 1

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Green Wing is a British sitcom that's set in a hospital but, thank goodness, there are no medical story lines. And no visible patients. Instead, the show focuses on the personal lives of the staff, including hapless Caroline, smarmy Guy, unflappable Mac, perky Angela, hopeless Martin, and possibly sociopathic Sue.

Comparable to: The above picture is the first series DVD cover, but the image below will give you a better idea of the show's forays into vaguely surrealistic slapstick:

Representative quote: "Join us again for next week's episode of Let's Make No Fucking Sense, when I will be waxing an owl."

You might not like it if: You want fictional doctors to be intelligent, responsible, compassionate individuals who are primarily concerned with the welfare of their patients.

How to get it: The bad news is that the DVD is only available on region 2 format (unplayable on most U.S. players). The good news is that you can watch Green Wing online through IMDb and Hulu.

Connection to previous Wreckage: One of the main characters, Caroline, is played by Tamsin Greig. She has experience playing hapless from her role as Fran on Black Books (Rec. #68).

[Originally posted 4/23/11.]

List #14: Wow, Remember 2011? Part One

The Ten Most Popular Daily Wreck Posts from 2011:

1. A Weekend Guest (posted 1/14/11): People really like pictures of dogs.

2. 5 British Miniseries to Watch Instantly on Netflix (posted 11/24/11): This was a gap that needed filling, apparently! In 2012, I'll be doing more posts like these, including stuff that's available to stream on Amazon and Hulu.

3. Rec. #52: Kamikaze Girls (posted 2/20/11): I probably don't want to know what people were searching for when they clicked on this.

4. Rec. #95: Hark! A Vagrant (posted 4/4/11): Everyone loves Kate Beaton. It cannot be denied.

5. Rec. #170 (abbrev.): Run Lola Run (posted 8/16/11): You all are really studying up for the Cloud Atlas movie, aren't you?

6. Rec. #16: The Undertaker's Gone Bananas (posted 1/15/11): We all feel like misfits sometimes. Like compulsive headline-writing and/or psychologically paralyzed misfits.

7. Another Weekend Guest (posted 2/25/11): People really, really like pictures of dogs.

8. Gift Idea #3: The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (posted 12/5/11): Nerrrrds. You're all nerds.

9. Rec. #14: Shameless (U.K.), season 1 (posted 1/13/11): People probably a) were searching for William H. Macy, b) got the name of Michael Fassbender's movie wrong, or c) were looking for something I probably don't want to know about.

10. Rec. #18: The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (posted 1/17/11): Aw! You're right. This book is great.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #71: The Princess and the Warrior

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Sissi is a sweet, mild-mannered nurse at a psychiatric institution. She has no family to speak of and a very limited life outside of her job. Bodo is a taciturn thief/ex-soldier tortured by a mysterious past. The description sounds Gothic, but the movie itself is not. It's dreamlike, in the sense that scenes of kinetic frenzy (car chase, bank robbery, murder attempt) punctuate scenes of beautiful, floaty unreality.

Comparable to: It's the same writer/director and star as Run, Lola, Run, so, yes, like that. But with less running. And no one is named Lola.

You might not like it if: It's too dreamily improbable for you. Also, it's in German, so if you don't speak the language and you don't like reading subtitles . . .

How to get it: Rent, borrow, or buy. Also note: Writer/director Tom Tykwer is involved in the film adaptation of David Mitchell's adored-and-assumed-to-be-unfilmable novel Cloud Atlas, and don't you want to have an opinion about that?

[Originally posted 3/11/11. Since then, I also recommended Tykwer's Run Lola Run (Rec. #170).]

Rec. #220 (abbrev.): Aiding and Abetting

What: Muriel Spark, fraudulent psychiatrist, missing Lord Lucan, notorious real-life case, fictionalized follow-up, seventh Earl, fugitive, impostors, Paris, con-woman, Bavarian stigmatic, dead nanny, upper-class mores, murderer, satire

Opening lines: "The receptionist looked tinier than ever as she showed the tall, tall Englishman into the studio of Dr. Hildegard Wolf, the psychiatrist who had come from Bavaria, then Prague, Dresden, Avila, Marseilles, then London, and now settled in Paris."

Representative quote: "Beate during that time had been able to live in comfort. Every month she took to her bed and bloodily received pilgrims. Miracles did happen, as in fact they sometimes do."

Connections to previous Wreckage: Loitering with Intent (Rec. #13), Open to the Public (Rec. #107), Personal Wreck Week (List #5)

Rec. #219: The Awful Truth

What: The Awful Truth is a classic 1930s screwball comedy, a fine example of its type. The dapper Cary Grant and the sublime Irene Dunne play a soon-to-be-divorced couple who spend most of the movie sabotaging each other's new relationships.

Comparable to: Do you love Asta in the Thin Man films? Of course you do. Well, the same dog plays the pivotal role of Mr. Smith here. Watch the hat.

Opening lines: "Come on, Haig, get that sun lamp ready."

Representative dialogue:
"What do we drink to?"
"Well, let's drink to our future. Here's hoping you and Barbara will be very happy, which I doubt very much."
"No, let's drink to your happiness with Buffalo Bill, which doesn't even make sense."

Bonus representative quote: "In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to what he's been thinking about all winter."

You might not like it if: You've seen some of the other versions of this movie (from 1925, 1929, or 1953), and you are now Over It.

How to get it: Careful here. This is a common title and the particular story itself has been remade a few times. If you want this version — and I think you do — look for The Awful Truth from 1937 with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Get your fix of classic screwball with The Palm Beach Story (Rec. #17), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Rec. #65), and Midnight (Rec. #194).

Rec. #218: Bellwether

Oh, hello again. I am back.

What: Intrigued by my fervent recommendations of To Say Nothing of the Dog and Blackout/All Clear (see below), but don't want to commit to 500+ pages without knowing what you're getting into? There are worse places to start than here, with Connie Willis's breezy take on herd mentality and corporate culture.

The main players in Bellwether are Sandra Foster (a fads researcher), Bennett O'Reilly (a chaos theorist), Billy Ray (a convenient provider of sheep), and Flip (a very inconvenient force of nature).

Comparable to: As she does in To Say Nothing of the Dog, Willis throws many disparate threads of knowledge together in such a way that you start thinking of Robert Browning, chaos theory, genius grants, trust exercises, flagpole-sitters, and Far from the Madding Crowd as inextricably and irrevocably linked together.

Opening lines: "Hula Hoop (March 1958–June 1959) — The prototype for all merchandising fads and one whose phenomenal success has never been repeated."

Representative quote: "The only thing I was aware of was that Flip had thoughtfully crumpled each clipping into a wad before stuffing them into the trash can, and that there was no way I could get them all smoothed out tonight, and, as a result, I was not only oblivious to the first event in a chain of events that was going to lead to a scientific discovery, but I was about to miss the second one, too. And the third."

You might not like it if: You've already read To Say Nothing of the Dog and are looking for something on that scope. Or at least for something that involves time travel.

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it. It's in print and also Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Blackout/All Clear (Gift Idea #1) is Connie Willis's latest success, but To Say Nothing of the Dog (Rec. #100) is still the most beloved one.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #67: Tales of the City

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Armistead Maupin has been writing his stories about Mary Ann Singleton, Michael (Mouse) Tolliver, and San Francisco for more than three decades. The tales are arch and winking, but earnest at heart, and they start here, when Mary Ann arrives in San Francisco in 1976. Even if you roll your eyes at Mary Ann's naiveté, raise your eyebrows at Brian's shameless promiscuity, and sigh at Mouse's misguided search for love, you'll still follow their intersecting stories avidly. Where this volume ends is actually kind of arbitrary, and you might find yourself barreling straight (ha) through to More Tales of the City . . . and then on through the six (so far) installments after that.

Comparable to: Actually, it's rather Dickensian, with perspectives that shift among a large cast of characters, and events so startlingly dramatic they toe the line between tragedy and farce. (It's also pretty soapy.)

Representative quote: "Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time. She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her mood ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland."

You might not like it if: It keeps you up too late because you just have to read one more bite-sized chapter. Also, it makes you want to move to San Francisco, which is prohibitively expensive for you.

How to get it: I couldn't find an image for it, but if you can, pick up the same 1978 Harper & Row edition I have. The cover (front and back) is a map of San Francisco, marked with key locations from the book. Also, please note that Tales of the City was adapted, almost seamlessly, into a miniseries in 1993. Part of its success comes from the stellar cast, which includes Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis, Thomas Gibson, and Paul Gross.

[Originally posted 3/7/11.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #62: Brick

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: High school noir at its high school noir-iest. There's a loner trying to solve a mystery, a femme fatale, highly stylized dialogue, characters with names like Tangles and The Brain, a missing girlfriend, and an underground crime ring. Also there is a scene with a table lamp in a van! It is maybe my favorite part! Because there is a table lamp! And it is in a van!

Comparable to: Oh, you know, all those other highly stylized high school noir films.

Representative quote: "Maybe I'll just sit here and bleed at you."

You might not like it if: It is too stylized, too high school, too noir.

How to get it: Available most places, but here's a suggestion: Turn on the closed captioning or subtitles*. These characters are high schoolers, which means they can be mumblers. You won't want to miss what they're saying.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Want more noir? Check out Rec. #47: I Married a Dead Man.

* Something you should know about me: My hearing is fine, but I watch everything with closed captioning turned on. I've done this since middle school. I don't like missing words.

[Originally posted 3/2/11.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #70: Auntie Mame

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: In early 2010, the New York Times reported that an Italian reprint of the novel Auntie Mame had become a surprise bestseller. Why? Maybe it's the economic parallels with our time, as the titular Manhattan socialite crashes with the Great Depression, but comes out triumphant on the other side. Possibly it's the effervescent humor of Patrick Dennis's writing. (The New York Times doubts that this is the reason. The article implies that Italians are, for the most part, humorless.) Most likely, it's Mame herself, with her ineffable panache and progressive charm.

Comparable to: Mame Dennis has more in common with Graham Greene's Aunt Augusta than with P.G. Wodehouse's Aunt Agatha or Aunt Dahlia.

Representative quote: "Auntie Mame was on her best behavior and pirouetted prettily from one to the next, talking about the Japanese beetle, a difficult mashie shot, elm blight, country day schools, the servant problem, and --- until I caught her eye --- the wisdom of legalizing prostitution."

You might not like it if: Eccentric aunts aren't your style.

How to get it: Downloadable, borrowable, and in print (in English, in Italian, and in many other languages, too).


[Originally posted 3/10/11. Reposted now in honor of the amazing news that Tilda Swinton is developing a film remake of Auntie Mame. As I've remarked to friends, colleagues, and strangers on the street, this is potentially the best thing ever to happen to humankind.]