With Easter season in full swing, a bound pal will serve as the perfect companion and escape from delilah relatives and friends after you start spending too much time with each other for comfort. The books you choose to tote around will be saying a lot about your personality. That’s why it’s important to note to thyself that when you are guilty of self-help-book addiction, please, please cover it high-school style with some wrapping paper or dress it up with a snazzy book jacket (preferably with an author’s name you cannot pronounce if you’re serious about this pretentious route, thus the need for said self-help book). Same for books on the lives of serial killers, pop stars and any Idiot’s guide book: you do not want to out yourself during scam season.
This summer, I have a basket of readable goodies that will keep you entertained while you tan yourself and wait for cocktail hour. Memoirs are a great way to while away the afternoon. There are two types: the inspirational ones (ghost) written by business, political and cultural giants that illustrate a very filtered view of how they made it and how humbly shocked they are in shaking the world. And, of course, the real dirt doesn’t really surface. You leave that to the lesser known ones who pen their juicy tell-alls about boldfacers and headline grabbers. With the sad following of such books like the pathetic Nanny Diaries and the much thumbed down (though I have yet to sneak a peek) The Devil Wears Prada ( a juice squeezer on Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue) came the proud daddy of contemporary NY social scandale tell-alls: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young.
A smart and witty Brit, Toby lands a space in the glossy world of Conde Nast (Conde Nasty as Toby calls it) where he exhibits a dazzling display of self-destruction and brown nosing. Although Toby is gifted with words, his talent does not contribute much to Vanity Fair, the publication he works in. Rather, he is remembered more for his antics (hiring a stripper on Bring Your Daughter to Work day and slipping a horrible article written by his editor in chief a few years back in his office as a snide act of revenge). A shameless social climber, Toby narrates the odd world of the rich and famous from the trenches. A world that he sees, but is rejected from every day of his life in the cold big apple.
Filled with juicy tidbits about the revered kings and queens of Conde Nast (a sampling is that Anna Wintour refuses to share the elevator with anyone; Pat Kingsley, the PR of A-listers such as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, being the ultimate master of manipulation; and that Graydon Carter is a pretentious WASP wannabe), the publication world embodies the world of sleaze that is the NY social circuit. With his revelations (more of reveal-ations), Toby has finally bronze-cast himself as a pariah. It was once reported that in a certain NY party, though many were dying to talk to Toby and just get the juice, no one wanted to be photographed with him. He became the "it" boy not to be seen with. Although it really does not matter since his book is still "on fire’ (a term used by Vogue fashionistas for anything that is hot) making him a loser in the NY circuit and a winner in international banks everywhere!
The moving thing about Toby’s book is that it shows the realization of how one’s fascination with the glitz and glamour of celebrity can lead to the cathartic point wherein he realizes that the best things in life comes from not what comes out on Page Six. As he digresses from being an optimistic FOB (fresh off the boat) literati to a laconic drunk, he realizes that there is no substitute for the real world. He even gives psychological analyses to every delilah he meets – things we can apply with our very own delilahs.
However, don’t even think that just because you’re in the real world it does not mean the delilah is over. Rick Marin pens CAD: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor. Ugly, gorgeous, young and well – yeah he lacked a tryst with a grandma – Rick takes us from one failed romance to another, proving that you don’t have to be a celebrity to be non-commital and a neurotic mess.
The book can be taken two ways: either a hardbound bore of a geeky lothario priding himself with his conquests while still veiling it with self-deprecating humor in the hopes of not irking anyone, or a hilarious any-man book that tickles funny bones and at the same time striking sensitive chords. The juice here is not on celebrities and socialites but on men and their ways.
Candace Bushnell, the creator of Sex and the City, was actually the one who coined the term "toxic bachelor" in one of her columns. And toxic he is as he wheedles his way out of every clingy or psycho girl with the least damage possible. So definitely men are really from Mars and we girls can keep on thinking we’re Aphrodites from Venus.
Now speaking of delilahs, I would not be a proud delilah myself if it weren’t for my idol Diana Vreeland. A privileged gal with a childhood spent on Park Avenue, Diana (Delilah) Vreeland was the most influential fashionista of our time. Though no one would actually live with red streaked cheeks like she did, her eccentric genius and her eye for innovative things made her an editor unlike any other. A fashion editor in Bazaar and then editor in chief of Vogue, the legendary visionary was really never known for her concern with facts, rather she captured minds with her imagination. DV, her memoir, is a delilah-spun fairy tale of a 20th-century icon. Yes, we may have Jackie, yes we may have Twiggy but did they ever come up with unforgettable quips like "Never be afraid to be vulgar, just boring and dull". She talks about her childhood, her celebrity pals and gives us a look at Conde Nast parties (famous for mixing all fab people from different industries – a little odd during those times of bohemian dancers and stiff billionaires to toast martinis then) with loads of doubtful facts and lots of fabulous add-ons! Its scan-delilah!
So enough about chismis. In the netherworld of fiction we have a choice of contemporary classics and modern best-sellers that capture the zeitgeist. With Chicago being a razzle dazzle hit, seems like everyone wants to be a jazz baby. But nobody knows Jazz Babies and their lifestyles more than F.Scott Fitzgerald, again a high-living alcoholic in New York. (It was said that he wrote This Side of Paradise drunk without knowing it! Wish I could do that then I would not have to make sacrifices!)
The Beautiful and Damned is my favorite among his works. The Great Gatsby, his most popular one, is quite unappreciated since most people who read it were in seventh grade and couldn’t care less about Gatsby’s shirts in all colors. But those who get past the horrible experience of reading Gatsby as a book report and read it again for pleasure will realize what they almost missed.
Anyway, back to The Beautiful and Damned. This story is about a spoiled and irresponsible scion called Anthony Patch who is waiting for his gramps to croak so he can get his hands on the dough. Meanwhile, he parties and boozes all night with his high-maintenance girlfriend. Reminds me of some people that do the same dead-man-walking thing. Serves as a cautionary tale, although I would take the middle road and party and booze around and still make it to work at noon. How’s that for Zen compromise?
He writes lusciously about the excesses of the indolent and complascent trustfundarians and their tragic end of being cut off when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Also, how the girl, despite the jewels, mink and champagne can always turn the other way. There is no such thing as a loyal material girl and this is something that Fitzgerald stresses in most of his novels.
For modern debauchery, let’s turn to Brett Easton Ellis, the voice of vice of all privileged sects of society : country club (Less than Zero), college (Rules of Attraction), the party fashion scene (Glamorama) and my personal love American Psycho (Wall Street). I couldn’t care less about the Dow and Nasdaq really, but Brett composes this psychotic and hellish tale of a money boy with a brand of greed that stretches beyond material things. As he hacks prostitutes, beggars, friends and colleagues with camp ‘80s classics playing in the background, he still makes sure that he gets his table at the hottest restaurants and has a better business card than anyone else. I have a taste for such disturbing things.
Which is why I love How to be Good by Nick Hornby. A departure from his slacker-venerating works (all of which are genius, full of wit and isms that we can all relate to)
Nick becomes Katie, an OK person in every sense of the word, a child of the PC generation that votes for the right people and believes in the correct things. Her husband though is a grouchy columnist that suddenly makes a turnaround and becomes a person so good that it gets bad. He takes in street children, gives away his kid’s toys and does a bunch of altruistic acts that make you question whether virtue is overrated. A sensitive and poignant exploration of the limitation of things, even goodness – it makes you feel better that you are not perfect.
There is also a certain therapy with short stories. Long enough to get a healthy tan or cool off after seeing your sister using your bikini without permission and short enough to make it to lunch. Speaking with the Angel is a collection of stories by some of the hottest writers today like Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Helen Fielding (The Diary of Bridget Jones), Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius) and Melissa Bank (Girl’s Guide to Fishing and Hunting) that are original and right on in touching on stuff we never really talk about. A great fiction collection that makes beach reading more than just US Weekly and Vogue.
Lastly, if you want to have a luxurious Easter without spending a cent, grab a copy of Peter Mayle’s Acquired Tastes. Each chapter is an ode to any luxury anyone could think of, from caviar to private jets, to custom-made shirts and shoes to the hunt of truffles to the upkeep of mistresses and guests – Peter has it all covered. Peter Mayle is best known for his works A Year and Provence and Hotel Pastis for his delicious prose and this selection of articles from GQ are equally tempting. A perfect way to spoil the imagination as he sells you the wordly things only eight-digitaires can play with (he was an ad man before quitting and becoming a writer).
For example, he talks of the joy of a cigar, which made me want to stain my teeth with some tobacco afterwards or show all bad boys in the world the repercussions of having a Jessica Rabbit aside from the moral ones.
So just go ahead grab a great book, although can’t judge one with a fabulously designed jacket as the adage says. With the right one, you’ll be having the time of your life by leafs and bounds!