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Good Reading : June 2005
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biography word of mouth By Myself and Then Some Lauren Bacall She was known as the girl with the ‘Look’. One of a number of revelations contained in this excel- lent memoir, however, is that Lauren Bacall adopted what appeared to movie audiences as an ir resistibly insolent, sexy expression – chin tucked down and eyes cast upwards – because holding her head in this way stopped her nervous trembling during the filming of To Have and Have Not . This was her first picture and the movie in which she first co-starred with Humphrey Bogart, who was to become her husband. Bacall confesses her fear of being outed as a Jew in the anti-Semitic milieu of 1940s Hollywood, and discusses her ill-fated affair with Frank Sinatra, whose behaviour towards her suggests that the singer may have been the Rat Pack’s biggest rat. But as her title indicates, she also tells us the story of her life in recent years as a single, ageing woman – which is possibly the best bit of the book, because at the age of 80 Lauren Bacall is still in the business, and still very much concerned with the business of living. ★★★★ Headline $49.95 Reviewed by Christine Cremen Sharon and my Mother-in- Law: Ramallah Diaries Suad Amiry How do you live in a place with indefinite 24-hour curfews, lifted occasionally for a couple of hours without notice, forcing the entire population to rush out and shop at the same time? How do you keep food fresh when the electricity supply is constantly inter rupted? How do you keep in touch with family and friends when the tel- ephone lines only work inter mittently? How can you teach at a university closed for most of the year? And how can you travel, even to the next town, when constrained by a tortuous system of checkpoints, ID cards and passes? These are the questions raised by Suad Amiry, a half- Jordanian, half-Palestinian professor who has lived in Ramallah for the past 20 years with her husband and, on occasions, her mother-in-law. Leaving aside all discussion of the broader politics, Amiry focuses on the infuriating, exhausting absurdities of daily life under Israeli occupation. Her humour is of the kind we have come to consider Jewish – underdog humour, that last resort of a downtrodden race which refuses to let the life be stomped out of it. This, and the camaraderie of neighbours, is what holds the Palestinians together in their beleaguered situation. Sharon and my Mother-in-law is not well constructed, being two very small books artlessly stitched together, but the picture that emerges is nonetheless fascinating. ★★★ Granta Books $24.95 Reviewed by Caroline Lurie Each binder holds 12 issues Order your binders and gift subscriptions online at www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au or on the card on between pages 44 & 45 Keep your favourite magazines in order and where you can easily refer to them with the gr binder Each gift subscription comes with a unique handmade gift card with your personal message inside Share the gift of Good Reading with your book-loving friends and family $19.60 inc. gst & $5.00 postage
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