To join (and get free food, parties with famous people and the cathartic joy of telling everyone your damning opinions) all you have to do is vote below. You have 9 dicey options. Choose unwisely!
I love Andy! He’s my guy. And him in his 40s? *chef’s kiss* For some reason there was an Andy at the psych ward I was at that looked like the first guy I wanted to marry, Greg. But my dad took me home before our first date. I still think about him all the time… We are both are in our 30s now so I hope I get my family’s approval now. Otherwise I’ll just will have to elope with him.
I'll see how Andy wants to organize it - if he wants to get all the emails at one time or what. I'm reading it too so this will be fun. I think Amanda already read it.
Aside from his cemented legacy, he's old school, no frills or bullshit and willing to break bread after a feud like he did when he dined with Graydon Carter in the rain. All these books are great choices for this list, but this one gets my vote because he feels most like family, and what could be more controversial than that?
I love that, Sarah! I haven't read it yet because strangely, the advance copy that I got of it had water marks on every page so you couldn't copy it, but it also made it really hard to read. So I have my clean copy ready now and a bunch of my friends have said it's super juicy and well worth reading. I love your take on it. And Amanda vehemently disagrees, which makes it even more enticing and fun.
I voted for Lena and Lindy since I’m planning to read those anyway and Andy because I love that you’re including an unpublished book. Going to maybe be an outlier and say I think The Tell is more than just controversial and since there’s claims that it’s not the actual story and other iffy issues, it belongs more in a “what not to do when writing memoir@ category. I’m not saying don’t read it, it just feels like picking it is rewarding allegedly very bad author behavior. That’s my two cents. I will join whatever the consensus is!
Wow, I love this take and really appreciate it. This whole exercise in picking controversial books has made me think a lot about which types of controversy I/we would never promote. You make such a good point and I will consider that in my voting now too. And I will also read up more on it because it sounds like there's more to the controversy than I was aware of.
Last thing I'll say here is only vaguely related, but your comment reminded me that I did have one well-known plagiarist (Jason Blair) write a piece for Jane magazine about being a plagiarist, but I thought that was valid and I still do. A lot of people hated that I did that.
HAHA, I am clearly up past my bedtime because I was like - who the heck is Vladimir - and where is Amy? Right... NABOKOV. This is a great list, so many sizzlers. The Tell has the darkest controversy, bordering on CIA mind control with its layered weirdness coming out so I won't vote for that. I'll toggle over to Keith because I love how he just started saying anything and everything all of a sudden. Juicy without being evil.
I had the same thought while lying in bed squinting at my phone screen in the dark, so my fiancée isn't bothered by lamplight and I am being blinded by my antipodean phone which is either too dark to read or bright enough to cause retinal damage so I should just turn on the lamp; Vladimir? Who's that?
Run-on sentence and sleepy confusion aside, I vote for Andy and Ocean because their books don't sound like the self-involved (self-reverential?) assholery that some of the others do. I also voted for Olivia because I do love watching someone get "hoisted with their own petard".
That being (long-windedly said, I'm in, regardless of what gets chosen. 🌸
I am voting for both of these excellent recommendations. I've never read either and I've wanted to read the end of Alice forever (or since it came out), but I so rarely read fiction that it's good for me to get prompted in that direction. Thank you!!
TO VOTE FOR ANDY, LIKE THIS COMMENT
I love Andy! He’s my guy. And him in his 40s? *chef’s kiss* For some reason there was an Andy at the psych ward I was at that looked like the first guy I wanted to marry, Greg. But my dad took me home before our first date. I still think about him all the time… We are both are in our 30s now so I hope I get my family’s approval now. Otherwise I’ll just will have to elope with him.
Send me the PDF please
I'll see how Andy wants to organize it - if he wants to get all the emails at one time or what. I'm reading it too so this will be fun. I think Amanda already read it.
This is my kind of comment, thank you! I want to read YOUR book!
TO VOTE FOR LINDY, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR LENA, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR OLIVIA, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR VLADIMIR, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR OCEAN, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR ELIZABETH (IS THAT WHAT SHE GOES BY?), LIKE THIS COMMENT
I think she goes by Lizbeth just a guess 😉
😂 Just a good guess.
TO VOTE FOR JAMES, LIKE THIS COMMENT
TO VOTE FOR KEITH, LIKE THIS COMMENT
Aside from his cemented legacy, he's old school, no frills or bullshit and willing to break bread after a feud like he did when he dined with Graydon Carter in the rain. All these books are great choices for this list, but this one gets my vote because he feels most like family, and what could be more controversial than that?
I love that, Sarah! I haven't read it yet because strangely, the advance copy that I got of it had water marks on every page so you couldn't copy it, but it also made it really hard to read. So I have my clean copy ready now and a bunch of my friends have said it's super juicy and well worth reading. I love your take on it. And Amanda vehemently disagrees, which makes it even more enticing and fun.
I voted for Lena and Lindy since I’m planning to read those anyway and Andy because I love that you’re including an unpublished book. Going to maybe be an outlier and say I think The Tell is more than just controversial and since there’s claims that it’s not the actual story and other iffy issues, it belongs more in a “what not to do when writing memoir@ category. I’m not saying don’t read it, it just feels like picking it is rewarding allegedly very bad author behavior. That’s my two cents. I will join whatever the consensus is!
Wow, I love this take and really appreciate it. This whole exercise in picking controversial books has made me think a lot about which types of controversy I/we would never promote. You make such a good point and I will consider that in my voting now too. And I will also read up more on it because it sounds like there's more to the controversy than I was aware of.
Last thing I'll say here is only vaguely related, but your comment reminded me that I did have one well-known plagiarist (Jason Blair) write a piece for Jane magazine about being a plagiarist, but I thought that was valid and I still do. A lot of people hated that I did that.
HAHA, I am clearly up past my bedtime because I was like - who the heck is Vladimir - and where is Amy? Right... NABOKOV. This is a great list, so many sizzlers. The Tell has the darkest controversy, bordering on CIA mind control with its layered weirdness coming out so I won't vote for that. I'll toggle over to Keith because I love how he just started saying anything and everything all of a sudden. Juicy without being evil.
I haven't even read it yet, but from everything I have heard, the boldness and revelations in Keith's book are something I aspire to in my own memoir.
Also, that's hilarious about Vladimir – just something I would think, tired or not!
I had the same thought while lying in bed squinting at my phone screen in the dark, so my fiancée isn't bothered by lamplight and I am being blinded by my antipodean phone which is either too dark to read or bright enough to cause retinal damage so I should just turn on the lamp; Vladimir? Who's that?
Run-on sentence and sleepy confusion aside, I vote for Andy and Ocean because their books don't sound like the self-involved (self-reverential?) assholery that some of the others do. I also voted for Olivia because I do love watching someone get "hoisted with their own petard".
That being (long-windedly said, I'm in, regardless of what gets chosen. 🌸
I suggest The End of Alice by A.M. Holmes and Pluto, Animal Lover by Laren Stover. 🌸
I am voting for both of these excellent recommendations. I've never read either and I've wanted to read the end of Alice forever (or since it came out), but I so rarely read fiction that it's good for me to get prompted in that direction. Thank you!!