WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Harlow in Hollywood by Darrell Rooney and Mark A. Viera. I've recently discovered Jean Harlow, the original platinum blonde, the bombshell who paved the way for Marilyn and Madonna. 

 

Marilyn is better known than Harlow and superficially they had a lot in common. They each personified sex and glamor for their era. Dyed blonde hair and provocative clothes. Teenage marriages that were best forgotten. Lots of scandal and pearl clutching in their personal lives, balanced with tremendous charm and humor onscreen. But here's where they differ: Marilyn dealt in fragility, Jean was a tough dame. The "Material Girl" video aside, Madonna has patterned her persona more on Harlow than Marilyn. Unlike Marilyn, Madonna has never been anyone's idea of a naive waif.

 

So how did Harlean Carpenter become Jean Harlow, the icon whose influence is still felt today, almost 90 years after her death?  That's what Rooney and Viera promise to tell me. So far, book seems less like a recitation of facts about her life and more about placing her life in context of 1930s Hollywood and America.

 

2. What did you recently finish reading?  Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz. Isabel Spellman is the oldest daughter in a ridiculously dysfunctional family of private investigators. Izzy drinks too much, watches too much TV and never ceases to disappoint her parents. Yet she is actually quite competent at her job. She's also a very good, very funny narrator.

 

I've been rereading this delightful series in order. I enjoy each volume individually but I especially enjoyed this one because of how the characters have evolved. Izzy has become (gulp!) introspective. Baby sister Rae has left the nest and headed off to college. Oldest brother David has gone from sartorially splendid attorney to stay-at-home dad. "The unit," as the three Spellman kids refer to their parents, are adjusting to an empty(-ish) nest and preparing for retirement.

 

I enjoyed this warm, funny and bittersweet book so much I almost reached for the next one in the series. But that next one is also the last one, and I'm not ready to say goodbye to the Spellman clan yet. 

3. What will you read next? I don't know.