I have read my share of trashy books. I figure as long as I am reading a few serious books a year, I can do it guilt free. I don’t know that the rungs go any lower than celeb authors. Memoirs are supposed to be juicy. I mean, you don’t want to read philosophical essays by Debra Winger, do you? (Trust me, you don’t.) They are usually ghostwritten by journalists who understand what they are selling. So here are eight random facts I have learned from trash.*
- Britney Spears’ mother, Lynne, killed someone. It was a vehicular manslaughter.
- Woody Allen dated both of Diane Keaton’s sisters. (Perhaps inspiring Hannah and her Sisters?)
- As a teenager, Patti Smith gave birth to a baby girl and gave her up for adoption.
- Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak got into terrible turbulence in an airplane and thought they were going to die.
- Despite playing GI Jane, Demi Moore can’t do pull ups.
- Before he formed The Mamas and the Papas, John Phillips worked as a postman. He was so bored on the routes that he dumped handfuls of mail down street gutters.
- After she divorced Quincy Jones, Peggy Lipton spent weeks in bed watching old movies.
- After a performance of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Judi Dench went backstage and told star Kathleen Turner that it was the finest acting she had seen.
* I will exempt Patti Smith from the trash label. Her two memoirs are very good.
Books Smitten 