Status Updates From What She Ate

Helen Gurley Brown was all about money and fame and branding. When her husband tried to expand her career, their ideas-recounted in detail-were both preposterous and demeaning to women.

Regarding the food ideas that she proposed? Laughable, to me. Also truly grotesque.

Crassly, Helen used food, just as she used everyone and everything else.

Laura intended, I assume, to portray Helen Gurley Brown as insufferable. In which case, Laura definitely succeeded with me.

The lack of personal integrity was stunning.

Equally awful, from my perspective as a feminist, was Helen's persona as an old-fashioned wife. Somebody who "enjoyed being a girl."

Fascinating and also repulsive, all in one chapter!

Barbara Pym won my affection, thanks to the sympathetic food writing she did, as reported by intrepid Laura.

Barbara Pym -- her name always stood out to me as beautiful. Now thanks to Laura Shapiro's insights, I really-really want to read my first Barbara Pym book.

Nazi food behavior? It's disgusting, to put it mildly. I'm looking forward to the next chapter,

Meanwhile I'm reading this chapter with lurid fascination.

Laura Shapiro is such an intrepid author.

Laura's perspective is highly original. It's just about how a person does food, supplemented by biographical details.

I've never known any author to make this kind of connection. In particular, I'm grateful for the lack of Psychology Talk. As Freud reputedly said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Intrepid Laura Shapiro is now reporting on Hitler's mistress.

Just as crazy as one might have expected! Except who would ordinarily bother to expect. Or care about.

Now that I finally completed that massive biography of George Washington, I'm ready to return to the stately prose and unleashed perceptiveness of Laura Shapiro.

Such an accomplished writer, yet she never shows herself to be breaking a sweat (as it were). Hooray!

I'm still having trouble renewing this book on Libby. However, the good news is, today I made it to the Loudoun Country Regional Library and checked out 10 audiobooks that look fabulous.

Thank goodness for public libraries!

Why the pause? I am still awaiting renewal from Libby. Lucky you, who've been able to finish this.