Gregory > Recent Status Updates

ugh! This is so boring. Yoko doesn’t deserve this. They should’ve let her tell her story in her own words.

DORIS FISH gets a biography?? I’ve been waiting for this probably since I first saw Vegas in Space on USA Up All Night in the 90s. I rarely buy books on the release date but with this one, I’ve been counting down the days.

I can’t focus on a single thing since Rona came around. What is wrong with me? All I want to do is refresh CNN on my phone over and over for my sad dopamine fix.

Only on page 2 and already loving the weird imagery of this book:

“I said, ‘Mother, I smell cabbage. It must be lunchtime.’ She looked scared and scuttled towards the kitchen, holding up her little hands like kitten’s paws.”

Funny story: The translator of this book bought something from me on eBay on the exact same day I purchased this book. As a result, we corresponded briefly. How’s that for a coincidence?

“Near the end of the story, we’re sitting on the couch with my arm clasping her close enough for me to smell the 1920s perfume she discreetly put on in my honor. Mitsouko, by Guerlain.” Perfume in books!

“I could make out the scent of his Roger & Gallet shampoo, so near me that if I so much as lifted my arm I knew I’d touch his face.” I love it when perfumes and fragrances are mentioned in novels.

I love it when books refer to a specific perfume. I want to know what a story smells like!

"My aunt was there, on the freezing platform, to meet me. I smelt her violet scent again and remembered the bottle on her cluttered and dressing table and how I used to spell the rococo words to myself, Violettes de Parme."

I happened to be wearing a fragrance called Violette de Parme when I read that. Space/time warp!

Fun memoir of a country girl turned San Francisco socialite. BUT page after page, she keeps using y'all as you singular. Stop it, it doesn't work that way!! It feels like this is something an editor probably encouraged her to change because no one who ever says y'all would ever, ever use it as a singular.

Fun fact: Armistead Maupin's character DeDe Halcyon Day was allegedly based on Pat Montandon.

Insufferable... audiobooking it and slogging through, I don't know why.

"It is the confession of one who was destined by Nature to gather forbidden fruit in the gardens of deviation." I have a feeling this is gonna be good. Published 1939!

Holy cow, is this book ever going to end? Feels like I've been reading it forever, slogging through. Writer's tone is unpleasantly catty, yet not dishy enough to make a satisfying pool read.

Emotionally draining, but I guess that's the intention? Someone called it the saddest book in the world. Not quite as glum as Frances Farmer's 'Will There Really Be a Morning?' but pretty close. Sort of an anti-summer read. Why am I reading this!

"Alexander and he had the right to judge themselves, and for themselves. And since they were happy, what use was this superfluous remorse?" Bold statement, considering the times and context of Catholic boarding school.

I love the coded language. "'My dear Lucien, we are friends and always will be. If I pulled the wool over your eyes it wasn't because I didn't trust you, I swear wasn't it wasn't. It was – because I wanted to, because I enjoyed it, and a bit because I was – ashamed. And besides, I was afraid you'd be angry because I was – looking elsewhere for friendship.'" [1943]

The guy who wrote this was part of the psychic team that searched for Patty Hearst when she was kidnapped by the SLA! I like a little bit of woo-woo every now & then.