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Currently reading

The Journals Of Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott, Joel Myerson
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
The Awakening
Kate Chopin
Ulysses
James Joyce
Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades & Horrible Blunders
Henrietta Webb, Josephine Ross
Becoming Jane Austen
Jon Spence
The Portable Dorothy Parker
Brendan Gill, Dorothy Parker
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë
Don't Tell Alfred
Nancy Mitford
Autobiographies (Collected Works, Vol 3)
Douglas Archibald, William O'Donnell, W.B. Yeats

Boring Trash

Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath - Mimi Alford

I found it incredibly hard to relate to the author of this book. She's writing about events that happened 50 years ago, so there is already enough distance to strip the narrative of any detail or immediacy. On top of that she lacks the insight required to elevate her sordid and boring little story into something more and, in true WASP style, she wraps her feelings in a thick layer of cotton so she doesn't have to deal with them.

 

Yay for her for finding a second husband she's happy with, but the story of how they got together was slightly creepy (and let's be honest--is anyone outside of her immediate family interested in what she did with her life after she left the White House?).

 

I'm hazy on why she felt the need to write this book at all. She hints that she doesn't need money, claims to shun publicity, and other than a couple of clunky attempts to tell her side of the thin anecdotes about her that had already made it into print this doesn't read like a "truth at last!" type of memoir. She reveals terrible and sad stories about JFK without making them interesting. I recommend any interested parties find the dirt online and skip the book.