The New Book Review

This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fav Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.

Showing posts with label Nonfiction: Essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nonfiction: Essays. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Leslie C. Halpern Collects Her Best Columns on Life and Entertainment Industry

Scantily Clad Truths
Subtitle: Essays on Life with Clothes (and without)
Author: Leslie C. Halpern
Cautious Optimist Publishing 2018
ISBN: 9780999376331
Genre: Essays/Memoir
Contact Reviewer: HoJoNews@aol.com
Rating: 5 of 5

                  From Bill Cosby to “Homeless and Sexy” 

 

Veteran Journalist Shares Memories 


True to journalistic ethics, here, a disclaimer. I started out in journalism. Printers ink has colored my thumbs (and given me asthma) since I first wrote kitschy columns for my high school newspaper, and I loved fashion and New York even in its grittier days when I was a publicist for the firm that developed the “10 Best Dressed List” and ogled the samples of Christian Dior samples in the stockpile of “props” the business kept for photo shoot emergencies. 

Perhaps this disclaimer explains why I was hooked from the first moment I heard the title of Leslie C. Halpern’s slim book Scantily Clad Truths. Add that to the amazing list of media outlets Halpern has written for and this provocative teaser on the back cover of the book: “What really happened when this young entertainment journalist in a sexy gold dress rode the elevator with Bill Cosby?” and I was ready to have some fun. 

It turns out Scantily Clad was not quite what I expected. It was much more. Call it a memoir of a journalist presented in a permanent collection of her best material. Bit by bit, a reader becomes familiar with Halpern. Her exceptional sense of detail. Her humor. Her occasional bravery about drawing conclusions about life as she explores life-altering anecdotes. And, yes. They somehow all have something to do with clothing from Mary Lou’s red lace panties to Homeless and Sexy’s no-shirt-at-all.

Because Halpern had to select only the columns and essays that fit with her theme, it made me wonder how many more books are to come. Halpern’s work is easy to read, refreshing. Most of us probably need her gentle take on life and humor in these political times.  

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a multi award-winning author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Her HowToDoItFrugally series of books has helped writers and retailers worldwide. She runs this blog with lots of generous contributions from Carolyn Wilhelm and Lois W. Stern. 

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MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND GETTING REVIEWS AND ANOTHER FREEBIE

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.



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Monday, June 25, 2007

Calfornia's Erma Bombeck Sees the Funny Side

title: Who, Me? Paranoid? Humor Humor Everywhere
author: Erica Stux
genre: Humor
ISBN: 978-1-58736-676-5
reviewer: Lenora Smalley, former president of California Writers Club, San Fernando Valley chapter
review first appeared on www.lenorasmalley.com



Erica Stux has a new book whose title immediately gives readers an idea they have found a funny and entertaining collection. In a style reminiscent of the late Erma Bombeck, Erica writes about events and relationships which confront us all. There are entries with intriguing titles such as The Care and Feeding of Dishwashers, HairDo's and Don'ts, New Math for the Family, May I Have My Attention, and an especially humorous tirade on Phantoms in My Fridge.

We have dibs, dabs, little jars or packages hiding in niches and corners in our refrigerator. I loved Erica's comment, "There could be a jar in one of those niches containing, for all I know, a hitherto unknown Dead Sea Scroll." She writes about many things we all know to be true. How major appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines always break down on weekends, especially long holiday weekends. How stoves usually quit on Christmas or New Years Eve. She extols the virtues of a good plumber or handyman, saying we should hang on to them because they are "worth their weight in drill bits."

I laughed reading the episode The Dinner Party I'd Most Like to Forget. It was one of those times when anything that could go wrong did, including spilling a drink on a guest and having the coffee pot blow a fuse, crashing the party into temporary darkness. She writes about events that make us want to laugh or cry, but Erica makes us laugh and helps us see the funny side. Read this book and the next time the groceries fall out of the bag onto the sidewalk or the ice cream scoop drops off the cone, remember Humor Humor is Everywhere.