How to review a book

Normally I don't like it when a book reviewer inserts himself or herself into a review; all that I-I-I makes me go ai-ai-ai. But then, not all book reviewers are as deft as the great Carolyn See, who shows how it's done in a Washington Post review of a new Hollywood biography:

Some years ago, in a very fancy Los Angeles seaside restaurant, I ordered the signature lobster and avocado salad. About halfway through lunch, an enormous fly struggled out from the damp jungle of arugula and frisee. I let out an unladylike "Eeek," and a waiter came over. "He just flew in, right?" "No," I answered hotly. "Look where he's been!" It was true, the fly was drenched, half-drowned in Thousand Island. Only later did I think of it from the fly's point of view, lost in gooey crags of avocado, gluey from unidentified pink stuff. Think of me now as that fly, staggering out from one of the ickiest film biographies I've ever read....

Comments

[Shelley]

I love the personal interjections in reviews -- sometimes it leads to the most lovely, bitchy showdowns in the letters of the London Review of Books!

[Kevin]

The Brits seem to have an advantage when it comes to Literary Family Feud.

They make Vidal v. Capote and Wolfe v. Mailer v. Irving look like weak tea.