Third Estate Sunday Review: KINDLE UNLIMITED (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)

Monday, December 13, 2021

KINDLE UNLIMITED (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)

1summerread

In 2018, community sites took turns covering a book every week. You can see "In 2018, we read books" to review that coverage. We didn't want to repeat ourselves in 2019 or 2020. So when Marcia came up with a way to cover books but with a twist, we were all for it. Marcia's idea was for us to digital books -- we're largely a printed text crowd -- and to use AMAZON's KINDLE UNLIMITED. So for 2021, we'll be trying to do a book a week and trying to just use KINDLE UNLIMITED. This week, we're speaking with Marcia and Rebecca about their "The summer read: Judy Garland & Liza Minnelli: Too Many Damn Rainbows." and "the problem with ''judy garland & liza minnelli: too many damn rainbows'" -- two takes on one book.

The book you two chose for the summer read this year was Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince's JUDY GARLAND & LIZA MINNELLI: TOO MANY DAMN RAINBOWS. Thoughts?

Marcia: The book was a fabulous read. There is certainly more than enough material with both women to fill up several volumes.

True. Background on the book, Rebecca?

Rebecca: Judy Garland was one of the great film stars of Hollywood's golden age. Her successes included THE WIZARD OF OZ, SUMMER STOCK, IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME, THE HARVEY GIRLS, A STAR IS BORN, STRIKE UP THE BAND, BABES ON BROADWAY, FOR ME AND MY GAL, PRESENTING LILY MARS, EASTER PARADE, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and many more. Those were all musicals and Judy Garland could sing. She sold millions of albums and had many hit singles including "Over The Rainbow," "The Man That Got Away" and "The Trolley Song." Her double volume album JUDY AT CARNEGIE won four Grammys and was on the charts for 73 weeks including 13 weeks at number one. It was a massive success. She won an Academy Award for THE WIZARD OF OZ. I'll let Marcia do Liza.

Marcia: Judy's Oscar was as a juvenile lead. Liza won for Best Actress for CABARET. She was also nominated for THE STERILE CUCKOO. She's won four Tony Awards. In 1990, she won a Grammy. In the US, she's had only one top 30 hit, "Losing My Mind" which was a hit on the dance charts. She's had two gold albums -- the soundtrack to CABARET and the soundtrack to her TV special LIZA WITH A Z. She's had five albums make it into the top fifty on THE BILLBOARD chart. Judy's film career as a leading lady more or less ends in big films with 1954's A STAR IS BORN at the age of 34. Liza's film career as a leading lady in studio films more or less ends in 1988 with RENT-A-COP and ARTHUR 2: ON THE ROCKS at the age at the age of 42. Rebecca?

Rebecca: To date, Liza has been married four times while Judy was married five times. So, as Marcia said, there's enough in there to fill up several volumes.

Marcia, your opinion of the book was more favorable than Rebecca's.

Marcia: Correct. This was a first for me, reading about Judy Garland. So I was fascinated and the book is a page turner. I reviewed it from that view. I do, however, agree with Rebecca. The book had too little on Liza. I didn't realize that until after I was talking to Rebecca and reading her review. She's right because Judy dies and that's really the end of the book. That means Liza hasn't won four Tonys, hasn't won an Oscar, it really short changes Liza. That wouldn't be a problem if Liza's name wasn't in the title.

Rebecca: And that's one instance where I caught something. But the whole point of us doing our summer book reviews each year is that we're offering two takes and one of us will notice something and the other will notice something else. I think we make a great team.

Marcia: And Rebecca and I aren't into heavy reads which is how this started. We were talking about the books we enjoyed and how we always liked to read -- going back to when we were kids -- at least one fun book during the summer. For me it goes back to Judy Blume's TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING and OTHERWISE KNOWN AS SHEILA THE GREAT. There was a lot happening that summer between fourth and fifth grade, but those two books helped push it over into one of my most memorable summers. As an adult, I've enjoyed a lot of the same summer reads Rebecca has.

Rebecca: We're both, for example, huge fans of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. You're not going to find us thumbing through Sartre on the beach. We don't mind a good and trashy read.

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