As we did in 2021, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. After a review posts, we try to do a discussion with the reviewer. This go round, we're talking to Marcia and Rebecca about their reviews "Worst summer read ever is by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince" and "'the fondas: henry, jane and peter' is a very bad book" of Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince's THE FONDAS: HENRY, JANE AND PETER. You both hated the book?
Marcia: We did. And I even took a break in reading because I thought it had to be me. But when I went back to the book it was just as bad. It was awful.
Rebecca: And Marcia my point of our annual summer read is to find a book that we think people will like. This summer we chose so very poorly.
Marcia: Because we like these authors and we liked the book this is a sequel to HENRY FONDA: HE DID IT HIS WAY. But this is an awful book.
You both talk about how the book repeatedly ignores key moments in the acting professions of all three Fondas. That includes ignoring THE MORNING AFTER which Jane Fonda was Academy Award nominated for, YOUTH which Jane was Golden Globe nominated for, ignoring the Emmy nominations Jane got for NEWSROOM and GRACE AND FRANKIE and ignoring Jane's Emmy-winning role in THE DOLLMAKER as well as her successful return to Broadway in 33 VARIATIONS which resulted in a Tony nomination.
Marcia: And yet they made time for four or five pages on Jean Harlow. Why? Peter saw a play with a character in it who was Jean Harlow so that resulted in four or five pages about the late actress that never knew a Fonda -- not Henry, not Jane, not Peter. Stuff like that happened repeatedly. And there were so many errors. Every page seemed to have an error.
Rebecca: When did Liza Minnelli and Shirley MacLaine work together? The book says they did a TV-movie remake of ON GOLDEN POND.
No. Ernest Thompson wrote the play ON GOLDEN POND. He adapted it for the film and won an Academy Award. Another play he wrote, THE WEST SIDE WALTZ. Later, it was turned into a TV project with Liza, Shirley and Kathy Bates among others.
Rebecca: So another error. And even the photo captions had errors.
Marcia: It was appalling. And, again, we like the writers. We've read other books by them and praised the books. This one needed a fact check and it was also really dull. We thought the book would be a sure thing and didn't worry that, as Labor Day was looming, we still needed to do our summer read. And then when we read it, it was too late to pick out another book.
Rebecca: In the past, our summer reads were always praising books. This is the first time we've used it to call it out. And that's not that we didn't find things to critique from time to time, it's that we liked the books. We don't like this one. And it was too late to try to find another book and too late to try to read it. So we went with this bad book and panned it.
You two have been doing your joint-reviews each summer for years now. Is this the farewell?
Marcia: No.
Rebecca: But we're not waiting until August to read a book again. We'll pick our summer read early -- and we did on this, as Marcia said we loved the first volume of this book HENRY FONDA: HE DID IT HIS WAY. But we'll make sure we get it read before August and if it's bad like this one? We'll pick another real quick.
Marcia: We paid for this book. It wasn't part of KINDLE UNLIMITED. And I've enjoyed the authors past books but I don't think I'll pay $22 for another book by them until I hear what others think. This was a bad book, an awful book.
Rebecca: It didn't even have any good or new gossip. Oh. Hold on. Who had sex? Tom Hayden walks in, in a New York apartment, on Leonard Bernstein and Huey Newton having sex. That was the only good gossip in the entire book.
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Previous book discussions this year.
"Books (Ann, Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Elaine, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ann and C.I.)," "Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" and "Books (Ava and C.I.)."
