book review by: HEATHER BURNETT
book review by: BRAD SMITH
Here We Go Again:
This is a Book
My Life in Television by Betty White
P
ublished in 1995, Here We Go
Again: My Life in Television, Betty
White’s fourth book, holds up as an
informative memoir spanning the
years of vintage television from the
1940s to the 1990s. White’s writing is
humorous and likeable, much like her
television persona many have grown
to adore over the past 70 years. If you
don’t know much about Betty White,
after reading this book you will leave
this Earth knowing that – aside from
her enduring career in television – she
has had a lifelong commitment and
unconditional love for animals.
Many in my generation who came of age in the 1980s remember
her as Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls. White talks about this
and her many other roles, including her role as Elizabeth on
Life with Elizabeth from the 1950s, as Sue Ann Nivens from The
Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s and, briefly in the forward
and afterward, as Elka Ostrovsky on her current sit-com Hot in
Cleveland. No Betty White memoir is complete without thorough
mention of her many game show appearances. Known as the
“Queen of Game Shows,” White met her third husband Allen
Ludden when he hosted Password. They were married from 1963
until his death in 1981. Married three times, she speaks of all the
marriages with respect, but the love story between her and Ludden
is particularly endearing.
White’s casual anecdotes make the reader feel like she just had
lunch with them the week before, and she probably did. The book is
filled with stories of television and movie stars, like Bob Newhart,
Carol Channing, George Burns and Donnie and Marie Osmond,
as well as stories about vacations with Grant Tinker and Mary
Tyler Moore and weekly card games with titans of the television
industry. These entertaining accounts create a memoir of a true
pioneer of television as well as for women in show business. White
conveys her respect for the industry and for the many people with
whom she’s had the pleasure to work. In between the stories she
shares about the people in her life are more than enough mentions
of the animals she’s loved - her dogs, her friends with pets, animals
on the sets - and how she has made career choices based on her
love of animals. White is seriously dedicated to the welfare of
animals and has been a longtime board member of the Morris
Animal Foundation.
White writes all her books by longhand, just like her personal
friend John Steinbeck, because if writing longhand “was good
enough for Steinbeck, it’s good enough for me.” She easily
incorporates even the smallest details about herself into this
memoir, like how she still has the gas logs in her fireplace that were
used in filming a Barbara Walters interview at her home in the
1980s. The book is engaging and entertaining through to the end.
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Author: Demetri Martin
D
emetri Martin was my inspiration
for dropping out of law school
before even being accepted.
By
writing this book, Demetri Martin
dives deeper into his devolution of
the standard job hierarchy. Since his
attempt at becoming a lawyer, he has
degenerated to stand-up comic, to
cable TV show figurehead, to small
“bit” roles in movies, to his most recent
endeavor as obscure, uncharacterized
author.
For the unfamiliar, Martin’s comedy
stylings are best described as highly analytical observations, with
a flair for quick-witted, intelligent one-liners. “This is a Book”
is organized as a package of single-serving slices of the same
main course. For those of you counting your literary calories,
this structure allows you to select your own portion sizes, from
butterfly nibbles to full-on comedic binge reading.
What stands out is the stylistic departure from stand-up routines
or TV sketch comedy, allowing for uninterrupted elaborations
where his stand-up one-liners live as fictitious, if absurd,
short stories. Plus a Demetri Martin production wouldn’t be
complete without a buffet of data charts, tables, epigrams, sketch
commentary, anagrams, and palindrome short stories. It also
wouldn’t be authentic Martin without experimentation in how the
limits of “quirky” deviate from the limits of “funny”. Not many
authors, regardless of experience or genre, will give their readers
that peek behind the curtain.
Like the rest of his work, what’s special about Martin aren’t the
obvious lines, fart jokes, or direct setups paying off. He lands
unexpected humor within fresh approaches, and triumphs in the
subtleties of language, human behavior, internal dysfunction, and
his own post-analysis self awareness.
I challenge you to buy this book. What I mean is – when you’re
standing amongst the racks – good luck finding its native shelf.
Is it non-fiction? Graphic novel? Social sciences? Romance? Selfhelp? Gender studies? New Age? Biography? Autobiography?
Psychology? Reference? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
and yes.