Carrie Fisher has a new book out on her life (the cover is the awesome) and lots of folks have been reviewing it because - please - she is Princess Leia and we can't get enough of her. (Plus she's Penny Marshall's buddy and funny as hell). From Salon:

One chapter is a very funny recap of her parents' famous split, which she describes as a Brad-Jen-Angelina triangle from Hollywood's Paleozoic era. In Fisher's retailing, her father, upon learning of the death of family friend Mike Todd in a plane crash, rushed to comfort Todd's widow, Elizabeth Taylor. "My father flew to Elizabeth's side, gradually making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis." Fisher provides a useful chart, detailing her gnarled, oft-pruned family tree, and rebuts her father's assertion from his memoir "Been There, Done That" (or, as his daughter calls it, his "novel," "Been There, Done Them") that the frequently married Debbie Reynolds is a lesbian. "My mother is not a lesbian," writes Fisher. "She's just a really, really bad heterosexual."

Don't judge me but I really want to read this book. (Even though Salon did not like it so much.)

I love a good biography and lately I've been lucky enough to find some that are written in rather unorthodox manners (which made them really stand out.) These are not so much biography as biography/memoir - they combine the lives of their subjects with those of their biographers and the investigative journeys they go on while writing the books. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, by Ann Marie Fleming goes one beyond that by being in graphic novel format. Here's a bit from my post earlier this year:

Written in a graphic-novel type format, the book details the search Fleming made to learn more about her great grandfather who was a rather famous magician in the vaudeville circuit in the early 20th century. He and his troupe traveled all over the world, met a lot of famous people and performed a lot of amazing tricks. But Fleming knew practically nothing about him and set out to discover what she could and also to answer an even bigger (and more troubling) concern: why did her family forget him?

As she explains early on, Fleming is from a very convoluted ethnic and national background. (Sam was Chinese, he married a woman he met in Austria while touring, their daughters married Chinese men, but then the grandchildren married all kinds of people resulting in Fleming being the daughter of a mostly Chinese mother, an Australian father and born in Okinawa - which made everything even way more complicated.) It's all explained in the opening pages and very funny to read. In fact, Fleming maintains a slightly humorous "can you believe this" tone throughout the book as she makes the story as much about her research process as her great grandfather's life. The art is awesome - black and white drawings, full color comics, photographs, ephemera, all kinds of cool stuff.

Fleming is a filmmaker and you can check out her site for more info on the film she made about Long Tack Sam's life (which I hope is on DVD someday).

Terese Svoboda's exploration of her uncle's World War II experiences is a far darker tale but Black Glasses Like Clark Kent is another perfect blend of author and subject. this look at American society, war and truth in military history is absolutely riveting and also incredibly touching. It blew me away when I read it a few months ago:

The author was primarily looking for information on the execution of American soldiers convicted in military court of crimes in Japan in her research. Her uncle stated that as an MP he saw this and it apparently haunted him his entire life. But while she did find ample evidence that there were problems with violent acts committed by American GIs in the country, trying to determine who was convicted for what and how they were punished (including by hanging) is much more elusive. It is clear that the preponderance of those found guilty were black GIs however, something else that she tries to track and explain - were the trials fair, etc. Everywhere she turns though she finds contradictions in the numbers and reports although the preponderance of evidence makes it clear that something very wrong was happening in Occupied Japan; something very ugly that did not fit the American ideal of bravery and honor.

There was one other aspect of the book that really struck me - when Svoboda points out that "who tells any war story is important; that is, who has the authority to tell it, and then when and why." Winners tell stories, and document it as they see fit and officers - or the so-called "military establishment" will often do its best to present the stories in the best light for its own purposes. (Something Pat Tillman's death reminded us all of yet again.) She points out how Agent Orange was not believed to be dangerous for years and how Gulf War Syndrome was discounted and on and on. Her conclusion on what has changed is simple: "It is only with the advent of tiny cheap recording devices that the common soldier has any power."

History readers in particular will love this book but both Fleming and Svoboda are excellent choices for writers of historical fiction and nonfiction interested in a couple of very different research methods at work here.

Another really different biography I read this year was Lesley Blanch's Pierre Loti: Travels with the Legendary Romantic. I am a big fan of Blanch - I find her one of the more compelling figures in literature and the combination of this author and that subject (it doesn't get much more flamboyant and fascinating then Loti) is really irresistible. From my post last February:

I was intrigued by Loti just on the facts of his life: a Victorian era French naval officer who traveled widely and became especially captivated by Turkey in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Loti (whose real name was Julien Viaud) wrote about the places he visited, the women he loved and the mysterious aspects of life in Tahiti, Turkey, and even the Basque people. He was so consumed by the Basques that after marrying a proper French woman and having two sons with her (one of whom died shortly after birth) he found a suitable Basque woman, set her up as a mistress for life and had two sons with her (he wanted to mix his blood with the noble Basque bloodline).

The guy was a fascinating piece of work, no doubt about it.

I just realized what eclectic reading I did this year - a traveling magician, a lingering WWII mystery and a larger than life Victorian era traveler. They were each wonderful and highly recommended.