Hello, my name is Natalie and I read celebrity biographies. (Hello, Natalie!)
A genre that often reads like fiction is the celebrity bio/autobiography. Some readers eschew this genre because they aren’t interested in celebrities. Others avoid it because the writing can be appallingly bad. Still others know that buying these books hurts real writers because the publishers pay obscene sums of money for the celebrity tell-alls, leaving virtually no budget for the rest of the authors. All of those reasons are valid yet I still find myself reading these books.
I’ve read more than a few celebrity bios over the last year or so–14 readily come to mind. A few were really good and rest were abysmal. I’m not a celebrity watcher–we don’t even have television at my house–yet the list below is damning evidence proving my mini-addiction to the genre. I’ve blazed through books about:
- Sidney Poirtier
- Michael J. Fox
- Rosie O’Donnell
- Martha Stewart
- Tori Spelling
- Michael Hutchence (of the Aussie band INXS)
- John Steinbeck
- William Shatner
- Eric Clapton
- Patty Boyd
- Paula Deen
- Harper Lee
- Madonna
- Maureen McCormick (Marsha Brady)
Has your opinion of me plummeted? My only defense (aside from the insanity plea!) is that this genre is my guilty pleasure! I don’t read tabloid or celebrity magazines but can’t quite keep my paws off of these.
When I go to the library to borrow these books, it’s like I’m renting a dirty movie or something. I put them in the middle of a huge pile of literary masterpieces, hoping to hide the shame that is the tell-all bio! I’m not sure why I even read these books when most are a monumental waste of my time and aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Curiosity, maybe?
So, is it only me or do you read this genre too? Did you also remove the dust jacket while reading sTORI Telling by Tori Spelling, or was that just me?
Book, Line, and Sinker 