My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

Chelsea is a ho. She does everyone. She’s proud of it. And that’s cool. In this book, she chronicles her bedroom adventures and one night stands with a surprising lack of lurid detail, instead choosing to focus on the comedic antics to which her promiscuous lifestyle lends itself.

A friend of the Professor’s sent her this one (eyebrow raised), and I picked it up while on a phone call recently to see what it was about. Read through it in a couple of days. Chelsea entertains with her foolishness, her alcoholism, and her quasi-dysfunctional family. But it’s not smart or really that funny. Sex & The City explored these waters with far more ability, insight, and wit years ago.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

PS: I cannot believe that this is in the top 10 of the NYT Best Seller’s List.

Going Native by Stephen Wright

A man walks out of his life in the midst of a dinner party on the East Coast somewhere. He may steal a green Galaxie automobile. Nearby, some awful crackheads have sex, score, and argue. Someone steals their green Galaxie. A hitchhiker kills a truck driver on the Interstate, then later hitches a ride in a green Galaxie. A young woman runs away from her family with her boyfriend, later ditches the boyfriend for a man driving, yep, you guessed it. Some guy involved in porn goes to a party and his car is run into by our old friend the GG. And so on. These vignettes of wrecked and unpleasant modern lives have three things in common: sex, drugs, and the green Galaxie. It’s a collection of meaningless searches for meaning. The writing is occasionally clever, but usually feels like it’s trying way too hard. There is also a certain pre-911 self-absorption that was common to fiction in the nineties, but which now just feels a tad petulant. I’d skip this one if I were you.

Belle de Jour by Anonymous


Belle won a number of awards a few years ago for her blog. At became a fan of her keen eye and lurid details back then, and was pleased to read a fuller account of her life. Belle is a high-priced call girl who lives in London. She writes a diary of her adventures, romantic, sexual, and otherwise. Her account is chock full of keen observations on people in general and Londoners in particular. It’s also quite shockingly sordid at points. So if there’s much on the internet pornosphere that disgusts or upsets you, this probably isn’t the book for you. She covers almost all of the same kinds of topics that, say, the syndicated column Savage Love addresses, albeit with far greater charm, wit and verve.

There never any real resolution here. Belle lives, works, dines out with friends, goes to visit her mum, and so on. But she’s a charming lady to get to know, and there are plenty of juicy sex tips.

I purchased this one for a few pounds in Oxford England while over there visiting some fine developers. I read the whole thing over the course of an afternoon at the MalMaison. Somehow, I think it was the kind of place of which Belle might approve.