Monday, October 23, 2006

Beauty-Book Junky

There are two books attacking the same topic from different perspectives.

One, Beauty Junkies, just came out, is by one of my favorite NY Times writers, Alex Kuczynski, who writes a kind of personal as retail column in the Style section called Critical Shopper. In her shopping persona, we are voyers as she goes into stores and explores, shops, and oggles. She's a fan of shopping, but with if not a critical eye, at least a personal one.

In her new book, she confesses to have been addicted to plastic surgery. This does come as a surprise. After all, she's blond, she's brilliant, she's hot. What's to worry about? Well, she's not the only one to fall prey to the beauty industry and maybe that's the point. At least she has the smarts to feel bad about it (although only when something goes horribly wrong) and make a buck off it. I mean, everyone else is.

Of course, Bitch has been exposing the plastic surgery industry for years now. Not that I want to get picky about it, but they were writing about this stuff long before any mainstream press was too worried that elective, expensive surgery was not really something should do recreationally.

The other book is Nora Ephron's irreverent I Feel Bad About My Neck, a series of essays about aging. She says despite all the work to fight the future, it's hopeless. But she's funny about it, and turning her angst into good copy is what it's all about. I can't wait to dig in.

No comments: