Sunshine Girl

December 1, 2020

Famous for breaking the Watergate story with Bob Woodward, Bernstein backtracks to his early-1960s experiences as a teenage reporter at the Washington Star in Chasing History. Structured around Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool," Punch Me Up to the Gods recounts award-winning poet/screenwriter Broom's upbringing in Ohio as a Black boy crushing on other boys, falling into wild sex and drug use, and finally finding his way. Laden with Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, and Grammy honors, Foxx pivots here to talk about raising two very different daughters in Act Like You Got Some Sense (400,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for October 2020). In The Windsor Diaries, published posthumously, Howard records staying with her grandfather at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park during World War II and befriending princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan, a viral sensation, pulls out the Southern charm to tell funny stories about life and celebrity in How Y'all Doing? (100,000-copy first printing). Having started the YouTube channel Dad, How Do I? to hand out the fatherly advice and how-to tips he wishes his dad had been around to give him, Kenney here reiterates that advice while surveying his childhood and how the channel went viral (75,000-copy first printing). In Sparring with Smokin' Joe, Lewis, director of journalism at York College, CUNY, recalls the months he spent in 1981 in the gym and on the road with boxing great Joe Frazier. Brat Packer McCarthy relates a life that encompasses acting, directing, and working as an award-winning editor-at-large at National Geographic Traveler. In Sunshine Girl, Margulies shows how she created order amid the chaos of a difficult childhood to become an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actress. In Sinatra and Me, Oppedisano, a longtime confidant and key member of the singer's management team, reflects on Sinatra's life, loves, and commitment to his craft (100,000-copy first printing). Finally, in The Wreckage of My Presence, actress/podcaster Wilson offers funny but heartfelt essays ranging from the joys of eating in bed to her obsessive need to be liked (100,000-copy first printing)

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2021
The veteran actor delivers the intriguing tale of her unusual childhood and successful career. This is no superficial tell-all or exercise in name-dropping. Rather, just like two recent standout celebrity memoirs--Gabriel Byrne's Walking With Ghosts and Cecily Tyson's Just As I Am--this book is more about the strength of the storytelling than the star power of the author. Margulies doesn't dwell on her work on ER or discuss the rumored feud with Archie Punjabi, her co-star on The Good Wife. Instead, the author focuses on her childhood and how shuttling between the homes of her divorced parents across Europe and America influenced her life and acting career. "I was always trying to be another person as a child," writes Margulies, adding that her mother called her "Sunshine Girl" because she was "a naturally happy child...joyful and easygoing" and felt the need to lift everyone's spirits in whatever way possible. However, while she was deeply connected to the emotions of her parents, she found herself ignoring her own. "I had this ongoing recording playing in my brain that I wasn't a quitter, I was a survivor," she writes. "I was strong, dependable." It's a pattern that repeated in her adult relationships, following her into stardom on ER. Margulies does reveal her reasons behind leaving the show after six seasons, turning down $27 million to extend her contract two years, and she discusses why the major relationships of her life failed before she met her husband. What the author shares and doesn't is deliberate, all offered to advance the fascinating story she wants to tell. It's the mark of a talented storyteller and a sign she can have another creative future if she wants it. Margulies' unflinching quest to explain her life makes her well-crafted memoir compelling whether you know her roles or not.

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March 15, 2021
Margulies, who rocketed to fame in a star-making turn in the groundbreaking show ER and went on to lead the much lauded legal drama The Good Wife, shares her path to stardom in this frank memoir. The youngest of three daughters whose parents split soon after her birth, Margulies spent her childhood being shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic between the East coast and England as her free-spirited mother pursued her interest in the educational philosophy anthroposophy. While Margulies' eldest sister opted to stay with their father, Margulies and her middle sister had to cope with multiple moves and their mother's many boyfriends. Margulies discovered her love of performance in college, and in her early twenties she secured several attention-getting guest spots on TV shows before landing the iconic role of Carol Hathaway in ER, which famously was supposed to be only a single-episode appearance until test audiences fell in love with the character. Readers looking for salacious Hollywood tales won't find them here; instead Margulies' fans and all readers interested in TV careers will enjoy learning her origin story.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2021

In her thought-provoking and revelatory memoir, Margulies, star of the popular TV shows The Good Wife and ER, reminisces about her life across time and continents. Margulies had a chaotic upbringing, coping with divorced parents and nomadic living as she attempted to find her place in the world personally and professionally. In response to some of this upheaval, she sought a measured, balanced approach to her life. Total self-sufficiency was her goal; it wasn't until she had a severe case of chicken pox as an adult that she was finally able to accept help from others. Recuperating from her illness, however, gave her the time to work on this memoir. Her book vividly brings to life a woman who has endured pain, loss, doubt, and uncertainty--much like her readers and like the characters she portrays. Though Margulies's anecdotes may be outside readers' own realms of experience, she relates them with such intimacy and candor that readers might recognize in her a kindred spirit. VERDICT A deeply reflective narrative that will appeal to both Margulies's fans and anyone who enjoys a warm and well-crafted memoir.--Traci Glass, Lincoln City Libs., NE

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.