Dish - Jeanette Walls

Here is a fascinating and serious look at five decades of dish: a behind-the-scenes examination of the personalities that control what we read and see; the unholy and unchanging trinity of celebrity, publicist, and reporter that has stoked the American appetite for gossip from the salad days of silver-screen magazines to the instantaneous communication of the scoop-filled internet. From the birth of the National Enquirer to the death of Princess Diana, Jeannette Walls gives us an insider's tour of the dangerously shimmering world of gossip. Filled with fascinating insights into everything from the origins of People magazine to the truth behind Elizabeth Taylor's special friendship with Michael Jackson, this is an important sociological study and "does a terrific job showing how the two divorced parties of news and gossip managed to get dragged back to the altar - kicking and screaming all the way - in the latter half of the 20th century" (Toronto Sun). Dish was a featured alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club.