If books by the mega famous are your thing, then November has its usual share of starry contenders, including memoirs from Michelle Obama, Martin Kemp and Matthew Perry. My preference, though, was for something more offbeat, and screenwriter David Milch’s candid, outlandish autobiography Life’s Work is among the six books reviewed in full below.
That sextet includes Bob Dylan’s essays on music, the biggest non-fiction release this month. Also worth a look at is Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth (Yale University Press), in which Francine Prose offers a feminist reinterpretation of the life of the Egyptian queen. Her chapter “Cleopatra on Film” features biting observations on the Hollywood objectification of a woman who, in real life, spent more time deciding about irrigation systems than slinking round in transparent sarongs. Of the historic 1917 film starring Theda Bara as Cleopatra, Prose remarks: “What did the film say to men? Women, especially Eastern women, were scheming, heartless, deceitful, and half-crazed with lust and sin.”
