I Picked Up This Book Because: I love Betty White and lets be honest I needed something short to take me over the top for my 2017 reading challenge.

The Story:

As I said I love Betty White. I find her story fascinating. This particular book deals with her life in TV. A bit of her time with Allen Ludden (and other husbands). Betty has done so much in her time. She has truly seen television though its infancy to the bounding bustling business today. She is such a gem.

The Random Thoughts:

I was shocked when she said half of the fanmail for The Golden Girls came from kids. I loved that show as a child and recently watched every episode (thank you Hulu) and am still in love with it.

The Score Card:



4 Stars

17 books this month with only one 4.5 star read sitting at the top, which is a typical month for me; much more typical than the spectacularly good reading months I had in the first half of 2017.

Six 4 star reads rounded things about and the worse book I read was... really, there weren't any.  Nothing below 3 stars, so really a very average reading month overall.

And now, on to BINGO!

I couldn't get this in audio here in Australia - which was my first choice - but I did run across a used copy of the hardcover at a sale, so I was finally able to read this.

It's a very fast read, made up of individual essays covering what is, I'm guessing, the most popular topics she's asked about.  Her stories regarding her career and her celebrity were interesting and sometimes laugh out loud funny, but I was really in it for the stories about her involvement with animals.  I was not disappointed.

I admit Betty White didn't interest me one way or the other until she became the fully employed actress in her 80s that she is (was - she's in her 90s now); she has become the poster woman, along with my mom, Betty White's contemporary, for how to age with grace and independence.  I hope I'm lucky enough to have my mom's health and Ms. White's humour and enthusiasm for life when (if) I hit my 80th decade and beyond.

So after all that cleaning and tidying of the library last weekend I felt the need to undo all my good work, and went on a small binge.  Ok, medium sized binge.  The first batch arrived today, which was pretty good timing because a trip to the city centre of Melbourne had me pretty cranky with humanity.

Normally, I'd include a pic of the books, but, while my library might be tidy, my coffee table is absolutely not and I'm not letting y'all see my mess.  

A bit of everything in this box, including Living With Books, which is probably what I'm looking forward to most, and the title that will surprise everyone the least. 

Here's hoping everyone has a lovely weekend!

I listened to the audio of this novel which was read to me by the author herself, Betty White. Before listening to this novel, I will be honest with you and say, I didn’t know much about Betty except seeing her on The Golden Girls and seeing her on a few guest appearances. I could probably hear her voice and know it, as her voice has a distinct ring to it. I learned a great deal about Betty and I am greatly impressed with her after listening to her novel. I didn’t laugh a lot while listening to it, although I did smile and chuckled quite a bit. I reminisced right along with her as she recanted some moments of history, which I remembered growing up. I learned about show business and her love of animals. What I learned most about Betty is her love and appreciation of people.   Betty is real, she is not a celebrity who fame has gone to her head, no…..she is one of us.   She would have tea with us, she would love to hear a good sassy joke and she would love to play cards on a Friday night with us. She is normal and I appreciate and admire her more for that.   After listening to this novel, my impressions and my admiration of Betty have changed. To have her spunk, attitude and fire all these years, I can only hope.

I checked out the hardcopy of this novel and it contains black and white photos throughout the novel, that’s an added bonus.