If Grey's Anatomyhas already taken over your life, this will give you something to do between episodes of Season 18.
Quotes and notes from the cast, crew, executives, production staff, and others involved in the megahit series.
Rice, a longtime Entertainment Weeklyreporter, assembled this "totally unauthorized" oral history from nearly 80 interviews plus archival quotes from those who refused to participate, including Shonda Rhimes. In order not to offend the famously touchy showrunner while spilling the beans, some sources chose to be identified as "Person Familiar With the Situation" or "Longtime Crew Member,” and "Former ABC Executive." One of the most charming parts of the book for nonfanatics (though why a nonfanatic would be reading this book is hard to imagine) is a chapter in which the members of the band the Fray talk about how, when the show wanted to use their song, they were unsure whether licensing was "cool" and worried it would "kill our career." Instead, the song went triple platinum, and they went to the Grammys. To make a book like this work for the general public, or even casual watchers of the show, would require much more storytelling, background profiles, and narrative structure than Rice provides. Instead, she organizes the information into chapters like “The Most Heartbreaking Departures and Deaths" and "How Isaiah Washington Brought Shame to Seattle Grace" and intersperses plenty of detailed comments to contextualize the quotes. This book is for superfans only—though there are no shortage of those. Actress Beanie Feldstein, who guested in a single episode in Season 16, is at the front of the pack. On set, she was taken into the room where they stored the prosthetic heads of every actor who ever played a character who had facial or brain surgery. She was able to identify every single one of them. The directors were "honestly disturbed by my knowledge," she told Rice with pride. “Like, I cut too deep.” The book includes photos and an eight-page cast of characters.
If Grey's Anatomyhas already taken over your life, this will give you something to do between episodes of Season 18.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-27200-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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