Wishful Drinking | 
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| Author: Carrie Fisher
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $21.00
Buy New: $11.85
You Save: $9.15 (44%)
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Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 76
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.6
ISBN: 1439102252
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43028092
EAN: 9781439102251
ASIN: 1439102252
Publication Date: December 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Unused gift. Perfect condition.
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Product Description
Finally, after four hit novels, Carrie Fisher comes clean (well, sort of ) with the crazy truth that is her life in her first-ever memoir. In Wishful Drinking, adapted from her one-woman stage show, Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of "Hollywood in-breeding," come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen.Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It's an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty -- Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher -- homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed. Wishful Drinking, the show, has been a runaway success. Entertainment Weekly declared it "drolly hysterical" and the Los Angeles Times called it a "Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes." This is Carrie Fisher at her best -- revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
funny and quick read January 7, 2009
I received a copy of "wishful thinking" for Christmas. I have already read the whole entire small wollop of a book. It is a look into who she was before she was famous, about her famous parents, and how she came to be famous throughout the trials and tribulations of being on drugs and an alcoholic. Along the way, she uses her wonderful writing and sense of humor which makes this much more bearable and easy to read than some of the other memoirs I've read.
I have been a fan of her writing for a while and was not disappointed with this one. It could have been longer, but overall, it was entertaining hearing about her life through her words.
Quick, Funny, Dry. January 6, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The literary version of her one woman show is hilariously funny, a bit all over the place, and short enough to read in an hour or two. My regret with the book is not hearing it read by her, as part of it's charm would be her droll delivery. Nothing is dwelled on for very long, from her upbringing, to Star Wars, to her failed marriages. Instead it's all a series of quick burst vignettes that thread their way to the present. However, if you're a fan of Fisher, you'll find there's alot to like besides that Princess Leia coif.
 ditto "Avid Reader" January 4, 2009
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The only good thing I can say about it is that it was short and you can read it in a couple of hours."
 A Memoir on Spin Cycle January 4, 2009
Well, my, my. When Carrie offers you a tour through her manic-depressive illness, expect a brisk ride! She begins by telling you that she chose electroconvulsive therapy as a last resort at age 52, after drugs and alcohol and flawed relationships failed to ease--and surely added to--her profound depression ("when weighing the choice between ECT or DOA, the decision is easy to make"). She says she wrote this book in part because her memory was wrenched from her by this treatment, and she needed to reacquaint herself with herself. But who exactly IS this bawdy broad with her pungent humor and skewering disclosures of privacy?
Virtually barren of self-pity, Carrie tells you her story in unsparing terms. Mom Debbie Reynolds is "inextinguishable and amazing," having among other things helped her to confront adolescence with offers of pot and a vibrator. Dad Eddie Fisher, who famously abandoned his family for Elizabeth Taylor, is acknowledged with "thanks for the highest grade of absence available on earth." As her shortest husband, Paul Simon is told not to stand next to her at parties out of fear that they would be mistaken as a pair of salt-and-pepper shakers. Then there is George W. Bush, who early in his political career found it funny to fart in a room about to host VIPs, before sprinting for the door to escape the miasma. And let's not forget her gay Republican buddy who makes the mistake of dying next to Carrie in bed, or her brother Todd (named after Mike Todd, incidentally) who shoots himself in the leg despite being the "hogger of all the sanity available in our freak family." Her list of characters goes on and on. Moreover, who else can claim that she became Princess Leia at age 19, later to be immortalized as a Pez dispenser, or then to become a best-selling author and well-known actress? Ain't much normal about this girl's life, and she speeds up and bounces around while telling her tale--that's the manic part. But Carrie simmers with a wit and intelligence that make you want to buckle up and board her roller coaster. Five stars and a quick read in only 163 pages with lots of pictures.
Not Your Typical Autobiography......but Full of Laughs !! January 4, 2009
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" should not be read as an autobiography.Rather, it should be read and enjoyed as a book of Comedy.Carrie describes her famous parents,Debbie Reynolds and Eddie
Fisher as the (Jennifer Anniston & Brad Pitt) of their era.When you
add Elizabeth Taylor (the Angelina Jolie) of her time......it makes
some sense as she took Eddie Fisher from the homebody Debbie.
Move along several years.Carrie has a daughter named Billie.Billie is
interested in Rhys,the grandson of Elizabeth Taylor,by her only
daughter Liza Todd (also the child of Mike Todd).Carrie nixes the
interest by stating they are related by scandal,and draws a most
interesting diagram on pages 36-37 to further prove this.
Carrie doesn't write aboutanything,including her own serious illness without a bit of humor thrown in.Although we know anyone,who has a
series of shock treatment,is suffering from a severe depresion.Carrie
continues to keep her book upbeat.
I think humor is is her way of coping.She has reached the age of 53,
adopting this method of coping.Not a bad idea if you find yourself
raised in Hollywood.I give her credit for not whining about her childhood,
and learning to laugh at the pretentiousness of the system she found
herself dwelling in.
She discovered early,humor,when you have no control over your life,
can surely save you.
For sheer entertainment,I gave her 5 stars.
p.s. There are a number of good photoes in this book.Too bad they are
not in color.
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