Category: Books

LISA MARIE: JACKO A SACKO WACKO
Wacko Jacko’s sex romps with ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley left Elvis’ daughter breathless and wanting more.
But the bizarro 45- year-old pop star never went to bed without makeup on – and beat it out of the bedroom anytime Lisa Marie would switch on the lights, according to a sensational new book on Jacko’s weird world.
“Apparently, Michael is hot stuff in bed,” Lisa Marie’s friend, Monica Pastelle, told J. Randy Taraborrelli, whose update of his book, “Michael Jackson: The Magic and The Madness,” caused ripples when it was excerpted last week in London’s Daily Mail.
“Lisa said he was amazing. And she’s been around. Everyone was saying, ‘No way, Lisa. It can’t be true. Michael Jackson? Are we talking about the Michael Jackson, the one with the glove?’ But she wasn’t joking.”
Pastelle said the odd couple, who split in January 1996 after secretly tying the knot in May 1994, spiced up their sex sessions with “role playing” – but that Jacko wouldn’t let her see his body if the lights were on.
“The first time, she went to turn on the lights afterwards, and he leapt out of bed and ran into the bathroom so she wouldn’t see his body,” she said.
“He emerged 20 minutes later, in full makeup and wearing a silk robe. Then they went at it again. They were into role-playing games, although Lisa would never say who was playing what kind of roles.”
Also according to Taraborrelli’s tome, Jacko:
* First asked Lisa Marie to have his child, and hoped they could do it without having to have sex. He then turned to friend Debbie Rowe.
* Was driven to plastic surgery by his allegedly abusive father. “Michael’s motive was to avoid looking like his father, the man he detested and whose broad-nosed face he saw looking back at him in the mirror,” according to Taraborrelli.
* Because his nose collapsed after 10 operations, Jacko now wears a “prosthetic nose tip and disguises it with thick stage makeup.”
* Feared he’d have to have sex with pal Elizabeth Taylor if they moved in together, as they were planning, before the faded pop star bought Neverland. The friends even discussed tying the knot.
* Only feels safe at Neverland.

‘Secret’ Hepburn biography to be published
NEW YORK (AFP) – A biography of Katherine Hepburn that was two decades in the making, will finally go on sale in accordance with the screen legend’s wish that it be published posthumously.
“Kate Remembered” appears to have been one of the best kept publishing secrets in recent memory, with fewer than 10 people at the publishing house, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, even aware of its existence.
With Hepburn’s death on June 29 still fresh in the public mind, the biography is virtually guaranteed to hit the bestseller lists, although the author, Scott Berg, stressed that the timing had nothing to do with marketing strategies.
“Kate often suggested the importance of publishing a book right away because she presumed there would be many books about her over the years, and she presumed they would be filled with the same misstatements of facts that have appeared over the years,” Scott said in a statement.
Scott said the book was based on intimate conversations with Hepburn that began immediately after their first meeting in 1983.
“She made it very clear that she hoped all that she was imparting would somehow be preserved in a book, one that would not be published until after her death,” he said.
“With this book, I think, she imagined there would be at least a foundation of truth — of what she actually said and thought about things, in many cases things she felt could not be printed until she died.”
The publisher’s were giving little away regarding the book’s content, saying only that it would reveal “untold details” of her entire career and her relationships with billionaire Howard Hughes and Spencer Tracy.
Berg is the author of three previous biographies, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning life of aviator Charles Lindbergh published in 1998.
Berg said he actually finished all but the final page of “Kate Remembered” in 2001 and that G.P. Putnam Sons had agreed to Hepburn’s dictate that it could not be published, “indeed even discussed,” until her death.
“In the last few weeks of her life, I wrote the final paragraphs, the hardest I’ve ever had to write,” he said.
In fading health for several years, Hepburn died at her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. A family spokeswoman gave the cause of death as “old age.”
During Hepburn’s career she became one of the most acclaimed actresses of all time. She was outspoken and her longstanding affair with actor Spencer Tracy brought drama and controversy to her life.
They made nine films together and remained a couple until Tracy’s death in 1967.
No woman has matched the four Academy Awards she won, and the American Film Institute counts her among the greatest film icons, alongside Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and Bette Davis.

Book: JFK Jr., Wife Were Having Problems
NEW YORK – John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn, were having marital problems and were living apart when they died in an airplane crash in July 1999, a new book claims.
The August issue of Vanity Fair magazine contains excerpts from Edward Klein’s new book, “The Kennedy Curse,” which asserts Kennedy and his wife differed on whether to have a family, on drug use, on Kennedy’s outgoing lifestyle and on their TriBeCa apartment.
At times, each feared the other was being unfaithful, the excerpts say. Most of the information is attributed to unidentified friends of the couple.
Kennedy married Carolyn Bessette on Cumberland Island, Ga., in 1996.
It had been reported earlier the couple had marital problems.
In 1999, Klein says, the couple began marriage counseling but after four months, Bessette Kennedy stormed out when the therapist mentioned her drug use. She began sleeping in a spare room of the apartment and Kennedy, “on the verge of calling it quits,” moved into the Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue.
Two days before they were killed, Klein says, they met for lunch at the Stanhope with Bessette Kennedy’s sister, Lauren Bessette, who persuaded them to fly together to the wedding of Kennedy’s cousin, Rory Kennedy, in Massachusetts. Lauren Bessette said she would go with them as far as Martha’s Vineyard.
Ann M. Freeman, Bessette Kennedy’s mother, did not immediately return a telephone call for comment Monday.
On July 16, 1999, Kennedy, 38, his wife, 33, and her sister, 34, were killed when the single-engine plane Kennedy was piloting crashed in the ocean near Martha’s Vineyard.
Klein says when Kennedy graduated from flight school, he gave his instructors a photo of himself and inscribed it, in part, with, “People will only care where I got my training if I crash.”
Klein is also the author of “All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy” and “Just Jackie: Her Private Years.”

Kid Critics in Early Returns Call Potter a Winner
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The early U.S. returns are in andyoung Harry Potter fans are declaring the latest book on the boy wizard a winner.
A three-year wait for the fifth installment of the blockbuster series, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” ended on Saturday and a survey on Sunday of avid fans showed it was like Christmas on the first day of summer.
“I loved it,” said 10-year-old Paige Morschauser of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who had read 273 pages of the 870-page tome. “I had such a hard time putting the book down, my mom had to scream, ‘Put that book down, it’s time to eat.”‘
More than a dozen avid young readers among the first to get a copy of J.K. Rowling’s latest Potter edition agreed to give Reuters early reactions.
“I’ve been rereading Harry Potter books for so long I’d forgotten how great it is to read new Harry Potter adventures,” said 10-year-old Rachel Berkrot of Stamford, Connecticut, after the first 200 pages.
Evan Mahoney, 10, had to interrupt reading for a drive-in movie Saturday night, but he used a flashlight to resume in between the feature films.
“It’s really good so far,” said Mahoney, of Durham, Maine, who read 86 pages. “It’s very different. He’s got a lot of bottled-up rage. I think he’s really turning into a teen-ager.”
Evan’s 11-year-old sister, Mollie, said the book was a lot different from earlier ones. “I’m really curious about what’s going to happen,” she said, undaunted about navigating such a long book. “The length is OK because it’s not boring.”
Claire Bunschoten, 11, from the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, noticed some changes in Harry after reading about 200 pages.
“He’s a lot more hot headed. He has trouble controlling his anger,” she said. “Harry’s growing up. He’s braver than I am, but I also think we are kind of in the same place. He loses his temper a lot and I’m getting mad at my mom and dad lately.”
Lev Pravda, an 8-year-old from New York, said it was “more like an adventure,” and Anna Premo, 13, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, agreed.
“There are more twists and unexpected things happening,” Premo said.
SOME RESERVATIONS
Some expressed a few reservations.
“I think it’s good, but kind of confusing,” said Adam Frank, 9, of Bethesda, Maryland, after about 90 pages. “It’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on.”
Mary-Louise Howell, 10, of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, said “it didn’t have as much of an exciting part” as the others, but that she liked it so far.
Among other Vineyard critics, Kira Shipway, 9, said Harry seemed more “self-centered” in this book, and Josh Pitt, 12, said, “It seems more complicated and a little darker.”
†
And Will Cretsinger, 9, of McLean, Virginia, was worried about who dies in the book, as Rowling revealed before it was released.
Julie Theriault, 14, of Bakersfield, California, finished the book by midafternoon on Saturday and gave it a thumbs up.
“It’s my favorite one so far,” she said.
“At the very end, you’re kind of looking forward to the next book. You’re happy and kind of sad.”

POTTER MANIA!
Millions of Harry Potter fans around the world lining up at the stroke of midnight Friday dressed as their favorite characters to finally buy Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The long-awaited fifth installment in author J.K. Rowling’s popular wizard series is already being hailed as the fastest-selling book of all time.
POTTER HITS PUBERTY
J.K. Rowling telling London’s Times that Harry Potter is angry for most of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as his hormones start to rage, but he does have “a relationship of sorts.” The author also said she’s started writing book six and already has the final chapter for book seven written.

Rich characters, magical prose elevate ‘Phoenix’
By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY
A very wise decision, J.K. Rowling, to allow three years to pass before publishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in your global sensation of a series. The fever-pitched anticipation, the media frenzy, the pilfered books, the leaked details. The book richly deserves the hype.
All the qualities that marred the fourth book ó the loping, uneven pace of a novel that seemed churned out rather than written ó have evaporated. Indeed, the faux gothic horror of the fourth has been replaced by a return to the wonderful, textured writing of the three earlier novels. The novel does not have the frankly grisly scenes that were so disturbing in Goblet of Fire.
For whatever reason, whether marriage, a new baby or becoming more comfortable with being enormously wealthy and famous, Rowling has regained the ability to create an enchanting parallel world where witches and wizards live. And we Muggles (ordinary people) can only dream of joining.
Some things remain the same, of course. Harry’s Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are still horribly self-satisfied with their clean house and loathsome son, Dudley, who has evolved from bully to violent thug.
And one of the delights of this fifth book stems from Rowling returning to familiar characters, offering new insights into their psyches. The dotty cat-loving neighbor, Mrs. Figg, takes on a new role, and the reader discovers that Professor Snape has suffered real pain related to the Potter family.
Quite simply, despite the book’s length, it is easier to follow because it returns to the shape of the first three novels. It opens on Privet Drive, takes place mainly at Hogwarts School, and closes with the wise but not infallible Professor Dumbledore revealing secrets from Harry’s past.
Although Rowling offers up the flying wands, imaginative curses and a dynamic, action-packed conclusion like those of her past books, the novel’s real pleasures are the scenes of domesticity within the Weasley family; the comfortable bickering between Harry’s best friends, Ron and Hermione; and the small details of how a witch can clean a mansion abandoned for years.
Rather than the overblown hysteria of Goblet, which featured too many scenes with Voldemort, here one can appreciate the introduction of new characters. There are the magical winged horses that can be seen only by those who have seen death firsthand. And there’s a strange, pop-eyed female student on the traditional autumn train trip to Hogwarts who proves to be far deeper, braver and more perceptive than anyone thinks.
Phoenix will not frighten the under-9 crowd, but it will confuse them. The coiled serpent of teen sexuality is not unleashed, although Harry, now 15, has romantic problems and Hermione has to explain girls’ behavior to the often dim Ron and Harry. Meanwhile, she can’t get a handle on why Quidditch matters. It’s almost a teen Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus scenario.
But the novel explores significant young adult issues: disillusionment with adults, including one’s parents, the profound isolation that almost all teens experience, as well as death and guilt.
Order of the Phoenix allows the reader to savor Rowling’s remarkably fertile imagination.

Grandmaster Flash Writing Memoirs
Legendary New York DJ Grandmaster Flash is penning his memoirs with New York Daily News reporter/biographer Chris Coleman. A title and publisher for the biography are still being determined.
Flash is also jumping into the endorsement game. He has inked deals with Pro-Keds footwear and the American Eagle Outfitters (AE) clothing store chain. He begins shooting the Pro-Keds ads shortly for a campaign slated to launch in the fall. Under the AE banner, Flash will promote a T-shirt line targeting college kids. More than 700 stores will begin stocking the line in November.
In the meantime, Flash will join fellow DJs Kid Capri, DJ Premier and Funkmaster Flex in an all-star tribute to the late Jam Master Jay at this year’s BET Awards. The event will be broadcast live June 24 from Los Angeles’ Kodak Theatre.

Original Beatles Drummer Publishes Book
A former Beatle is invading America again, only this time it’s the band’s original drummer, Pete Best. Now 61 years old, Best is promoting a new coffee table book, the Beatles: The True Beginnings, which he co-wrote with his half brothers, Roag and Rory. Best is making the rounds at bookstores and is also appearing at other events across the U.S. sharing his stories of the Beatles’ early days.
The book reveals how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison started out as the Quarrymen, playing Liverpool’s tiny Casbah Coffee Club, which was located in the basement of Best’s parents’ house. His mother opened the club in 1959 for local kids to listen to rock ‘n’ roll. The Quarrymen were offered a chance to play there, but only if they painted pictures on the wall to decorate the place. A year later, Best joined them in a new group, called the Silver Beatles.
Best gave the Beatles their beat from 1960 to 1962 and estimates he played more than a thousand shows with them, including three tours in Germany.
Best was fired on August 19, 1962, and replaced by Ringo Starr. He was told the news by the band’s manager, Brian Epstein, and said he never spoke to the other band members again. He became a Liverpool baker and plays music on the side these days with his own Pete Best Band.
Best told the Washington Post that he resented his dismissal for years. “I suppose the frustration is the fact that this was very much a case of it being done behind your back,√Æ Best said. √¨The lads weren’t there at the actual dismissal. They’d left it up to Brian. If they were there, maybe we could have resolved the problem. That never happened.”
Best and his brothers were scheduled to sign copies of the Beatles: The True Beginnings on Saturday (June 14) at Bookends in Ridgewood, New Jersey and at Book Revue in Huntington, New York.
On July 4, Best is scheduled to appear in Storm Lake, Iowa, for the Star Spangled Spectacular parade, where he will later sign autographs. He’ll also play in an afternoon softball tournament and perform with his band in the evening.

What’s in store for Harry?
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix doesn’t arrive in bookstores until June 21, but Potter fans have been speculating for months √≥ years, even √≥ about what might happen during Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts.
We asked USATODAY.com readers of all ages to share their Phoenix predictions. Out of all the responses we received, Kay Hendrickson in Wenatchee, Wash., probably has the best chance of being right: She believes “a hush will spread around the world on June 21 as young and old fans of Harry Potter settle down for a long anticipated read.”
Here are some more predictions:
“I think Dudley will show some wizarding powers since he is related to Lilly Potter. This will through the Dursleys for a real loop!” √±L. Holland, St Louis
“After three years to ponder, I’ve decided that Neville Longbottom is the heir to Gryffindor and Mrs. Weasley will be the one to die. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.” √±April Kaster, Dallas
“My guess is Harry will have to face the distractions of puberty along with some tertiary threat or attack from his arch-nemeses. He will successfully address the latest attack from the “unspoken one” but will fall under the spell of some new (before now unnoticed) budding young woman at school. … Should be a real coming-of-age story. My daughter can’t wait.” √±Charles Lee Holmes, Chester, Va.
“Voldemort will not be defeated yet, though the white wizards sure will try. The ‘fan’ of Harry’s that will die is thought by me to be Hagrid. … Draco will follow his father, of course. Snape will get sought after by Voldemort and perhaps go as far as to have the secret-keeper charm placed on him (it’d be a nice twist if Harry was his secret keeper!). And Ron and Hermione may be going out, since Ron appears to have the hots for her.” √±Stephanie Zoutenbier. Kissimmee, Fla.
“Not content with his celebrity status on the Quidditch field, Harry adds cork to his broomstick to increase airspeed. A crashing Bludger reveals the deception, scattering Nimbus 2004 pieces √≥ along with bits of cork √≥ across the field. While Dumbledore, as usual, attempts to soften the punishment and provide Harry with special treatment, ultimate Quidditch authority Madame Hooch throws the book at the young Gryffindor. By the time his suspension lifts, Harry is disheartened to discover that Slytherin has won the season’s cup, that Ron has suffered a fatal case of monkeypox, and that Hermione is now starring in her own reality television series, For Love or Malfoy.” √±Anna Hoover, Lexington, Ky.
“Harry learns more about his parents and godfather, Silas; Ron and Hermonie become closer (possible boyfriend and girlfriend in the near future); Harry learns more about Voldemort and the scar he got when he was a baby. √±Rene Mayo, Battle Creek, Mich.
“Harry will learn that his neighbor, Mrs Figg, is actually a witch, and that she has been watching over him very closely while he has lived with the Dursleys. … Ron will betray Harry to Voldemort out of jealousy. Voldemort will give Ron what his friends and family can’t. Ron will be an important person, and richer than he has ever imagined. Dumbledore will be killed by Voldemort, but do so in such a way that it gives Harry enough time to find the way to vanquish Voldemort forever (‚Ä° la Obi Wan Kenobi).” √±Josh Egbert, Louisville
“We think the ‘Order of the Phoenix’ is the name of the coalition that believes that Voldemort has risen (Dumbledore, Sirius, Harry, etc.). They come together under this name to fight Voldemort and attempt to make others believe he is once again powerful. There will be a battle with the Order and Voldemort’s followers. But by the end, Voldemort will be weakened. Also, romances will be more prevalent in Book 5. Ron and Hermione will acknowledge their feelings for one another and Harry will pursue Cho.” √±Matthew and Kelly Lake, Marietta, Ga.
“Neville, I believe, will become huge in the book. There will be a much greater strength to Longbottom than we know. Fudge and Dumbledore will be against one another, and I think Fudge is secretly helping Voldemort. … Hagrid will not die, in my opinion. But I don’t think that the giants will help. The spiders and the house elves will be an important part of the war against Voldemort.” √±Allison Wells, Dublin, Ga.
“Snape is Harry’s uncle.” √±Eric Erikson, Vancouver, Wash.
“If you look very carefully at the cover of the new book, Harry is in a round room. In Goblet of Fire Ch. 30, Rowling mentions that Professor Dumbledore’s office is a circular room. My prediction is that Harry will find out all there’s more to his office than meets the eye.” √±Lyndee Salo, Prior Lake, Minn.

Bling-bling made official by Oxford
LONDON (AP) ó Khazi, minging, bling-bling?
Not some crazy new dialect, but standard British vocabulary, according to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published Friday.
The publishers said they have added almost 6,000 new words and phrases that reflect 21st-century life, including the frowner’s favourite, Botox, the passion-enhancing drug Viagra, and sambuca, the aniseed liqueur served with a flaming coffee bean.
Among the 187,000 definitions in the latest edition, published by Oxford University Press, there is also bevvy ó British slang for a beer ó and head-case, referring to a person who exhibits irrational behaviour. Bling-bling is a reference to elaborate jewelry and clothing, and the appreciation of it.
Half-inch, Cockney rhyming slang for pinch, or steal, also makes it into the dictionary this time around.
Some of the new terms, including cut-and-paste, screensavers and search engines, reflect the growing influence of computers, while hands-free phones and phreaking, the expression for hacking into phone systems for free calls, acknowledge developments in telecommunications.
Other corporate-speak considered established enough for inclusion in the dictionary includes dot-coms, or Internet companies, and blipverts, subliminal TV ads of just a few seconds’ duration.
And J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world in The Lord of the Rings is also recognized; orcs are defined as “members of an imaginary race of ugly, aggressive human-like creatures.” The dictionary says the word probably comes from the Latin orcus meaning hell, or the Italian orco, meaning monster.
Getting down to basics, the new dictionary now makes it all right to describe the khazi (toilet) as minging (disgusting).