Wishful Drinking By Carrie Fisher Simon & Schuster, 2008 Nonfiction

Carrie Fisher - novelist, actress, and infamous daughter of Hollywood's most scandalous divorce - has made no secret of her mental illness, drug addiction, and unconventional family and lifestyle. Her mother is songstress/dancer/ actress/diva Debbie Reynolds; her father, Eddie Fisher, left her mom to marry Elizabeth Taylor. Carrie, as Princess Leia of Star Wars, became a sci-fi fantasy girl to geeks everywhere. In Wishful Drinking, her first nonfiction book, Fisher lays it all out on the table. From the dead guy in her bed (who happened to be a good friend of hers) to her marriage to singer Paul Simon to her struggles with bi-polar disease, Fisher manages to make light of even the direst of situations. Fisher candidly looks back on her life - at least the part she remembers after undergoing electroshock therapy - her mother's many marriages, learning the father of her daughter was gay, and seeing her Princess Leia face on shampoo bottles and Pez containers. Her story of growing up as a product of "Hollywood inbreeding" is funny, poignant and filled with juicy anecdotes. Why You Should Read This Book: Taken from her one-woman show of the same name, Wishful Drinking is the quintessential Carrie Fisher: witty, fast-paced and filled with self-effacing humor. Her eccentricities make her one of Hollywood's most original wise girls, filled with sass, smarts and a keen sense of survival in the world of stardom.