Wishful Drinking

The tart-tongued former Princess Leia takes self-deprecation to new levels in this hilarious memoir
Be warned: listening to Wishful Drinking in public may elicit stares and whispers — it's that likely to cause uncontrollable and audible laughter. Carrie Fisher would like this reaction — both the laughter and the perception of insanity. Being crazy is a lonely problem, and Fisher likes company. One of the cornerstones of her charming memoir — which takes self-deprecation to new levels — is her ongoing compilation of celebrities and other notables who share her various problems — and she has many — so that she doesn't feel so different. Try as she might to assimilate, though, her life has been different in nearly every way possible. The product of what she calls Hollywood in-breeding, Fisher grew up with a mother who gave her vibrators for Christmas, an absent father and a rotating array of step-parents. Then came her star-making turn in Star Wars at age 19, an obsessive and volatile marriage and divorce from Paul Simon, a lifelong battle with manic depression that ended in electroshock therapy and, perhaps most surprising of all, a beautiful and well-adjusted daughter. Fisher tells plenty of great stories, but what makes her memoir stand out from the pack of Hollywood tell-alls is her acerbic wit and perfect comic timing.