Jack Nicholson, who is thought of as a Hollywood literati, talks about his reading habits in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. Nicholson says “I like [Andrew] Vachss’ thirllers, and I just ordered Rushdie’s Salimar the Clown and Doctorow’s The March. Doctrorow chews it up pretty good.” While neither of the latter of these books is an unknown (Doctorow’s currently sits 10th on the Publisher’s Weekly best seller’s list) neither are they flyweights and there is something vaguely reassuring about a Hollywood icon owning up to a literary jones. Entertainment Weekly, which has already reviewed Doctorow’s The March, also has a favorable review of Penelope Lively’s Making It Up, a section of which was published earlier this year in the Missouri Review. Entertainment Weekly praises Lively’s “incisive prose style, her wit and, above all, her agile imagination.” We concur.
