Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I sat down to write a review of Joan Didion's new book, Blue Nights, when I noticed that the fragrant breeze wafting in through my window reminded me of those warm humid evenings in Paris when Jack Nicholson, who is a dear friend, and Andy Warhol and his lovely daughter, and I would sit on sumptuous pillows on Jack's balcony, sipping absinthe, reading poetry aloud, and inhaling the hibiscus scented winds arising from the gardens surrounding Jack's bungalow. The moonlight glinting off Andy's Rolex, which was given to him by the Sultan of Brunei, could almost bring me to tears with its elemental beauty. But I digress...Blue Nights is a magical book. Almost as magical as that afternoon I spent off the coast of Perth on Bill Cosby's yacht, dining on fresh octopus steaks and plump loganberries flown in by Walter Cronkite as a wedding gift for Robert DeNiro's twin sons. Bill's Givenchy bathing suit and Cartier slippers were like dueling forlorn gods, bellowing in muted anger at the forgotten dreams of youth. Blue Nights is a book about the death of Didion's daughter, and death is as sad as the time Pablo and Paloma Picasso lost Pablo's Harry Winston diamond denture cup in the warm, sparkling waters of the Perfume River in Saigon, where I had gone to shoot a movie with Francis Ford Coppola and Jackie Onassis. Jackie's Ralph Lauren blouse, made of artisanal cotton from the plantations at the Four Seasons Hotel in Madrid, was so comforting and real that I immediately phoned my good friend Meryl Streep and told her to order a dozen each for herself, me, and the niece of the King of Spain, who has always been someone I could count on. The niece...her nickname is "Pinata-ita", or "little pinata"...you should taste her butter cookies, served on porcelain plates retrieved from Mao Tse-Tung's palace, and eaten with forks fashioned from silver and gold from Sir Lawrence Olivier's dental fillings. Shoot..I meant to write something with meaning here and instead just name-dropped as many celebrity friends, designer apparel, and exotic places as I possibly could. Kinda like Didion does in Blue Nights. The frantic name-dropping is nauseating. She finds herself getting old and tries to reassure herself, and assure the reader, that she has had a good life by referencing as many famous friends and fancy duds as she possibly can. And to do all this in the context of mourning a daughter, who gets a lot less print than all Didion's name-dropping? It's gross, and boring. Shame on Ms. Didion for this weird and insulting book. But speaking of books, Johnny Carson (who mixes the best vodka martini in California) once confided in me.....