Undiscovered | 
 enlarge | Author: Debra Winger
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy New: $11.48
You Save: $11.52 (50%)
New (36) Collectible (2) from $11.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 45030
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416572678
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43028092
EAN: 9781416572671
ASIN: 1416572678
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Unread Book In Excellent Condition. No Creases Marks Or Tears On Dustjacket Or Book. Same Day Shipping !!!
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Celebrated for her indelible, Oscar-caliber performances in some of the most memorable films of the 1980s and 1990s, Debra Winger, in Undiscovered, her first book, demonstrates that her creative range extends from screen to page. Here is an intimate glimpse of an artist marvelously wide-ranging in her gifts. In fact, as this beguiling book reveals, Winger is that rare star who dared to resist the all-consuming industry that is Hollywood becoming her entire reason for being. "I love the work," she states, "and don't much care for the business." Yet she cares deeply for the people who have inspired her. We meet them (most famously, James Bridges, Bernardo Bertolucci; most dearly, her mother, husband, and sons) here, as Winger passionately makes her case for forging a life beyond acting -- and shows how she has done just that. Winger's screen performances have long been celebrated for their breathtaking emotional range, a quality that shines through in these pages. "When I was little," she writes, "someone told me that when you age, you turn into the person you were all your life." In this intriguing mix of reminiscence, poetry, storytelling, and insightful observation, a portrait of a life well-lived is strikingly rendered.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Not what I expected August 15, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I thought this would be about her life and times in hollywood. It seems she only covers just a little of hollywood and not much of her life. It is mostly poems and really hard to read for me.
I wouldn't reccommend it.
 She's no Shirley MacLaine... August 13, 2008
Sorry, it had to be said. "Undiscovered" is an odd collection of ruminations, heavy on artifice but light on dish. I don't know that I need to read the lyrical musings of an actress; there are poets and writers who are available for that. I was hoping for some insight either into acting or some dirt from the famously candid A-lister. This book has neither. It's a hodgepodge of vignettes, anecdotes, poems, and sketches of doors. (Yes, you read that right.)
Although it's an easy read, at times it is quite heavy handed. Winger is vague, nebulous, and pretentious throughout. She's not a bad writer (images of her garden and bucolic life in the Catskills are effectively drawn) but what is the point of all this? After 188 pages, I know very little about her upbringing, first marriage, or famous co-stars. I don't even know much about her inner life. This is an odd, enigmatic project, and certainly not worth $23.
Undiscovered August 11, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book in a matter of an hour...it was confusing and just awful. I do not recommend this book. I am glad I bought it on Amazon and did not pay the bookstore $23.00 price. I would have been even madder at that!
 Alternately Revealing and Cryptic Look a Rule-Breaking Actress' Journey of Self-Discovery July 31, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you've ever seen Rosanna Arquette's self-indulgent, worshipful 2002 documentary, Searching for Debra Winger, you caught a glimpse of a well-regarded actress whose self-imposed and ultimately short-lived retirement inspired the film's eponymous title. In the film, Winger is trenchantly sardonic about the inherent sexism in Hollywood and proves to be a perceptive non-conformist unwilling to compromise for a youth-oriented industry she doesn't respect. Her new book reflects much of those same qualities, and true to her independent attitude, it is most definitely not a straightforward autobiography. Rather, it's a series of anecdotal essays and poems - sometimes meandering, sometimes emotionally incisive - primarily focused on the past dozen years of her life, a defining period in which she quit the A-List and elected to live her own life on a farm in the Catskills with her family. Winger supplements her personal accounts with drawings of various passageways not by her but by Philippe Petit, an aerialist most famous for walking a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Although she has not met Petit, it's clear she is making an analogy between his particular talent and the balancing act she has been managing between being an actress and a wife and mother.
Winger does share how she has since returned to acting on an occasional basis these days but more on her terms since she is obviously finding fulfillment elsewhere. Not that it's been a carefree pastoral existence in upstate New York since she had to take care for her dying mother. Winger's passion, so evident in her early 1980's roles like An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment, is still very much in evidence in this book as she continues her quest to live life to the fullest regardless of the circumstances. At the same time, she can be unnecessarily cryptic about her motivations and thoughts. It's obvious she is avoiding any hint of a "tell-all" with this book, but the drawback is that we never really get her perspective on her infamously tempestuous reputation in the film industry. Perhaps she has evolved enough from her past to not feel the need to readdress it, but I have to admit I frankly haven't and would have loved to hear her side of things. The actress admits that she would prefer working more these days, and so would we. In the meantime, as Winger puts it, she is "always searching for the next door, the next role, the next change". Perhaps she could include the next book, a more revealing autobiography.
A complete waste of time and money! July 26, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I finally had to stop reading 3/4 of the way through this nonsense. I love autobiographies and biographies. I mistakenly thought this was the former. It is not. It is simply random thoughts, most of which are of no import. I cannot imagine anything in this book to be of interest to anyone other than Ms. Winger, herself. There is no continuity and Ms. Winger exposes absolutely nothing about herself - beyond proving that she has nothing interesting to say, that she has zero talent for writing and that she has carried her obvious obsession with self reflection to the point of the ridiculous.
|
|
|
