19 Crows

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited, Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up I desperately wanted to be an identical twin. So special! So...well, "unique" isn't the right word, but you know what I mean. So attention-getting. I knew some non-identical twins and that always seemed like the worst of both worlds - you have a sibling, but they don't look like you so you can't fool people or freak them out, and what if you're not the pretty one? (Ashton Kutcher has a twin brother who not only looks nothing like him, he's unusually unattractive.) When I got to know some twins well, I was impressed by their apparent mind-meld and ability to communicate with each other in shorthand. Who wouldn't want that?
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Creating Colette: From Ingenue to Libertine 1873-1913 and Creating Colette: From Baroness to Woman of Letters, 1912-1954, Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier.

(I'm going to review both volumes as if they were one book.)

Colette was one of my heroines when I was in my 20s. I read The Vagabond, her autobiographical novel of music hall life, and identified with it, which was mostly wishful thinking. I even started an embroidery of a quote from it: "Two habits have taught me to hold back my tears: that of concealing my thoughts, and of darkening my lashes with mascara." Anybody who knows me well will laugh and laugh at the idea of me concealing my thoughts.

This biography of Colette claims that it's the first to reexamine her life and clear up the facts behind the image she created of herself.
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