*CELEBRITY DETOX* by Rosie O'Donnell

When Rosie O'Donnell's mother, Rosanne, came down with cancer in 1972, ten-year-old Rosie came up with a way to cure her: She would become famous. With dogged determination, she tried to become a performer, in hope of earning money for Rosanne's treatment. It didn't work; her mother died, just days before Rosie's 11th birthday. What did survive was the need for fame. Rosie went from stand-up to Star Search to her own highly acclaimed television show. Then, like a recovering alcoholic, she quit her own quest for celebrity. This cleansing memoir explains how she did it and why. Intensely honest; wickedly funny.

I would give this a 3 out of 5. While expecting more of her opinion of her time on "The View", I was disappointed that most of the book was about her love and praise for Barbra Streisand.

*INTO THE WILD* by Jon Kraukour

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and invented a life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. Jon Krakauer brings Chris McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows and illuminates it with meaning in this mesmerizing and heartbreaking tour de force.


* I would give this book a 2.5 out of 5. I realize that this young man wanted to find himself and assert his identity by going off into the wild, I just feel that he should have been a little more aware of the ruggedness and unforgiveness of the Alaskan territory. It was truly suicidal what he did.