Bette Midler reveals her favorite books
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, March 31, 2014, 6:30 AM
You can add “voracious bookworm” to Bette Midler’s storied resume.
“I have to live next to a bookstore,” Midler told the News. A longtime New Yorker, Midler is particularly fond of the shops on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“I will not buy a book online I can get in a bookstore,” Midler said. “You can talk about Amazon all you want, it is not the same. People should not take it for granted.”
The Divine Miss M is gearing up to release a book of her own, a reissue of her 1980 memoir “A View from A Broad.” In the new introduction, Midler opens up about her love of all things literary.
“I am a reader, and I have been my whole life. I love books and I love all the romance associated with them,” Midler writes. “I even adore editors: How marvelous to be squirrelled away in some dank corner spinning literary dross into gold.”
So what volumes in particular grace the 68-year-old musical legend’s shelves?
“I read P.G. Wodehouse, E.S. Benson, Nancy Mitford,” Midler told the News. “I read Mark Twain with all my heart. I love Melville. This year I read ”˜White Fang’ and ”˜The Call of the Wild,’ and I have to tell you that I cried. I hadn’t cried over a book in 40 years.”
“I have a real weakness for books about Hollywood girls from the South who married well,” Midler added. “I’ll read any noir set in the far East. Any mystery book with the word ”˜Shanghai’ in the title, I buy it.”
“I have like seven or eight books going at any one time,” Midler added. “If we’re driving in a car and my husband sees a bookstore, he knows I’m going to want to go.”
Midler’s reissued memoir hits shelves on April 1, when she’ll also be signing copies at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square.
