Bossypants by Tina Fey

I'm proud to say I would never sabotage a fellow female like that now.  Not even if Christina Applegate and I were both up for the same part as Vince Vaughn's mom in a big budget comedy called Beer Guys.

Tina Fey is hilarious.  I bought Bossypants at the airport on the way to see Meagan and by the end of the flight the woman next to me asked what I was reading because I was that guy who was laughing out loud to a book on a plane.  Bossypants isn't exactly a memoir, just a collection of stories and musings from Fey, with lots of good SNL and 30 Rock anecdotes.

Fey is great because she is realistic and sarcastic without being cynical.  She is deeply appreciative and grateful to be doing her dream job, but also doesn't take anyone else's bullshit.  I admire her feminist theory: she recognizes and calls out the double standards that she has faced in comedy and TV, but she's too busy being successful to let someone else's insecurities get in her way.  I also like her approach to family and motherhood.  A lot has been made recently on the internets about whether women can have it all (i.e. family, career, marriage, etc), and Fey's response is basically "look, my husband, daughter and I are going to make our family work in the way that's best for us.  If we're happy, then it's working, and I'm not going to get caught up in what I should be doing or should be wanting."  It is a wonderful non-gendered approach to the topic.  Asking whether "women can have it all" doesn't make sense.  The question is whether Tina can have it all, or Billy can have it all, or whoever can have it all, and it's up to each individual person to decide what "it all" is for them.  Toward the end of the book Fey muses about her current predicament: whether to have another child while it's still safe to do so or to squeeze some more show business out of her career that she may not have the opportunity to enjoy after she hits middle age (as women in show business often don't).  She says that she will have another kid and will never regret it, unless she doesn't, and she won't regret that, either, and it's none of our business either way.

But beyond all that, Bossypants is a fast, hilarious book, that I recommend to anyone.