Checking in With Gwyneth Paltrow, Book Critic to the Stars
Gwyneth Paltrow, a book author, is not someone we commonly associate with libraries, because they have dust, and that dust is not macrobiotic. But she is a dedicated reader, or, at least, a dedicated recommender of books, a fact of which we have clear and incontrovertible proof in the latest issue of GOOP.
All classics, indeed, should be red, and red again, like the onion in this pineapple-avocado salad with kale, or the product of this recipe for beet, carrot, apple & ginger juice ("1. Juice everything into a glass. 2. Stir. 3. Enjoy!"), or GOOP's balance sheet.
A.N. Devers alerted me that Paltrow is clearly a classics fan. (Even when there is "nothing new" about them.) A couple of years back—we are now half a decade into GOOP's existence, if you can believe it—she recommended that her readers indulge in a little Dumas:
I... think someone sold Paltrow a sham bill of literary goods there. Cruelly she has not updated her readers on her progress with the book.
But truthfully, Paltrow doesn't seem to go in for 19th century novels much, she's more of a fan of high modernism, apparently:
No word on whether she did manage to read that one either.
Personally, I'd like to know what she thinks of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth ("A great book about money, with a real sad ending.") or Henry James's The Ambassadors ("A great writer who understands the ex-pat experience"). Or The White Album ("I love California!").
[Image of Gwyneth Paltrow in a bookst— no, wait, that's a Williams-Sonoma, via Getty.]