Undiscovered | 
 enlarge | Author: Debra Winger
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy New: $7.99
You Save: $15.01 (65%)
New (42) Used (26) Collectible (1) from $3.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 125727
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416572678
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43028092
EAN: 9781416572671
ASIN: 1416572678
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Celebrated for her indelible, Oscar-caliber performances in some of the most memorable films of the 1980s and 1990s, Debra Winger, in Undiscovered, her first book, demonstrates that her creative range extends from screen to page. Here is an intimate glimpse of an artist marvelously wide-ranging in her gifts. In fact, as this beguiling book reveals, Winger is that rare star who dared to resist the all-consuming industry that is Hollywood becoming her entire reason for being. "I love the work," she states, "and don't much care for the business." Yet she cares deeply for the people who have inspired her. We meet them (most famously, James Bridges, Bernardo Bertolucci; most dearly, her mother, husband, and sons) here, as Winger passionately makes her case for forging a life beyond acting -- and shows how she has done just that. Winger's screen performances have long been celebrated for their breathtaking emotional range, a quality that shines through in these pages. "When I was little," she writes, "someone told me that when you age, you turn into the person you were all your life." In this intriguing mix of reminiscence, poetry, storytelling, and insightful observation, a portrait of a life well-lived is strikingly rendered.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Not What I Expected October 3, 2008
I loved Debra Winger as an actress and respected her decision to leave Hollywood to follow her bliss. She undoubtedly has many stories to tell about her film career, her marriages to two actors, and her subsequent life with her children. The problem is, this book doesn't give us anything besides her random musings about planting flowers on her farm.
To me, this book is what happens when a publishing company gives a book contract to a celebrity who has absolutely nothing to say. For those of us who expected more of a biography, or some insight about Debra's choices, it was a huge letdown.
 Unexpected October 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I didn't expect this book to be as well written as it is. In fact, I started to read it fully expecting to hate it. I find that books written by Hollywood actors, when I bother to read them, they make me cringe a little. Until I shut them a few pages in and take them back to the library.
I like Debra Winger. I never expected to write that. Because I've never really enjoyed her acting or her movies. But I picked up the book because I liked the cover. She, if it is her, looks gorgeous from behind and standing on the liminal point of a threshhold in a doorway in the fall of her life, well, it won me over. Love the metaphor :).
Yes, the book is fragment and poetic and won't appeal to those looking for Hollywood gossip. In it you will find essays in a journal form written by a still youngish woman finding her fit in a upside-down world. She has been lucky enough to have an insightfulness (by accident, upbringing, good DNA or hard psychological introspection, or a combination) and the ability to articulate it.
Some people are reporters of the secret things they've been privy to know through suffering and triumphs. They have the ability to see and tell about them without senitment or an underlying detection of privilege, but as observers. They write them down to tell others who are paying attention.
I didn't expect it but it's one of the books I will read again, and also, happily recommend.
PS. She wrote about something, about the scene while on the "bull" in Urban Cowboy. The scene that some found simply sensual and titallating. And she wrote about the significance of that scene in regard to what a person would do, to try to reach out to someone they love/to be loved. I just thought that might be something the unsatisfied reader would pay attention to while reading this book. In my mind, it's sort of the theme.
A Muddled Mess with Blinks of Insight September 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I love Debra Winger. I've enjoyed the interviews I've seen with her. She tends to be an introvert, like myself, and I did a special order for an autographed copy of this book when it came out.
I read it in about two hours, with a few breaks during that time. Not much in the way of length. But that's not the main problem. The worst part of this book is the rambling way she thinks and writes. You'll be reading about one subject and then suddenly switch to something non-related, then another. Made me wonder what the publisher was smoking. I would have sent this back and said, "Have you even read this? Were you on drugs when you wrote it?"
It could have been good. But it wasn't.
In the middle of this mess, she says a few brilliant snippets, a few of which I wrote down to keep. But you really have to fish to find them.
 Not what I expected August 15, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
I thought this would be about her life and times in hollywood. It seems she only covers just a little of hollywood and not much of her life. It is mostly poems and really hard to read for me.
I wouldn't reccommend it.
She's no Shirley MacLaine... August 13, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Sorry, it had to be said. "Undiscovered" is an odd collection of ruminations, heavy on artifice but light on dish. I don't know that I need to read the lyrical musings of an actress; there are poets and writers who are available for that. I was hoping for some insight either into acting or some dirt from the famously candid A-lister. This book has neither. It's a hodgepodge of vignettes, anecdotes, poems, and sketches of doors. (Yes, you read that right.)
Although it's an easy read, at times it is quite heavy handed. Winger is vague, nebulous, and pretentious throughout. She's not a bad writer (images of her garden and bucolic life in the Catskills are effectively drawn) but what is the point of all this? After 188 pages, I know very little about her upbringing, first marriage, or famous co-stars. I don't even know much about her inner life. This is an odd, enigmatic project, and certainly not worth $23.
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