I'm Not Making This Up, You Know by Anna Russell

Anna Russell, the British comedienne who could sing Wagner's Der Ring Der Nibelungen (a cycle of four operas which generally require 20 hours to perform over the course of a long weekend) in 20 minutes, takes the title of her autobiography from a line in that performance. In her musical parodies, she had a knack for presenting the music in a way that highlighted its most absurd elements. While her life-story is not as absurd as Wagner's convoluted plot, the same self-consciousness pervades her biography. Although always entertaining, Russell has a knack for keeping her reader at arms' distance at several places: she's continually vague about years, and she never even mentions her first husband's name. While this biography is quite entertaining and worth reading, it's important to remember that it reads more like one of her performances than like straight history.