Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
$19.98$19.98
FREE delivery: Dec 6 - 13 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: VERA BOOKS
$8.07
Other Sellers on Amazon
FREE Shipping
100% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
100% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
96% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Audible sample Sample
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between) Hardcover – November 29, 2016
Price | New from | Used from |
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial |
Spiral-bound
"Please retry" | — | $25.00 |
Mass Market Paperback
"Please retry" | $18.92 | $23.13 |
Audio CD, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $52.97 | $6.47 |
- Kindle
$14.99 Read with our free app -
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial - Hardcover
$19.98 - Paperback
$14.74 - Spiral-bound
$25.00 - Mass Market Paperback
$18.92 - Audio CD
$6.48
Purchase options and add-ons
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).
In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.
Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).
Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication dateNovember 29, 2016
- Dimensions5.75 x 0.95 x 8.53 inches
- ISBN-109780425285176
- ISBN-13978-0425285176
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may ship from close to you
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Some of the most exciting things that happened in my life took place before I turned six years old. I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, which is awesome right there, but three weeks later, before I even had time to work on my tan, we moved to Japan. JAPAN. The home of my most favorite food ever: mashed peas. Well, that was probably my favorite food back then; what a waste, since I could have been eating spicy tuna rolls with extra wasabi. Damn you, Baby Lauren, and your infantile palate! Well, to be fair, you were an infant. Sorry I yelled.
In Tokyo, we lived with my grandmother for a while, and I had a Japanese nanny, or uba—which, incidentally, translates to “milk mother,” something I just found out by looking it up. (Hold, please, while I call my therapist.) Her name was Sato-san, and I loved her, and as a result, my first word was in Japanese. It was o-heso. You might think that’s Japanese for “mommy” or “daddy,” but no, o-heso is Japanese for “belly button,” which I think already proves I am a very unusual, deep, and contemplative person and there’s really nothing left to say, thank you for buying this book, the end.
Wait, a few more things. My mother, the daughter of missionaries, had grown up in Japan and spoke fluent Japanese. She was also incredibly smart and beautiful, a combination that led to my grandmother holding me while we watch my mother, who is on television! Back when there were just three channels in America, and maybe even fewer in Tokyo, and an air of mystery surrounding the whole thing—not like today, when the statistical probability of not at some point stumbling onto your own reality show is inconceivably low. Television had only recently been invented then, and there she was actually on it, and I was so little I was probably just thinking about mashed peas again. Or, more likely, my favorite subject: belly buttons.
In related news, apparently on some GikiWoogle-type page of mine, I am quoted as saying, “Belly buttons are important.” Which, while obviously sort of true, medically speaking, taking into account the life-giving properties of the umbilical cord, was also clearly a joke. Yet I can’t tell you how many times during an interview a journalist gets that somber I’m-going-in-for-the-kill look I love so much and asks me, with knitted-brow faux sincerity: “Do you really think belly buttons are important?” Let me clear the air once and for all: um, no, I do not. Although this book isn’t very long yet and I’ve already talked about belly buttons quite a bit. Damn you, tabloid journalists! You wise Truth Uncoverers! Again, sorry—the yelling must stop.
So, anyway, there she was, my mother, on the largest television available at the time, which was roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube. Also, check out her dope sixties Priscilla Presley look! Her ability to speak the language as a non-native was so unusual at the time that she was asked to appear on a Japanese daytime talk show.
My parents weren’t together very long. They hadn’t known each other well when they decided to get married, and then they had me right away, when they were both just twenty-two years old, and—well, that about sums it up. They were very, very young. At the time, my mom was also trying to pursue a career as a singer, and it was decided I should stay with my dad. They parted as friends, and my father made the obvious next choice, something we’d all probably do in this situation: he moved us to the Virgin Islands, where we lived on a houseboat. I slept in a bunk-bed-type thing that was also the kitchen. I was picked up for nursery school by the bus, which was actually a motorboat. We moved there because . . .
You know what? I don’t remember exactly. Let’s call my dad and ask him. He probably won’t pick up because he’s on the East Coast, and it’s a Saturday in the springtime, so unless it’s pouring down rain, he’s out playing golf. But I’ll give you a visual just in case, so you too can play Call My Dad at home!
I know, isn’t it a shame we look nothing alike? Okay, let’s see if he’s home. Ring, ring, ring, ring. I told you. He’s probably not—
Dad: Hello?
Me: Oh, hi! I didn’t think you’d be home.
Dad: It’s raining here.
Me: Well, then, that explains it. Hey, remind me—why did we live on a houseboat that time?
Dad: Who is this?
Me: You have other children you lived on a houseboat with?
Dad: No, I have other children who call me more.
Me: Dad, please. I call you all the time. So this is for the book, and—
Dad: Is this going to be another befuddled father character, like in your last book?
Me: Dad, I wouldn’t call that character befuddled in general. He’s just a little befuddled by technology.
Dad: Wait—what did you say? I couldn’t hear you. I just hit one of these dumb phone buttons wrong.
Me: Um, yeah. I was just saying that the father character in my first novel—the New York Times bestseller Someday, Someday, Maybe, published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, and now available in paperback—is not exactly befuddled, and anyway, he’s only a little bit you.
Dad: Why are you talking like that?
Me: Like what? I was just thinking about how Christmas is right around the corner, but no matter how you choose to celebrate the holidays, books in general make great gifts!
Dad: Like that. Like you’re selling things to an audience. Are you on Ellen right now?
Me: Dad, I wouldn’t be calling you from the set of Ellen.
Dad: Oh, oh, I’m fancy, I live in Hollywood, where people aren’t allowed to call their fathers from the set of the Ellen show.
Me: Dad, please. Why did we live on the houseboat again?
Dad: Well, I was working for that congressman, and the hours were long, and I’d drop you off in the morning and not see you until after 6:00 p.m., and I felt bad about that. I wasn’t sure I was on the right career path anyway. Also, I was sort of seeing this girl—you remember the one who owned the horse? Well, she lived there off and on, and I thought I’d go there too, and write, and . . .
I’m going to interrupt my father here (well, actually, he’s still talking, so shhh—don’t tell him). But I have to explain to you that, as a kid, I thought my father never dated anyone at all until he met and married my stepmother. It wasn’t until years later that I figured out the young ladies who sometimes came around may have been a wee bit more than the “cat sitter,” that “nice woman I play tennis with,” and the “girl who owned the horse.” And I don’t blame them. I mean, who wouldn’t want to “cat-sit” for this guy?
By the way, can we talk about the unnecessary thickness of children’s belts of the 1970s? I mean look at the— Oops, my dad’s still on the phone!
Dad: . . . and anyway, she knew these people at the marina in St. Thomas.
Me: So did we, like, sail around the island and stuff?
Dad: Oh, no. The engine didn’t work on the boat.
Me: The engine didn’t . . .? We lived on a giant floating bathtub that went nowhere?
Dad: It was a strange place, I’ll admit, that marina— but friendly. Very bohemian. Everybody there was sort of dropping out from society, which we were too, in a way—for weeks after we’d left D.C., I’m pretty sure my mother still thought I worked on Capitol Hill. But I got to spend more time with you, which was the goal. It was beautiful there. We drove around a lot and went to the beach. It probably seems strange to you now, but it was a 1970s thing to do, I guess. And we had fun.
(A pause as we both reminisce.)
Me: You did a lot for me, Dad. I love you.
Dad: I love you too, kid.
(Another pause.)
Dad: Who is this again?
Product details
- ASIN : 0425285170
- Publisher : Ballantine Books; First Edition (November 29, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780425285176
- ISBN-13 : 978-0425285176
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.95 x 8.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #38,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #97 in Celebrity & Popular Culture Humor (Books)
- #393 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies
- #1,127 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product, click here.
About the author
Lauren Helen Graham (born March 16, 1967) is an American actress, producer and writer. She is best known for playing Lorelai Gilmore on the WB drama series Gilmore Girls, and as Sarah Braverman on the NBC series Parenthood. She is the author of two New York Times best sellers: the novel Someday, Someday, Maybe, and the essay collection Talking As Fast As I Can. Upcoming: In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It, to be released April 3, 2018.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
Submit a report
- Harassment, profanity
- Spam, advertisement, promotions
- Given in exchange for cash, discounts
Sorry, there was an error
Please try again later.-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I’m a big fan of Gilmore Girls, I’ve seen all of the episodes and the revival, Year in the Life too on Netflix when it was released. I always was on the opinion that Rory and Jess should have been together (like in real life at the time they played lovers on screen). And yes, I had a crush on Milo Ventimiglia. Anyway, it’s been a couple of years and I haven’t seen any of the episodes for a while now, though I always stay to watch when I catch it on tv. I have many fond memories of this series, so I was curious how Lauren Graham, who played Lorelai thinks back at those times. And generally just what kind of person she is outside her role. She is a successful actress now, but she is that kind of person who keeps her private life as such – private. And I always admired that about her. So I was curious how much she lets us see into her life in Talking as Fast as I Can.
Through the essays collected in this book, Lauren shares moment from her life from her childhood through schools, her first job, Gilmore Girls, Parenthood to get back to Gilmore Girls again. She shares her thoughts about her life as an actress, about writing and how incredible people helped to shape her life. But she also kinda keeps us at arms length only sharing as much about her personal life as she must in order for us understand her world.
“I still find that, in general, having a plan is, well, a good plan. But when my carefully laid plan laughed at me, rather than clutch at it too tightly I just made a new one, even if it was one that didn’t immediately make sense. In blindly trying a different path, I accidentally found one that worked better.”
Talking as Fast as I Can is an intriguing read if you’d like to get a glimpse into the life of an actress whose career is not about scandal and fame. It’s not as funny as the blurb lets you believe, but I couldn’t help thinking how perfect of a choice Lauren was to play Lorelai. They sure have a similar voice. I think what’s the most endearing about Lauren is that despite being a successful actress, she remained a down to earth kind of person. She kept working and doing what she loves best. And that shines through every page along with her personality.
Talking as Fast as I Can brings back nostalgic feelings toward Gilmore Girls. It gives a glimpse into the hardships of being an actress, but it lacks the depth I was hoping for.
There are so many (wonderful) things I want to say about her book that it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where to begin. Graham’s prose has an effortless, familiar feel to it. Like the soft voice of a friend over a casual cup of coffee. It’s obvious she’s a writer, and an extremely talented one at that.
One of the things I was worried about before I started reading was that it might only focus on her life as it related to Gilmore Girls. While that would have still been a thoroughly enjoyable read, fans (at least fans like me) read memoirs to learn about the real person and their real life. In learning about their lives, we feel as though we’ve left the world of fandom and entered the world of friendship. And Graham’s memoir delivers a perfect blend of personal and professional to us.
Talking as Fast as I can contains two large chapters where Graham recaps the actual filming experience of Gilmore Girls. The first, positioned near the beginning of the book, covers the original series, and the last, positioned near the end of the book, covers the revival. The remainder of the book follows Graham throughout her life from childhood to present. We learn a little about her family, about her upbringing and education, and, of course, about how she became the actress we love today. She’s witty, inspirational, and utterly entertaining.
But it’s more than just a simple sharing of random moments of her life. You can tell that each story, each chapter, each word has been chosen with care and caution. It’s neither too short nor too long; it is just perfect. As her agent had once told her after reviewing her first novel, there are some publishers who will buy and sell anything (whether it’s good or not) a celebrity writes just because they know it will sell. She refers to those kinds of books as “Monkey Doodles.” I can assure you this book is anything but a Monkey Doodle. This is a wonderful book. An eloquently written book. One every fan should read.
I came away from the book an even bigger fan. I’ve actually just started binging Parenthood and oh my… what a fantastic show. And I plan on reading her debut work of fiction, Someday, Someday, Maybe, as well as pretty much everything else she writes. Lauren is a warm and engaging woman who hasn’t let her success go to her head. And I’m very excited to see where her career and talents take her next.
If you’re a fan of Gilmore Girls or of Lauren herself, and even if you’re not, take a few hours a get to know this talented and wonderful human being. If you weren’t a fan of hers at the outset, you will be in the end.
FTC DISCLAIMER:
This book was reviewed outside of the request of the publisher and/or author.
Top reviews from other countries
Für mich, als Waschechter Gilmore Girls & Lorelai Fan, war klar, dass ich dieses Buch irgendwann lesen muss. Die ersten Seiten flogen nur so dahin, es war toll etwas über Lauren zu erfahren und insbesondere die Bilder im Buch rundeten die Erzählungen ab. Auch der Humor, der so hervorragend zu ihrer Rolle in Gilmore Girls passte, kam hier gut zur Geltung. Um Gilmore Girls und insbesondere das berüchtigte schnelle Reden, ging es dafür aber verhältnismäßig wenig. Das war für mich enttäuschend da der Titel „from Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls“ die Anforderung erweckt, das es hier hauptsächlich darum geht. Auch in Bezug auf Dinge die ihr besonders gefallen oder nicht gefallen haben, bleibt Lauren Graham vage. Schön fand ich, dass sie auch auf die Season „vier Jahreszeiten“ einging und auch beleuchtet hat das eine Rollenbesetzung oftmals von der Verfügbarkeit des Schauspielers abhängt.
Ich hatte mir leider unter diesem Titel etwas anderes vorgestellt. Dennoch war der Schreibstil unheimlich unterhaltsam und ließ sich großteils auch gut lesen. Ich kann es auf Grund der oben genannten Problematik aber nur empfehlen, wenn man sich auch für das komplette Leben der Lauren Graham interessiert.
Ich habe die Serie Gilmore Girls geliebt und habe mich gefreut, als Lauren Graham ihr zweites Buch angekündigt hat. Da ich Someday Someday Maybe von ihr mochte, hat es mich nicht enttäuscht. Sie schildert Ihre Sichtweise, was so alles ein wenig vor und nach Gilmore Girls passiert ist. Von der Pilotepisode bis hin, wie sie erfahren hat, als GIlmore Girls nach sieben Jahren abgesetzt wurde. Auch ein wenig die Zeit bei Parenthood- öfters Erwähnungen- wie sehr sie die Charaktere von Lorelai Gilmore und die Welt von Stars Hollow geliebt hat (und noch immer tut). Ein wenig, wie es war, nach über 8 Jahren nochmal in die Rolle zu schlüpfen. Es gibt nicht allzu viele Spoiler der Fortsetzung von Netflix, aber ein paar Impressionen von ihr zum Nachlesen.
Es gibt auch ein paar EInblicke in die Zeit, wo sie bei vielen Theaterstücken und Musicals mitgespielt hat, ein paar der Jobs, bevor sie die Rolle bei Gilmore Girls bekommen hat.
Ich würde das Buch jedem Fan der Serie empfehlen, der Gilmore Girls und die lebendige Art und Weise von Lauren Graham mag.
Nachdem ich das Buch durchgelesen hab, habe ich auch das Hörbuch angehört. Es wird im Englischen von der Autorin vorlgelesen, wo ein wenig mehr von der Schauspielerin durchkommt- beides auf jeden Fall empfehlenswert!
---------------------------------
I've read her debut novel Someday Someday Maybe and was happy to hear that she'll release another book. This book is, as the name suggests, about her time on Gilmore Girls. How it felt to step into Lorelai Gilmores footsteps again after such a long time for the Netflix reboot.
Also a few insights on herself, a few brief stories about dating (or rather her coping with the media grilling her about it when she is promoting a TV show or movie. Her funny view on how she became vegan or how to stay healthy. Bits and pieces on Parenthood too, her early days when she struggled as a young actress staying afloat in New York City.
If you've enjoyed Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham and would like to know a bit more about it, this book is definitely something for you.
I'll also recommend the audiobook read by the author. Started listening to it a short while after finishing the book and it does not dissapoint.
There was a page torn from the book... Even if it was used book, 1 page of content front and back missing is a shame.