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Rating: 
Summary: Improves one's mind
Review: "Kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond bracelet lasts forever." So says Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes." With the emergence of Lorelei, Anita Loos invented the chick-lit genre as we know it, with witty looks at love, jewelry, and gold-digging in the sparkling 1920s.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is the diary of Lorelei Lee, a pretty young flapper originally from Little Rock. Since she has managed to get engaged to a married man, and might be hit with a scandal, Lorelei goes overseas. She cuts a gold-digging swathe through Europe, dazzling wealthy men, seeing the "Eyefull" Tower, and recording thoughts both witty and vapid.
Loos followed up her hit novel with "But Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes." The sequel is the story of Lorelei's travelling buddy Dorothy, as told by Lorelei. Dorothy has led a more colorful life -- she started off in the circus before heading to NYC. There, she became a Ziegfield Follies Girl, and then a "companion" to wealthy men.
Anita Loos's "Gentlemen" books first started when Loos encountered a starlet who had men tripping over themselves to help her with her things. Loos was as pretty, as young, and much smarter, but nobody helped her. What was different? Loos was a brunette, and the starlet was a blonde. You do the math.
Loos had a fun, deft sense of humor. She skewered flappers and/or gold-diggers, wealthy men, and the social mores of the 1920s. She also deliberately litters her books with misspellings and run-on sentences, adding to the feeling of overal ditziness. At the same time, her books are such good light fun that they can be read without taking note of the satire.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" gives a wink-nudge look at the flapper era, while giving us the origins of the present-day lite chick-lit genre. Fun, fluffy and amusing.
Rating: 
Summary: just a funny book
Review: I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very, very good but a diamond-and-safire bracelet lasts forever. -Lorelei Lee, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Up until now, I'd figured that the most ignominious fate that a significant 20th century writer had suffered was that T. S. Eliot will be best remembered for the fact that a book of his poems inspired the musical Cats. Here's a worse one : Anita Loos, author of one of the funniest novels ever written, may be remembered as the author whose book inspired the musical which inspired the music video of Madonna's Material Girl. This after all is a book which while it was being serialized made Harper's Bazaar into a best-selling magazine, went through 45 editions in 13 languages (including Chinese and Russian) upon publication, which Edith Wharton referred to as "the great American novel," which a nearly blind James Joyce chose as his preferred reading during the brief period he was allotted each day, and which won praise from readers as varied as Winston Churchill, William Faulkner, George Santayana, and Benito Mussolini. Even before she wrote this story, Anita Loos had already established herself as a topflight Hollywood screenwriter, working with the likes of D. W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, and she numbered H. L. Mencken among her many literary friends. In fact, the book is at least in part intended to poke fun at Mencken. Loos had previously noticed, with some amusement, the intellectually snobbish writer's contradictory weakness for ditzy blonde babes. So when she found herself traveling cross country on the Santa Fe Chief with her husband (the director John Emerson), Fairbanks, several other gentlemen and one blonde starlet, she was struck by the fact that the men stumbled over themselves trying to help the other woman, while Ms Loos was left to lug her own baggage: Obviously there was some radical difference between that girl and me. But what was it? We were both in the pristine years of early youth; we were about the same degree of comeliness; as to our mental acumen, there was nothing to discuss : I was the smarter. Then why did that girl so far outdistance me in feminine allure? She was a natural blonde and I was a brunette. Loos promptly began writing the first notes for what would become the hilarious adventures of Lorelei Lee, the flighty but conniving blonde to whom "Fate keeps on happening," and, when finished, sent them to Mencken, who was then editing The American Mercury. He told her, "Little girl, you're making fun of sex, and that's never been clone before in the U.S.A.," but also suggested that she submit the story to Harper's Bazaar. The editor, Henry Sell, liked the initial story so much that he got her to write several more installments and serialized them in the magazine. The rest, as they say, is history... The resulting novel reminds me a great deal of Ring Lardner's You Know Me, Al (see Orrin's review). It is presented in the form of Lorelei's diary, so is entirely in her unique voice, with tortured syntax, creative spelling and unintentionally revealing insight. Lorelei, like Lardner's antihero, is surpassing ignorant of culture and most of the world beyond her particular haunts, but, unlike Jack Keefe who is genuinely unenlightened about himself, she betrays a profound understanding that her looks and her general availability enable her to extract just about anything she wishes from gentlemen. And the most important similarity is that this is just a funny book, certainly one of the funniest ever written by an American author. GRADE: A
Rating: 
Summary: Wry, funny and timeless
Review: If you appreciate wry humor and satire, wonderfully written, this is the book for you. A quick read that never disappoints. Every gentleman should read this by the time he turns 25.
Rating:
Summary: clever, funny, glamarous
Review: It was fun to read about Lorelie's meeting with "Dr.Froyd" and her thoughts of "the Eyefull tower", but mostly it was fun to be wrapped up in the fickle days of the flapper. Hysterical and fun to read, not to mention important in terms of it's impact of literature. (Would there ever have been a Bridget Jones without a Loerlei or Dorthey?) Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Wry, funny and timeless
Review: It's impossible to hear this title without thinking of the stage musical with Channing or the later film version of it with Monroe. But Loos's novel is one of the funniest books of the twentieth century, and was beloved by everyone from James Joyce to Santayana. It's all told from Lorelei Lee's diary as she conquers New York, London, Paris, and (hardest of all) the Philadelphia Main Line, entirely by dint of her charm and comeliness. Lorelei is no fool, and exploits the desires of the old men who meet her to get all the jewels and orchids she can dream of, but nonetheless she remains very much an innocent--which is the greatest wellspring of the book's appeal. And her cynical friend Dorothy's sidecomments (which Lorelei frequently quotes) are absolutely hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: Undercover Brains
Review: My brother gifted me a copy of GPB and BGMB for Christmas, and I was laughing until Valentine's Day. It's one of the smartest books I've ever read with one of the ditsiest narrators, but that's debatable -- there's certainly method to Lorelei's materialistic madness! I wish I could also read a Dorothy's journal, she's a stand-out character and (of course) my favorite. Read the book if you're curious about the 20's and those notorious rich ladies, but would rather hear it from a rebel's perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly entertaining
Review: This is a great little book (actually, two books in one). I laughed put loud throughout it and hoped that it would never end. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is rightly considered a classic, its sharp and bitingly witty insight is something one never seems to see in a book today (indeed, humour in a book today seems to be rare - sometimes it seems that all new fiction books are depressing and morbid; and if you feel this way too then you should read Loos' clever and refreshing novels). This is a classuc that you will want to read over and over.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly entertaining
Review: This is a great little book (actually, two books in one). I laughed put loud throughout it and hoped that it would never end. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is rightly considered a classic, its sharp and bitingly witty insight is something one never seems to see in a book today (indeed, humour in a book today seems to be rare - sometimes it seems that all new fiction books are depressing and morbid; and if you feel this way too then you should read Loos' clever and refreshing novels). This is a classuc that you will want to read over and over.
Rating:
Summary: What a star
Review: Which came first, Damon Runyon or Anita Loos? Whatever, this is a brilliant book that gets funnier as Loos hits her stride. By the time she gets to Dorothy's adventures she's well away. It's not just the language and the gags but the concrete observation - Dorothy isn't just discovered sitting in the doorway of Pearl Lo Vino's tent, she's found sitting there watching Pearl crochet a boudoir cap. Writers, take note!
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