Anne Helen Petersen – författare

Celebrity gossip meets history in this compulsively readable collection from Buzzfeed reporter Anne Helen Peterson. This guide to film stars and their deepest secrets is sure to top your list for movie gifts and appeal to fans of classic cinema and hollywood history alike.Believe it or not, America’s fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Cardi B, Kanye's tweets, and the #metoo allegations that have gripped Hollywood. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren’t always the saints that we make them out to be. BuzzFeed's Anne Helen Petersen, author of Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, is here to set the record straight. Pulling little-known gems from the archives of film history, Petersen reveals eyebrow-raising information, including:• The smear campaign against the original It Girl, Clara Bow, started by her best friend • The heartbreaking story of Montgomery Clift’s rapid rise to fame, the car accident that destroyed his face, and the “long suicide” that followed • Fatty Arbuckle's descent from Hollywood royalty, fueled by allegations of a boozy orgy turned violent assault • Why Mae West was arrested and jailed for "indecency charges" • And much more Part biography, part cultural history, these stories cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups. But it's not all just tawdry gossip in the pages of this book. The stories are all contextualized within the boundaries of film, cultural, political, and gender history, making for a read that will inform as it entertains. Based on Petersen's beloved column on the Hairpin, but featuring 100% new content, Scandals of Classic Hollywood is sensationalism made smart.

**A Stylist Book Club pick**'In a time when women are under constant attack, I am so grateful for Anne Helen Petersen's sharp and topical book. Petersen nails the magnetism of women who break boundaries and the punishment that often comes along with it. All women will see a bit of themselves in the "unruly"' Jessica Valenti, New York Times-bestselling author of Sex ObjectYou know the type: the woman who won't shut up, who flaunts it, who's too brazen, too opinionated – too much. Sometimes, she's the life of the party; others, she's the focus of gossip. She's the unruly woman, and she's one of the most provocative, powerful forms of womanhood today. The unruly woman has been around for as long as there have been boundaries of what constitutes acceptable 'feminine' behaviour – that is, for ever – but these days she is more visible and less easily dismissed than ever before. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, cultural critic and Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Petersen explores 'unruliness' through the lens of eleven pop culture powerhouses, including Serena Williams, Melissa McCarthy, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Kim Kardashian, Hillary Clinton, Caitlyn Jenner and Lena Dunham. Petersen examines why our culture loves to love and berate these controversial figures for being 'too' something: too queer, too strong, too naked, too old, too shrill, too much. This is an incisive, candid, conversation starting analysis of the part influential women play in redefining contemporary femininity. 'An oasis in a world of hot takes, a set of crisp essays on the provocateurs who fascinate and enrage us. With warmth and wit, Anne Helen Petersen celebrates the power of being just a little too much, seeking the rebel inside the trainwreck' Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker critic 'Raucous and smart . . . Because these criticisms are, writ large, the same ones flung daily at non-celeb women, the book is a timely and essential read' US Elle'Anne Helen Petersen's gloriously bumptious, brash ode to nonconforming women suits the needs of this dark moment . . . Crucial reading' Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies

An incendiary examination of burnout - what got us here, the pressures that sustain it and the need for drastic changeAre you tired, stressed and trying your best but somehow it's never enough?Does your job seep into your evenings and your home life creep into your work? Does the bottom half of your To Do list feel unreachable?This is burnout and it is affecting how we work, parent, socialise and live.Through her own experience, original interviews and detailed analysis, Anne Helen Petersen traces the institutional and generational causes of burnout. And, in doing so, she helps us to let go of our guilt and imagine a possible future.'Genuinely enlightening... Can't Even is a reminder to the burned out generation that things can be different' Observer