A collection of essays exploring femininity, self-image and performance in the lives of iconic famous women
13th October 2025
Hardcover
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
A collection of essays exploring femininity, self-image and performance in the lives of iconic famous women
Description
'Turns female celebrity inside-out. One of the most enjoyable books of the year' Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them A Good Time
'An instant classic from the sharpest cultural critic working today. I couldn't put it down' Allie Rowbottom, author of Aesthetica---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How does an icon become an icon? How did Anna Nicole Smith model herself on Marilyn Monroe? What connects Lindsay Lohan with Elizabeth Taylor? How is self-made beauty Pamela Anderson like trans bond girl Caroline 'Tula' Cossey?In a series of interconnected essays about pairs of famous women, award-nominated essayist and art critic Philippa Snow explores the echoes and connections between a constellation of female stars and lays bare the artful and gruelling demands of femininity - from the golden age of Hollywood to the Instagram era. Full of the fascinating, entertaining and lurid details you might expect from the lives of mega-famous celebrities, dissected with icicle-sharp intelligence and rendered in stylish, flamboyant prose, Philippa Snow's first full-length non-fiction work is a radically insightful book about the complex meanings and layers of femininity in a male-dominated world.Critic Reviews
In It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do To Be Me, Philippa Snow turns female celebrity inside-out. Insightful and graceful, and one of the most enjoyable books of the year -- Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them A Good Time
An instant classic from the sharpest cultural critic working today. Phillipa Snow is witty, entertaining, and intellectually unmatched, a writer with a singular talent for showing us ourselves in the funhouse mirror of celebrity femininity. It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me is a historical corrective, a loving sendup, and a serious exploration of iconic women too often passed off as unserious. I couldn't put it down. -- Allie Rowbottom, author of Aesthetica
About the Author
Philippa Snow is a writer based in Norwich. Her reviews and essays have appeared in publications including Artforum, the Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtReview, Frieze, the White Review, Vogue, the New Statesman, the TLS, and the New Republic. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and Which As You Know Means Violence was published by Repeater Books in 2022.
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13th October 2025
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