D.V (1984)

Diana Vreeland's memoir reads like an evening spent listening to her talk, because that is close to how it was made: it is largely her own spoken words, recorded and then shaped by her editors, George Plimpton and Christopher Hemphill. It opens with her announcing that she loathes nostalgia, then indulges in it gloriously for the rest of the book. Take it as performance rather than record. The aphorisms, the nerve and the sheer invention are the reason to read it, and at under 200 pages it is short enough to finish in an evening.