We feel safe in saying that this is the first time People magazine has excerpted a Yale University Press title; the 11/5 issue features The Richard Burton Diaries.

Kirkus called it, “The inspiring, salacious, sad, materialistic, insecure, arrogant, hilarious and dull ruminations of a most gifted actor. Burton was not assiduous about his diary. There are fascinating flurries of activity…Occasionally, Burton had nothing to say–e.g., a six-day stretch in 1975 when each day’s entry offers but a single word: ‘Booze.’ ”

But People says Burton was “a natural storyteller who didn’t care much for getting dates or punctuation exactly right [but] offers a heartfelt inside view of the glamour and tumult that was Liz and Dick.”

In 2010, Furious Love by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger (Harper) also offered insights into the marriage, drawing heavily on Burton’s letters to Elizabeth. Martin Scorsese optioned it, but it’s just one of many potential projects for the director. He is currently filming another book-based movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. What he will do after that is a source of continual press speculation.

(For the other books covered in this issue of People, see our PEOPLE Book Review Index)

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