I've just started reading Adrianna Trigiani's Very Valentine. I've noticed this author's books before but as I don't always find books set in the USA to be my sort of thing I've not tried them. At first I thought it was going to be too sentimental and girly for me but I've read nearly 100 pages and I'm interested in the characters.
Maybe I'm getting more used to fiction with a USA background especially having read Candace Bushnell's One Fifth Avenue and found it to be way better than I'd assumed it would be. Obviously I must put aside my prejudices when searching for books to enjoy.
Showing posts with label Candace Bushnell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Candace Bushnell. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
One Fifth Avenue
I finally finished One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell. It wasn't at all what I expected it to be but it was good. It's about the owners of apartments in One Fifth Avenue and what happens when Paul and Annalisa Rice buy the biggest apartment following the death of Mrs Houghton. Their advent is the catalyst which causes many people's lives to unravel.
Mindy and James Gooch and their teenage son Sam live in what were the luggage rooms when the building was a hotel. James is a relatively unknown writer - though his latest work is about to take the city by storm. Mindy is the head of the committe which runs the building and she also works on a magazine. She starts writing a blog which soon becomes popular. Enid is a gossip columnist and lives next door to her nephew Philip Oakland - a novelist and screenwriter. At the same time as Paul and Annalisa move in, actress Schiffer Diamond moves back into her apartment. Philip takes on an assistant - Lola - who gradually worms her way into his life, just when he is wondering whether to resume his love affair with Schiffer.
Living outside the building but playing a big part in the story are Billie Lichfield - man about town and Connie and Sandy Brewer - Paul Rice's friends and business associates. All the characters are believable and the way they attempt to maintain their positions in society makes fascinating reading. The author seems to be saying that in trying to keep up with everyone, do the right things, say the right things and buy the right things many are in danger of losing their souls.
I expected a light read but instead I got a story which is told with almost forensic attention to detail and some profound thoughts on the state of New York high society. Definitely different.
Mindy and James Gooch and their teenage son Sam live in what were the luggage rooms when the building was a hotel. James is a relatively unknown writer - though his latest work is about to take the city by storm. Mindy is the head of the committe which runs the building and she also works on a magazine. She starts writing a blog which soon becomes popular. Enid is a gossip columnist and lives next door to her nephew Philip Oakland - a novelist and screenwriter. At the same time as Paul and Annalisa move in, actress Schiffer Diamond moves back into her apartment. Philip takes on an assistant - Lola - who gradually worms her way into his life, just when he is wondering whether to resume his love affair with Schiffer.
Living outside the building but playing a big part in the story are Billie Lichfield - man about town and Connie and Sandy Brewer - Paul Rice's friends and business associates. All the characters are believable and the way they attempt to maintain their positions in society makes fascinating reading. The author seems to be saying that in trying to keep up with everyone, do the right things, say the right things and buy the right things many are in danger of losing their souls.
I expected a light read but instead I got a story which is told with almost forensic attention to detail and some profound thoughts on the state of New York high society. Definitely different.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Quiet day today
Nothing of any importance happened today at work so it was quite peaceful. We're no nearer to solving the computer issue but ultimately that's our manager's problem not ours. So the 3 of us it effects have metaphorically washed our hands of it.
I read some more of The Importance of Being Emma a couple of chapters of Dr Thorne and a similar amount of One Fifth Avenue last night. I do like to have more than one book on the go at the same time. For some people that is the reading form of indigestion but I enjoy it. I'm also steadily working my way through the 4 magazines about writing. I shall be settling down with all three of them shortly, once I've finished this glass of wine.
I'm enjoying The Importance of Being Emma as I did Jane Austen's Emma for A Level English Literature and I find I can still remember all the characters and the gist of the plot. I think it's clever the way the story has been translated into the modern world with Philip Elton something in accountancy rather than a clergyman and Miss Bates a company secretary with an elderly mother to look after. Harriet Smith is a flaky temp and Emma's father is a hypochondriac with access to much more medical knowledge than the prototype. I'm looking forward to the next one in this series which will be based on Jane Austen's Persuasion.
I read some more of The Importance of Being Emma a couple of chapters of Dr Thorne and a similar amount of One Fifth Avenue last night. I do like to have more than one book on the go at the same time. For some people that is the reading form of indigestion but I enjoy it. I'm also steadily working my way through the 4 magazines about writing. I shall be settling down with all three of them shortly, once I've finished this glass of wine.
I'm enjoying The Importance of Being Emma as I did Jane Austen's Emma for A Level English Literature and I find I can still remember all the characters and the gist of the plot. I think it's clever the way the story has been translated into the modern world with Philip Elton something in accountancy rather than a clergyman and Miss Bates a company secretary with an elderly mother to look after. Harriet Smith is a flaky temp and Emma's father is a hypochondriac with access to much more medical knowledge than the prototype. I'm looking forward to the next one in this series which will be based on Jane Austen's Persuasion.
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