I don't want to live in New York, either

At least not on the Upper East Side. Even in August, lots-o-nannies were out wth their charges... and, in an appliance store window, a sign: "WE DELIVER TO THE HAMPTONS!"

But, on my way back to the subway (after being stabbed in the elbow at the clinic) I stopped in at Shakespeare and Co. Thank goodness. All you academics out there, especially anyone who's ever worried about your lack of productivity, or for whom David Brooks's phrase "status-income disequilibrium" hit a little too hard: you've gotta, gotta, gotta read Christina Schwarz's All is Vanity.

And, hey, all you bloggers secretly hoping that there might be a book hiding in what you're typing—or just worried about what you could be accomplishing if you weren't spending all your time blogging. You need to read this book, too. It's all about aspiration and procrastination. And competition. And self-deception. And it's really, really funny.

Two childhood friends, now in their mid-thirties. One, living in New York, quits her job to spend a year, ahem, writing her novel. The other, raising four kids in L.A., tries to launch herself and her family into a fully loaded L.A. lifestyle after her art-historian husband is suddenly offered a (slightly) better paying job.

Filled with exquisite set pieces (one of my favorites: when the aspiring novelist gets turned down for a part-time SAT tutor gig because neither her Penn degree, nor the private school where she'd been teaching, were good enough) and plenty of little scenes that bite. Ooooooooooh.

Comments

[Julie]

I read that book! It made me do a full-body cringe for days.

[Brooklyn Girl]

See, but you can't judge all of the city by the Upper East Side--you just can't. Come to Brooklyn where the livin' is easy (but where, sadly, the nanny population is growing exponentially).

Thanks for the book tip!

[~profgrrrrl~]

Just ordered the book, used, from the Big River. Hey -- A-zon delivers to the Hamptons too. Wonder if they should make a scrolling banner on the top of their site ...

(I actually have been writing a novel, on the side ... not related to the blogging, but also not remotely related to my work. This will be interesting for sure.)

I thought about living in NY. I interviewed at a school in NY. It just didn't feel right. (Not that Gentleville does, either ... although G'ville definitely feels more real)

[bitchphd]

On "to-read" list--sounds like a good one!