the Book Brothel

Archive for the ‘Humour’ Category

How the Other Half Hamptons by Jasmin Rosemberg

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 320 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: Remember that episode of Sex and the City where the women get a place in the Hamptons and craziness happens, especially with Charlotte pretending to be younger in order to date someone? I figured any place that brought that out in people was worth a revisit in book form (with different characters, of course).

Synopsis: Forty people, five-person bedrooms, more booze than a person should see in a lifetime, and a strange body in your bed: this must be a share-house in the Hamptons, where the rich and famous summer…or where 20-something New Yorkers with $2000 (and endless patience) can grab a handful of weekends in a party house that might not be quite on par with the celebrity lifestyle they’re trying to buy a piece of. Three friends with very different attitudes find themselves trying to navigate a share-house in an attempt to find love, random hookups, or just a hell of a party…

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Posted in Fiction, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I already read and enjoyed two of the three of Crane’s previous novels, Everyone Else’s Girl and Frenemies.

Synopsis: Courtney Cassel has just gotten engaged to the most wonderful, just-right-for-her man in the world - now if only she could force her family to be equally wonderful. Her mother lives in her own world, her sister Norah is a control freak who’s been in a rage since their middle sister, Raine, ruined her wedding and fled for California - six years ago - and hasn’t been in contact since. Courtney decides to confront the past in hopes of making her wedding truly about family, but to top off all of the sisterly trouble, there’s another issue with facing her first love…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

The Learners by Chip Kidd

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 260 pages, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: I had my eye on Kidd’s debut novel since it first came out but it was a case of ‘too many books, too little time,’ so I was glad when this second novel fell into my hands.

Synopsis: When Happy finishes college in 1961, he decides he has to get a job at the same advertising agency where his favourite professor started his career in graphic design. He just didn’t realize he’d be working with such an odd (borderline crazy) crowd, or that he’d run into an outrageous old friend, or that he’d design a newspaper ad recruiting test subjects for an experiment at Yale - all of which will shake up his views on life, himself, and all of humanity..

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Humour, Advertising | No Comments »

Because She Can by Bridie Clark

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 275 pages, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Reason for Reading: I liked the idea, but not the execution, of Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, so I was hoping Clark would have better luck with the boss-from-hell story.

Synopsis: After years of ups and downs, Claire Truman has nailed it: she has the perfect job at a major publishing house, and a gorgeous, successful (and nice) guy that wants to marry her. But very quickly, she starts to wonder if her boss, the notorious publisher Vivian Grant, isn’t merely ‘ambitious’ and ‘creative’…Maybe she’s crazy, in a spirit-crushing, marriage-wrecking, flat-out vicious sort of way. With everything tumbling down on her, Claire is about to find out - the hard way - what really matters to her.

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 291 pages, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: Chick-lit always comes through when I’m in a reading slump.

Synopsis: Harper Roberts is smart, attractive, successful - and so, so single. Convinced that her success (she’s the youngest attorney at her firm to be made lawyer, and she’s got an amazing salary to show for it) is what scares men away, she lets her friends talk her into a social experiment: are men just after the dumb blondes? She’ll try to play the part to see if happiness - and true love - are just a hair flip and a giggle away.

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Posted in Fiction, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

The Continuity Girl by Leah McLaren

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 339 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: All these years of reading chick-lit and I’d never read an author from Toronto, my hometown - it practically seemed mandatory.

Synopsis: Meredith Moore excels as a ‘continuity girl’ - the girl on film sets that makes sure each take fits in perfectly with previous ones - no cigarettes mysteriously jumping from hand to hand, no fly-away hairs dancing up and down during a scene. It’s her job to make it look like everything flows, in other words. Her own life seems to be on a similar track of careful consideration - until she turns thirty-five and a trip to the doctor sends her fleeing from her job in Toronto to London, England, which is home to her batty mother and a host of genetic possibilities: Meredith has decided to become a ’sperm bandit’ in order to have a baby before it’s too late. She doesn’t actually want to become involved with a man, but her seemingly-simple plan seems to lack the ease of a Hollywood movie…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

It’s About Your Husband by Lauren Lipton

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 340 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: It’s that weakness for chick-lit.

Synopsis: Thirty-three-year-old Iris Hedge has left California for a dream job in New York City, only to lose it to ‘restructuring’ before she’s even settled in. Now she’s broke and stranded in a city where she barely knows anyone, although it would seem that’s all it takes to accidentally land herself a new job…as a private investigator, checking up on possibly-cheating husbands. Not exactly what she was cut out for, but eventually a real job, and a real life, will come through…won’t it?

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 304 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: A few guest spots on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and a few episodes of Strangers With Candy have resulted in much love for Amy Sedaris (and an impulse buy of the complete dvd boxset of Strangers With Candy).

Synopsis: Why shouldn’t the hostess have as much fun as the guests? In I Like You, Sedaris points out that if you like someone enough to invite them into your home, you want them to have a good time, and this book is packed with some of the wackiest ideas on entertaining you’ll ever see, but also a deep appreciation for cooking and a fine collection of recipes and decorating ideas.

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Posted in Non-Fiction, Etiquette, Humour, Cooking, Crafting | No Comments »

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover (available in trade), 382 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: Bet you can’t read just one.

Synopsis: Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, along with the other members of the Nursery Crime Division, is hot on the trail of a fresh crime, this time involving a missing journalist nicknamed ‘Goldy,’ some bears, and - just in case you thought you knew where this was going - cucumbers and the escaped mental patient, the Gingerbreadman. It turns out the real mystery began when Goldy left the house of the three bears and wandered into a minefield of trouble…

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Posted in Fiction, Humour, Mystery, Literary Sci-Fi | No Comments »

Yiddish with George and Laura by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 108 pages, 2006

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: We’ll call this a tribute to the mid-term elections of our southern neighbours.

Synopsis: George and Laura Bush take their daughters to visit George Sr and Barbara for their birthdays, and are also joined by George’s charming assortment of brothers…but they’re doing it in Yiddish. Watch the dysfunctional presidential family interact with each other, all while learning Yiddish words to slyly get your digs in at the shmendrik in your life.

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Posted in Fiction, Humour, Current Affairs, Politics | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Humour’ Category

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 320 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 260 pages, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 275 pages, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 291 pages, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 339 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 340 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 304 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover (available in trade), 382 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 108 pages, 2006

Rating: 8/10

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