Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This novel is a warm sprawling well-written novel-of-manners in the tradition of the 19th century novelists but with a lighter hand. Sure, it doesn't have the heft or depth of a Jane Austen novel, but it was a perfect read for a long drizzly day when I was home sick, and I found myself dreaming that night about the lives of the characters, as if they were friends I was keeping in touch with.
Rating: 
Summary: Life Among the Intellectuals
Review: This such an unusual book, that I'm not sure how to categorize it, except to say that it is an extremely subtle, highly enjoyable, satirical view of the Upper West Side of New York City, where opera singers and scientists mingle with shrinks and Hispanic doormen.Anne and Charles are one such couple: He, an under-rated opera singer, has a studio at home in their rent-controlled Morningside Heights apartment; she, a former concert accompaniest, takes care of their three children while taking her microcosm of the world very seriously indeed. She thinks nothing of purchasing a thousand-dollar violin for her 3-year-old, but dresses her daughters in hand-me-downs to save money; she serves truffles and caviar at her dinner parties, but refuses to take a cab. One should hate such people, but the very subtle way in which each is portrayed makes the reader (at least this reader) love them instead. Then there is Merritt, an internationally known writer who can't keep a man to save her life, and Morris, a curmudgeonly scientist who thinks it might be time to get married. Both dear friends of Anne and Charles, they hate each other mightily, but can't seem to find anybody else they like better. Add to the mix a very odd and hilarious assortment of highbrow intellectuals who take themselves oh-so-seriously, and you have a modern-day comedy of manners that reminds one of Henry James. I loved this book. It's not for everybody, but I found it refreshingly different and look forward to the next by this interesting author!
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