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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Fran is absolutely hilarious and just oozes intelligence and wit. I'm so glad i found out about her work through Martin Scorsece's Pretend It's a City. However, while I enjoyed each piece in isolation, I found the collection a little repetitive after a while. Some essays I found absolutely brilliant and her dry sarcasm and wit defintely made me laugh a lot.
As a whole, each essay makes way more sense consumed as part of a magazine or newspaper column where you get one essay per week...which was the way its intend to be read so maybe it was my fault for reading it all at once.
Still, I would definitely recommend this alongside a scout through her talks that are available on YouTube. Fran is the grumpy badass icon we should all aspire to be at 70 something :)
As a whole, each essay makes way more sense consumed as part of a magazine or newspaper column where you get one essay per week...which was the way its intend to be read so maybe it was my fault for reading it all at once.
Still, I would definitely recommend this alongside a scout through her talks that are available on YouTube. Fran is the grumpy badass icon we should all aspire to be at 70 something :)
funny
fast-paced
funny
I saw Fran on Netflix; so I decided to buy this new imprint of her 1994 release. I picked it up in hardback for myself and also a hardback copy for a friend as I knew it would be amusing.
And it's funny in the sense of it being a skillfully disguised nod to those few of us in possession of common sense. Which, as she will tell you, isn't common.
It's a bit repetitive. It's a bit smug. A touch flippant. But this book positions itself as a conduit. It allows us access to a mind that would otherwise solely be a blessing to a few select friends.
It's elitist, but it's always very clear that Lebowitz speaks from a position of passionate defence, rather than snide offence.
I think it is a damn shame that those who most need to read this book are exactly the people who won't ever read these essays (or anything else besides a bestseller once or twice a year, if that). In that sense, it suffers from being a book that preaches to the well and truly converted.
Which is something that I've been thinking about recently. Because for the longest time the intellectual left seemed incapable of speaking to anyone outside the intellectual left. And now it seems to be finally shouting loudly. Which works and doesn't. But it's something. Maybe in time it will prove fruitful. One can hope.
And it's funny in the sense of it being a skillfully disguised nod to those few of us in possession of common sense. Which, as she will tell you, isn't common.
It's a bit repetitive. It's a bit smug. A touch flippant. But this book positions itself as a conduit. It allows us access to a mind that would otherwise solely be a blessing to a few select friends.
It's elitist, but it's always very clear that Lebowitz speaks from a position of passionate defence, rather than snide offence.
I think it is a damn shame that those who most need to read this book are exactly the people who won't ever read these essays (or anything else besides a bestseller once or twice a year, if that). In that sense, it suffers from being a book that preaches to the well and truly converted.
Which is something that I've been thinking about recently. Because for the longest time the intellectual left seemed incapable of speaking to anyone outside the intellectual left. And now it seems to be finally shouting loudly. Which works and doesn't. But it's something. Maybe in time it will prove fruitful. One can hope.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
funny
fast-paced
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Frank, witty, and incredibly funny, this book did capture those qualities I do love in Lebowitz. What I missed of course was her delivery, hearing her speak is incomparable to reading her words and so I didn’t find that this met all my expectations.