Lauren Weisberger's List of Books You Should Read
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Download Description
"An irresistible tale about what happens when a girl on the fringe enters the realm of New York's chic, party-hopping elite. On paper, Bette Robinson's life is good. At twenty-six, she's got a great deal on an apartment in Manhattan, and she's on target to become an associate at the prestigious investment bank where she works with her best friend. Her eighty-hour workweeks might keep her from socializing or dating outside her office walls -- but she's paying her dues on the well-trod path to wealth and happiness. So when Bette quits her job like the impulsive girl she's never been, she not only shocks her friends and family -- she has no idea what to do next. For months, Bette gets out and about by walking her four-pound dog around her decidedly unglamorous Murray Hill neighborhood. Then she meets Kelly, head of Manhattan's hottest PR and events planning firm, and suddenly Bette has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen. The work at Kelly & Company takes Bette inside the VIP rooms of the city's most exclusive nightclubs, to parties crowded with celebrities and socialites. Bette learns not to blink at the famous faces, the black Amex cards, the magnums of Cristal, or the ruthless paparazzi. Soon she's dating an infamous playboy who's great for her career but bad for her sanity -- and scaring off the one decent guy she meets. Still, as her coworkers repeatedly point out, how can you complain about a job that pays you to party? Bette has to agree -- until she begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column. That's when Bette's life on paper takes on a whole new meaning -- and she learns the line between her personal and professional lives is...invisible. "
Customer Reviews:
Good read.......2007-10-10
I won't recount the storyline, as you can easily find plenty of that in other reviews. I have to say, I enjoyed this book, It was somewhat predictable, but fun nonetheless. It's a great beach/airplane/vacation read.
Took a bit to get intrigued.......2007-10-03
I bought the book at Sam's after reading "The First Assistant." It had some resemblance to "The Devil Wears Prada," but the beginning dragged on with little interest. It wasn't until Bette Robinson was connected with Phillip Weston that the book became a great read. Overall it was a good book, but I wish the beginning had a little bit more intrigue.
Prada retread.......2007-09-22
Bette Robinson is much less appealing than the heroine of Lauren Weisberger's previous bestseller The Devil Wears Prada. Strike one: she claims she just drifted into her high paying, overtime-demanding bank job. Right. Bored and cranky, she quits her bank job on impulse and to enjoy a period of feckless unemployment as a stress-free vacation (even though she lives in a doorman building in a safe neighborhood, which translates to expensive rent). Strike two - a normal person would worry about making ends meet. Then her uncle sets her up with a job with an event planner, which means she gets paid to party.
The event-planning job is the equivalent of the fashion magazine in "Prada". Like the heroine in Prada, Bette initially feels fat, frumpy, and clueless about her new milieu. However, unlike the Prada heroine, Bette doesn't seem to learn anything from her travails. Without giving spoilers (which is overly generous because the plot totally parallels that of "Prada", Bette never stops acting like a version of the entitlement crowd she sets herself apart from. And strike three: other than a winning boyfriend by the end, Bette doesn't seem to have had any character development at all. Bette, like the Prada girl, is Jewish. But in this book, Judaism is less of a brand than Louis Vuitton - it says less about the characters and informs their behavior less. I had to push myself to finish this book, although the last third had more interest for me.
Quick, fun read for the lazy day.......2007-09-08
I did enjoy reading this book, but it too closely resembled "The Devil Wears Prada." Her writing reminds me of Clive Cussler and other very popular authors where she basically sets up a template with changes of names, locations, and bosses. But it was a fun read for a lazy Sunday.
find something better to read.......2007-09-03
Well, if you liked Weisberger's first novel, the Devil wears Prada, don't waste your time. You'll find the same basic story line, the clueless-to-this-metier girl who devotes all her time and personal life to a job that is described as fruitless and pointless and which she holds in complete disdain. The missing ingredient is the jaw-dropping central figure, her incredibly bitchy boss from 'Prada,' so the book is just boring at best. Actually, this second novel is a disfavor to 'Prada' for it underlines how little Weisberger contributed to the creation of characters or plot or anything in her first novel, which everyone knows to be autobiographical. Weisberger was just lucky to have an incredible figure to write about and her only merit is to not have that opportunity lie unexploited. Everyone Worth Knowing is just a pitiful attempt at pursuing a career in writing; Weisberger appears to be as clueless in this as her characters in their careers. NB please notify Ms. Weisberger that investment bankers do not manage client's money, that's the private bankers' job. Also, it would be extremely rare to find a successful investment banker in NYC that does not know what Hermès is. (The least she could have done is some basic research, don't you think?)
Book Description
This omnibus features two classic, long-unavailable Darkover novels-Darkover Landfall and Two to Conquer-in one volume for the first time.
Customer Reviews:
Not what I've expected, but not that bad..........2006-12-08
When I`ve attempted to tackle the Darkover saga in Chronological order, Landfall was the first place to go (I`ve already had read a few of the novels). I was expecting an "origin" story, where all the mysteries were solved or hinted, but instead, this is a stand alone novel, that is vaguely connected to the rest of the saga. In it self not a very good one.
One the other hand "Conquer" is very long book, set at the end of the Ages of Chaos, with a very complex story. Sometimes you feel like quiting during the reading, but I must say that the last chapters made my journey trough all this novel very rewarding, at the end you end up loving this wounded characters.
Book Description
This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1854 edition by the Hakluyt Society, London. History of the two Tartar conquerors of China, including the two journeys into Tartary of Father Ferdinand Verbiest, in the suite of the Emperor Kang-Hi: from the French of Père Pierre Joseph d'Orléans .. To which is added Father Pereira's journey into Tartary in the suite of the same emperor, from the Dutch of Nicolaas Witsen. Tr. and ed. by the Earl of Ellesmere. With an introduction by R.H. Major.
Customer Reviews:
back jacket summary.......2006-03-04
from the back cover of the 6th printing Daw June 1980 paperback edition
Cover art by John Pound
What forces would operate if there were two objects that were absolutely identical in form and substance? This problem has occupied both workers in magic and the scientists of physics and psychology. It is the pivot of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel of Darkover during the final flaming days of the Ages of Chaos.
This is the story of the era when the planet of the Bloody Sun was divided into a hundred warring kingdoms and civilization teetered on the edge of oblivion.
It is the story of Bard di Asturien, ambitious soldier-outlaw, and of his opponent, Varzil the good, who struggled to establish the Compact. And it is also the story of a man from distant Terra named Paul Harrell who was the exact duplicate of Varzil's enemy.
Two to Conquer is a novel of social forces in combat, of the use and misuse of science, of war, of rape, and of witchcraft.
a horrible protagonist, but an interesting novel.......2003-12-02
This Darkover novel is set near the end of the Ages of Chaos, in the time of the Hundred Kingdoms. Chronologically, this is one of the early novels in Darkover's history. There is less civilization and the Hundred Kingdoms are in a near perpetual state of war (someone is always fighting). Despite the back of the book suggesting that Varzil the Good is a major player in this book, the real story here is that of Bard Di Asturian and Paul Harrell.
The book opens with a fascinating scene. A criminal named Paul Harrell wakes up. The last thing he knew was that he was convicted for rape and because Terra (Earth) no longer has the death penalty, he was locked in a stasis box. He wakes up in a room and as he looks around he realizes that there is no way that he can possibly be on Terra anymore. A man enters the room and he appears to be the identical twin to Paul, so much a twin that "twin" is the wrong word. The man seems to be the same person as Paul. The prologue ends and the novel truly begins. We now start the main story seven years before Paul is somehow freed from the stasis box.
The protagonist of the story is Bard Di Asturian. Bard is the illegitimate nephew of King Ardrin of the Asturias. Rather than being raised in obscurity like most illegitimate children, Bard was raised as part of the family (the wife of Bard's father King Rafael never cared for Bard and forced him to live elsewhere). We learn early on that Bard is to be handfasted (betrothed, more than an engagement less than a marriage) to the King's daughter, Carlina. Carlina does not want to be married to anyone, and convinces her father to put off the actual marriage for a year until she turns 15. This angers Bard, because he feels that he should be able to bed his wife any time he wants and that this is all just a trick to string him along until Carlina is taken away from him. Bard has a misogynist view of women. He feels that he should be able to have his way with any woman because they truly want it and that they are always asking for "it" and that women are only pretending that they didn't want it and lie, claiming that they were forced. This is the same warped view that Paul has of women.
Time passes, and the year until the marriage is half over when Bard finally tries to force Carlina (this is after we have already seen him force another woman). He is caught by Carlina's brother Beltran and their friend Geremy Hastur. The King exiles Bard for seven years, in which he may not return to the realm on pain of death. During this time Bard becomes a leader in several different armies and grows up a bit. He still carries his hatred of women, but also an obsession for Carlina, whom he continues to view as his legal wife. When Bard's time of exile ends, he is called back by his father to help lead an army against the Asturias. Bard's father uses the laran (a magical/esp type power) to summon Bard's double (everyone has a true double somewhere). Bard's double is a man from another world named Paul Harrell.
The main thrust of the story (no pun intended) is Bard's desire to finally bed Carlina and to have his revenge on the Asturias. Paul can help with this, and we see them sort of circling each other, wondering how much they can trust each other. This is a very interesting sub-plot (and it feels more like sub-plot than main story).
It is a different kind of novel that has two such unsympathetic characters as the protagonists. We see the contrast of Paul/Bard in Varzil, a man who will later be known as "The Good". Varzil is trying to institute The Compact, an agreement where those who join will ban all long distance weapons and all laran weapons. Bard can't even comprehend this as he fights to win, not to be encumbered by rules. Then there are the female characters. As viewed by Bard, they are only there to be bedded (because they all want it anyway), and while they show Bard a better, more pure way, it takes a long time (and a powerful event) for the lesson to sink in.
While the novel started out slowly, I became very interested in what was going on. It was hard to actually have sympathy for Bard (he truly cared for his family and fought his best for what he felt was right....but he was still a rapist who didn't believe he was raping), but I wanted to read on to find out what happened next. Marion Zimmer Bradley has a lot of interesting things going on in this book if you can get past how horrible of a person Bard is.
Darkly Beautiful, Yet Deeply Flawed.......2001-07-05
This is one of two Darkover novels I have read that, in my opinion, have plots superior to their characters. (The other is The Bloody Sun.)
I do love this book, I have been drawn back to re-reading it many times. So why only three stars?
Well, one thing I'll warn you about right now, if you're someone who tried to read the Thomas Covenant series and stopped at the rape scene, don't bother reading either Two to Conquer or the rest of this review. You'll hate every second of it.
That said, on to my personal perspective:
There are *serious* problems with the characters in this book. I've heard people complain that the Renunciates trilogy is full of stereotypes of men and women. If that's the case, it is MILD compared to what you'll find in this one.
Perhaps part of the problem is that the main characters are both very definitely anti-heroes. MZB sometimes writes antangonists with astonishing depth and understandable yet non-cliched motivations for their actions: Dyan Ardais and Robert Kadarin of the Sharra subcycle are two excellent examples. However, she does have a tendency to fall back on the stock overbearing mysogynist as antagonistic male character. In a novel the size of, say, The Shattered Chain or Stormqueen! it doesn't matter if a stereotypical mysogynist like Kyril Ardais or Darren of Scathfell has a small part in the plot.
However, writing an entire novel with two men who think that women are always asking for it and "cry rape" after the fact (even when one of said "women" is a girl who has only just hit puberty) as the major characters is disturbing in the extreme, and they are SO over-the-top with this that it doesn't seem that they can be real. This is a real disappointment for me, since MZB's characters are usually incredibly vivid and real and non-stereotypical, complex human beings.
To compound the problem, the women are too bloody forgiving! Especially Melisendra - there are times I think she could have had as much of a personality as Dio Ridenow (who is also sometimes a bit too tolerant of her man) if MZB wasn't so caught up in making her a political and moral contrast to Bard and Paul.
More irritating still, the characters somehow manage to embody EVERY feminist cliche out there: the overweight, not conventionally beautiful woman who is nonetheless sensual and loving and noble and intelligent, not to mention far more attractive than she seemed at first glance (Melora); the pledged virgin who is thin to the point of anorexia and obsessed with her own purity (Carlina and to a lesser extent Mirella); the working-mom Superwoman who manages to have it all - a career (as court leronis), an adoring lover, and a son (Melisendra); the short, scholarly gentleman who is shown to be more of a "real man" than the more traditionally masculine men around (Varzil); and of course the boorishly macho men who go so far as to literally rape and torture women until a woman teaches them better (Bard and his "dark twin" Paul). This is just too much.
More's the pity, because the central item of the plot (the two Cherilly's duplicates meeting, wondering how far they can trust each other, and learning about themselves through each other) is a very good one. It just could have done without all the preaching.
Wisdom can come out of madness........1999-05-20
Like most of Marion Zimmer Bradleys' books "Two to Conquer" starts of with an interesting prologue. Unfortunetly after the prologue the story gets off to a slow start. But as The book is read, you become more interested and it goes much faster. The book is very interesting inroducing new ideas about far away galaxies and duplicates of ourselves and everything around us. It also shows how different people can overcome ill feelings tward each, come to terms with these feelings and make peace. There are many other interesting concepts but i wont ruin your fun. Overall this was a very interesting book.
Product Description
Multiple books shipped as one item for your convenience. Save on Shipping/Handling charges.
Product Description
Multiple books shipped as one item for your convenience. Save on Shipping/Handling charges.
Books:
- Variational and Potential Methods in the Theory of Bending of Plates with Transverse Shear Deformation (Chapman and Hall /Crc Monographs and Surveys in Pure and Applied Mathematics)
- West of Rehoboth: A Novel
- Who Is the Beast?
- Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel (Norton Paperback Fiction)
- Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O'Brien (Irish Studies in Literature and Culture)
- Wolf Boy: A Novel
- Young Turk: A Novel
- A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel
- A Healing Divorce : Transforming the End of Your Relationship with Ritual and Ceremony
- A Ligurian Kitchen: Recipes And Tales from the Italian Riviera
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Political thriller that's a tribute to a great writer.......1998-11-02
