summer at tiffany's

"Summer at Tiffany's" by Marjorie Hart is a super cute memoir of a summer at the end of WWII. Marjorie and her friend Marty got jobs as the first female pages at Tiffany's on 5th Avenue. They were wide-eyed college girls from Iowa and enjoyed a glimpse of glamourous nightclubs. They dated servicemen and saw Judy Garland and mourned the loss of a cousin in the war. Despite the sadness, it's an innocent time - they are super excited that their apartment has a toaster.

Kind of too bad she didn't go to Yale, though. (While in NY, she impressed someone with her cello-playing and they offered her admission to Yale. But she turned it down.)

"Mennonite in a Little Black Dress" by Rhoda Janzen is hilarious! The cover photo of a dress made me think it would be really cutesy, but the author is a professor. She went through a surgery gone bad, a car accident and her husband leaving her within a period of months and then returned to her parents' home who are Mennonites. The real attraction is her deadpan sense of humor - recognizing the ridiculousness of her train wreck situation and finding solace in the values of family and community. She is never sappy - she's honest about her bad marriage and her responsibiity for staying with him so long. She has so much clarity and appreciation, it's really uplifting to read.

I started "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks and I already love it!