If You Like The Devil Wears Prada ...

Similar to “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Nannie Diaries” (what great titles!) if you like a little black humor and escapism, perhaps these are some titles you’ll love:

In the Drink by Kate Christensen
from Amazon.com:
Claudia Steiner long ago traded in her initial dream of making it big in journalism for a position of personal secretary and ghostwriter for Genevieve "Jackie" de Castellano, an elderly writer of bestselling novels and a lunatic to boot. In addition to her employment woes, Claudia has an unsatisfacory love live: her lover is married, and the man she loves just wants to be friend.

Love: A User's Guide by Clare Naylor
from Amazon.com:
Working for Vogue, Amy spends her days dressing waif models in London's latest apparel while fending off insults from the Gucci-garbed staff. Hardly the glamorous job she hoped it would be. But that won't stop her from fantasizing about the jet-set life she knows she's destined for -- or the prince who's bound to redeem her from a less than glowing record in romance.

Neurotica by Sue Margolis
from Booklist:
Anna Bloomfield reluctantly accepts a new writing assignment from her editor -- to write an article based on the new book by American feminist Rachel Stern, who counsels that women should pay more attention to their sexual urges and cheat on their husbands whenever they desire.

Liar's Club by Mary Karr
from Publisher’s Weekly:
Although Karr…survived a nightmarish childhood with a violent father and an alcoholic mother who married six times, she bears neither parent any animosity in this candid and humorous memoir.

Nothing to Fall Back on by Betsy Carter
from the publisher:
This moving story reveals what it is like to be stripped bare, to wander through life alone, and to finally put yourself back together again.

Slackjaw by Jim Knipfel
synopsis:
And Job thought he had it rough. In his 20s, Jim Knipfel learned he had a rare, untreatable genetic eye disease and an inoperable brain lesion that was responsible for his depression and violent mood swings. This on top of a troubled marriage, a lack of any career prospects, and a severe drinking problem.

The House on Beartown Road by Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt
from Kirkus Reviews:
(The) tale of the year Cohen's life went to hell. One minute she was...lazing through her days as a rural-upstate New York reporter and nights in a secluded farmhouse with a loving husband and infant daughter; the next, her Alzheimer's-afflicted father had moved in, her husband had moved across the country to shack up with an 18-year-old, and winter buried the house in snow.

The Good Nanny by Benjamin Cheever
from the publisher:
A searing black comedy about nannies and parents, publishing and prejudice, and the not-so-gentle art of ambition.

The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Livng by Martin Clark
from the publisher:
Meet Evers Wheeling of Norton, North Carolina. A semidissolute judge, undistracted by children, hobbies, or a fulfilling marriage, he's moving down the road to nowhere at a furious clip - until the morning he's confronted by Ruth Esther English, an attractive young woman whose dim-witted brother happens to be up on drug charges.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
synopsis:
... gritty and uproarious tale of a Brooklyn P.I. with problems: a dead boss, women trouble, and an uncontrollable case of Tourette's syndrome.

Some other authors you might try: Jennifer Weiner, Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger, Carl Hiaasen, Lolly Winston, Elinor Lipman and Kim Wong Keltner.

Meg Raymond
Reference Librarian
________________________________________________________________________

Posted - 07/12/2007 : 11:43:40 AM  

Here are some suggestions that have the some of the same elements of

"The Devil Wears Prada" - bright, brittle, conniving bosses, plucky
heroines, devious, nice or clueless men - and lots of humor and romance,
but nothing that verges over into outright trashy.

"Lipstick Jungle" by Candace Bushnell. Three very different, very
high-powered Manhattan career women. Three very different mid-life
crises.

"The Bestseller" by Olivia Goldsmith. At Davis & Dash, a New York
publishing powerhouse, five authors are slated to be "hot" in the coming
year. But only one will be A Bestseller. An insider's look at the
glamour, the glitz - and the grime and gaminess - of the book publishing
biz.

"Straight Talking" by Jane Green. One of the premier "Brit Chick Lit"
authors. This was her debut title in England, and follows four
20-something "ladettes" through life and love and work and men.

"Bad Heir Day" by Wendly Holden. Anna is a struggling novelist who is
thrown for a loop when her bad-news (but oh-so handsome and wealthy)
boyfriend kicks her to the curb. She ends up as a nanny for an eight
year old who she is sure is Satan's pup.

"Can You Keep a Secret" by Sophie Kinsella. Emma meets a handsome
stranger on a plane, and feels compelled to spill her guts and tell him
every humiliating secret detail about her life. Strangers on a plane,
right? Imagine her mortification on Monday morning when this man shows
up at work as the elusive company Big Cheese.

"The Nanny Diaries" by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Two former au
pairs write a (probably! Hopefully! Mostly!) fictionalized account of
what it's like caring for the offspring of the very wealthy in New York
City.

"Second Assitants" by Clare Naylor. The subtitle says it all: "a tale
from the bottom of the Hollywood ladder". A fun look at the
dysfunctions of work, love and life on the Other Coast.

"The Key" by Jennifer Sturman. Rachel often jokes about killing her
ogre of a boss. But when he's murdered and she becomes the prime
suspect, the jokes don't seem so funny. She has to find the real killer
before she ends up in prison - and wearing those oh-so unflattering
orange jumpsuits!

"Bergdorf Blondes" by Plum Sykes. This novel somehow humanizes those
ultra-thin, ultra-trendy, spendaholic New Yorkers that we all love to
hate.

"Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner. Cannie is absolutely when horrified
when her ex-boyfriend chronicles their love life in a magazine article
titled "Loving a Larger Woman". She's not sure which is worse - having
her sex life exposed or her insecurities about her size and weight. A
very funny read.

"If Looks Could Kill" by Kate White. Cat Jones is the editor of a
glamorous woman's magazine and one of those Bosses From Hell. When her
nanny drops dead (poisoned by some candy intended for Cat),
investigative reporter Bailey Weggins is on the case.

"Out of the Blue" by Isabel Wolff. Faith Martin is a decidedly
unglamorous celebrity weather forecaster with a long-term, comfortable marriage and settled-but-not-boring life. When her husband starts buying new suits, worrying about his appearance and working late, Faith doesn't think he's being unfaithful and that her life is about to be turned upside down.

I also want to include one last title. "You Look Nice Today" by Stanley Bing. This title is in no way a romance, and isn't about a horrible boss. Instead, the boss is the nice, befuddled, pretty average Joe who tells a female employee "you look nice today", which starts a chain reaction and culminates into the career-wrecking maelstrom of sexual harassment claims.

M. E. Raymond

Reference Librarian

Salem Church Road branch