One Fifth Avenue CD

Additional One Fifth Avenue CD Information

"Bushnell...broadens her scope in her latest ode to New York strivers and sophisticates...The fun lies in the author's acute observations about everything from real estate envy to midlife crises."
--More

"Where [Bushnell] goes, her army of stilletoed fans follow. You gotta love it: the conflict, the secrets-telling, the peek into the world of the rich and valueless. It all adds up to a juicy summer read."
--New York Post

"One Fifth Avenue is all things an escapist read she be: quick and wicked and wry. There's a blown-out bitch to root against, a star-crossed couple to root for, and a Tim Gunn-style best friend who deserves his own book. Great, guiltless fun."
--Entertainment Weekly

From one of the most consistently astute and engaging social commentators of our day comes another look at the tough and tender women of New York City--this time, through the lens of where they live.

One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into--one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established--or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building.

Acutely observed and mercilessly witty, One Fifth Avenue is a modern-day story of old and new money, that same combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Many decades later, Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: They thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful--at least to the public eye. But Bushnell is an original, and One Fifth Avenue is so fresh that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and fortunes lost in a day have never happened before.

From Sex and the City through four successive novels, Bushnell has revealed a gift for tapping into the zeitgeist of any New York minute and, as one critic put it, staying uncannily "just the slightest bit ahead of the curve." And with each book, she has deepened her range, but with a light touch that makes her complex literary accomplishments look easy. Her stories progress so nimbly and ring so true that it can seem as if anyone might write them--when, in fact, no one writes novels quite like Candace Bushnell. Fortunately for us, with One Fifth Avenue, she has done it again.

What Customers Say About One Fifth Avenue CD:

I really enjoyed it. This was the perfect escape book. Money, New York, and characters that are miles away from everyday life.

You keep hoping one of her characters will wake up and realise there is a whole wide world outside of Manhattan island (beyond the Hamptons, even)., but they never do. I didn't like the author trumpeting her own horn in How Stella got her Groove Back, and like it less here.New York City should sue Bushnell for making the city seem a cesspool of sniping greedy dilettantes - none of her characters are ever healthy, but are so self-righteously proud that they not only live in Manhattan, but represent it somehow. The New York Bushnell paints in her books is a warped Neverland - there is no Borough but Manhattan, and no race but Caucasian. I have read all of Bushnell's books and found them to be depressing "celebrations" of self-absorbed and deluded characters. I think Bushnell's personal development stopped halfway through "Wall Street" - if you don't believe Greed (and snobbery) is good, you won't have a good time with her novels. I consider it a major mistake that Bushnell gave Janie Wilcox from "Nice and Easy" her own novel with "Trading Up", and find Bushnell is doing the same with the Winnie character from "Highlights for Adults", in the story arc of Mindy Gooch. I most prefer 4 Blondes, because at least the hideous characters are reduced to a story, not a lengthy novel where we are extensively exposed to their shallow selfishness. These nasty empty people can feature in a story, but page after page of their continued adventures in narcissism is too hard to stomach.In One Fifth Avenue, we have Bushnell wallowing in her success, and self-referencing, with the vapid Lola Fabrikant (gee, how original to name your Lolita character Lola) constantly aspiring to be Carrie Bradshaw.

Slow in some places, but gets really good towards the ended. love, relationships, family trouble, wealth. Good read. Most of the characters are very likealbe. Does money get you everything that matters in life. It's a good read.

What I loved most about Sex and the City was the way that everything was always kind of over the top. But none of that happened. For example, at what seems to be the high point of the book, Sam, the young son of the coop board's president, gets angry at Peter, the newest fabulously rich and corrupt tenant -- so he cuts the wires to his internet and Peter loses a business deal. I kept waiting for the over the top behavior -- I was expecting Sam to kill the wife or attempt to burn the apartment building down.

Me, I was waiting for Samantha from Sex and the City. Instead, the apartment was sold and no one liked the new tenants, and a few people lost their jobs, but it was all rather tame, really. subdued. You know what. At one point in the beginning, Bushnell makes mention of Thackeray and Vanity Fair, and Henry James and I felt like perhaps she was going for an upstairs,downstairs sophisticated drawing room comedy kind of thing. Compared to that, One Fifth Avenue falls flat.

It's as though the emotions are heated and the plot twists and turns, but it's all rather. She never showed up. Boo hoo. I kept waiting for Lola to marry Philip, just so she could get his fabulous apartment, and then she would turn around and dump him and his aunt out on the street.

You don't want to look. Bushnell has again created characters and situations that one can't help but to feel like a voyeur. Louise Houghton's, THE Queen of NYC society, who starts all the action, by dying in her grand apartment, which then gets sold. Enter Annalisa and Paul Rice, the buyers.

way that she knows how.sex. Sex in the City author Candace Bushnell has hit the proverbial "nail on the head" with One Fifth Avenue. You can't help but to look. Annalisa just won't hear of it.Billy Litchfield is the dear who be-friended Annalisa to help her navigate NY society. Mindy is the president of the board of One Fifth Avenue and tries so hard to be "one of them" but she is so miserable and feels cheated by what life promised her 20 years ago. James, on the other hand, is a tortured soul and seems to get himself into more trouble as the story comes together.

When he doesn't get his way with the board, he threatens to buy everyone out of the place or even move altogether. If Manhattan is a gem, then this novel incorporates all the facets that go along with such a piece.One Fifth Avenue is the address of a Greenwich Village condo, which in a former life was a hotel. The list of characters goes on with gossip columnist Enid, her nephew & screenwriter du jour, Philip, a top actress, Schiffer, with whom Philip once had a relationship, and Lola, who tries desperately to get ahead with the best (only). Sam is "the" computer guy of the building, and he drives a good deal. The saving grace of these two is their teenage son, Sam. In the end, she finds her freedom in more ways than one, and you have to applaud her for hanging in there, being inventive, and surviving this race of humanity. It's like a bad accident.

The description of the characters and the apartments they occupy gives the reader a strong sense of who is in charge in this story. He has his own issues with family and the price of NY real estate, but keeps a tight lid on all matters of a personal nature. The antics of these distinctive personalities pull the reader in with such a force that once started, it is really difficult to put down. There's Mrs. While he charges an hourly fee with residents who require his computer expertise, he extends this service for free to the doormen because he knows what a cheap tipper his parents are at the holidays, especially his mother. The characterization of Billy is a bit Willy Loman, but the essence carries through of a man who lived, and lived well, in New York's society circles.Oh, and one could not have this cast of characters and their conflicts without Mindy and James Gooch. Annalisa begins to make her own way in NYC society, while Paul starts his own personal "wealth race" as a hedge fund manager. When the invite to Houghton's funeral arrives, he knows then that New York has eaten them all up.