Resting Rich Face
Menu 01.25
Since I last posted, The Booktender turned one! As a birthday present from me to you, I thought I’d share the story of how it got its name.
In late 2023, my then 10-year-old looked at my piles and told me I should open a bookstore.
What I need are some shelves, I said. But funny you say that–it’s my favorite fantasy.
I’ll help you, she said.
We went to the library which, like all good things in Tucson, is located in a strip mall. She noticed several retail units available, all too small for our made-up store. Except for one. It used to be a restaurant, and we spied a large mirrored bar area. It would have to be a combination bookstore and cocktail bar.
Oh, but I’m a kid. I can’t work in a bar, she said.
That’s okay, I said. You can be the booktender and I’ll be the bartender.
When we got home, she made a logo. For weeks, my adorable little manager pestered me to take the next steps, call to find out about the rent, etc.
Having made it through college—and certain “failure to launch” scenarios after—by working in restaurants and retail, I recognized the logic in basing my escapist fantasy on Tactics That Worked For Me Before. But I harbored no illusions about what that work entails. And my little The Shop Around the Corner fantasy aside, I do remember how You’ve Got Mail ends. Since I only have two kidneys, I was not about to risk the savings I’d built with her college in mind to launch a tough business, only to have it become a Spirit Halloween next year.
But damn if I’ll let my biggest cheerleader down, when she so clearly saw what I cared about and believed in my power to make something of it. I wanted that, too—so The Booktender was born.
Don’t worry, the kid’s still in charge. You might notice some changes in the look of the newsletter, but I have not changed out the custom logo. And this weekend she admonished me to post my monthly list or else I’d lose subscribers. I was like:
But without further delay, here you go. The Booktender’s signature offering for January 2025: the Resting Rich Face.
Entitlement
Rumaan Alam, October 2024
An unsettling social thriller. Brooke Orr has left her job as a teacher at a charter school to become a program coordinator at the Asher and Carol Jaffe Foundation. The octogenarian stationery mogul takes a shine to her in a way that taps into her particular needs and wants, her family story and beliefs about money. What ensues has been described as a “vicious exposé of affluent liberalism.” Biting and fast-paced.
Character Limit
Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, Sept 2024
The insider story of Musk’s takeover of Twitter and its financial fallout. Do I have it in me to read 480 pages detailing the tantrums and corrosion and power plays of the man behind the late night “almost always sober” billionair diatribes? To be honest, I’m not sure. But it feels like it might be worthwhile to have a fuller picture of the character filling the Melania-sized hole in the president’s life and this investigation has received high praise.
Long Island Compromise
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, July 2024
The title is a dirty joke about the fact that in America we can say anything we want about sex but we can’t talk about money. Inspired by the true story of the kidnapping of a wealthy Long Island patriarch in the '80s, this novel from a talented celebrity profiler and the author of Fleishman Is In Trouble goes deep into generational trauma, the way money endangers and protects the wealthy, and what happens in the moment three siblings learn their trust fund has dwindled to nothing. It has gotten mixed reviews and I want to decide for myself.
Honey
Victor Lodato, April 2024
As a rebellious teenager, Honey Fasinga left for Bryn Mawr against her mobster father The Great Pietro’s wishes, but not without a roll of bills he slipped into her pocket and a prediction, “I know you come back.” She’s made her own money in the art world and now she’s returned to where the bodies are buried. When her grand nephew demands money with an urgent need, a young neighbor finds herself stuck in a cycle of abuse, and she catches the eye of a much younger artist after she’s car-jacked, she reckons with the way she was raised and what it means to be 82 in a world that’s changing. Will she turn a blind eye to violence and love, or let her guard down and accept these people and their problems into her life? A bit jumbled and meandering, but centered on an unforgettable character.
The Actual
Saul Bellow, 1997
A novella focused on an aging businessman who has longed for forty years for his first love and becomes reconnected to her through their mutual relationship with a billionaire. Adding it to this list for a bittersweet note and because the main character describes the wealthy he circulates among this way, even as he seeks their association:
These were all commonplace persons… I looked down on them. They were lacking in higher motives. They were run-of-the-mill products of our mass democracy, with no distinctive contribution to make to the history of the species, satisfied to pile up money or seduce women… male but not manly and living, the men and women alike, without beauty, without virtue, wiout the slightest independence of spirit—privileged in the way of money and goods, the beneficiaries of man’s conquest of nature as the Enlightenment foresaw it and of the high-tech achievements that have transformed the material world. Individually and personally, we are unequal to the scope of these collective achievements.
Seems relevant.
The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton, 1905
I like the cover of this 2020 edition with intro by Jennifer Egan
Beautiful and well-bred Lily Barton’s disastrous quest to find a rich husband, told Wharton’s signature savage observations. So mean yet so sensitive. I have not touched this one for decades and am really looking forward to it. Alyssa aka Nerdy Nurse Reads has a well-timed slow read of this book starting this month, if you’d like a more detailed read along. I am going to try to follow along with her— though I have yet to read a book I really like slowly in my life, I believe in trying new things.
In case you missed it
Last year’s posts have now been archived. In case you missed my 2024 Year in Reading reflection and top 10 books under 200 pages in this post, I’ve enabled a free 7-day trial so you can grab it if you’d like.
So tell me…
Which topic feels more awkward around your table: sex or money?
Want to read any of these with me?
What are your reading goals this year?
Cheers,
Very excited to see two books featuring octogenarian women, my jam these days.
Happy anniversary, Abra!!