Meet Eudora Welty, better known as Dora. Dora is 35 years old, single, unemployed, and living in L.A. Everything in her life has fallen apart, except for her love of books. When things get tough for her, she escapes into a book and lives in that world for days at a time. Dora's family and friends worry about her, but she insists she's happy. That is until she meets a handsome man who works in her local bookstore. She dreams about having the courage to talk to him.
Dora grew up with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. She sees herself turning into her mother between her drinking and her book escapism. This is the last thing Dora wants, so she decides to take control of her life. Dora confronts her fears and ghosts of her past. In the mean time, love falls into her heart without warning. But is it love, or just an intense literary connection?
Readers will love the numerous references to famous authors and books scattered throughout this novel. This book was a delightful read that I devoured on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I found myself relating to Dora's idea of complete bliss, doing nothing but reading for hours on end. Dora's story reads like a conversation with a close friend. At times readers will think Dora is a real person and your heart will go out to her.
The word bibliophile is used to describe someone obsessed with reading and collecting books. In this day and age, I feel people use this term to describe anyone who reads ''too much'' to their tastes. Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack defend the closet bibliophile and show there is no shame in being a complete bookworm.
Dora's character is intelligent, passionate, and insecure. She isn't running around town with hunky men driving BMW's. She's hiding out in her apartment with her books. Dora wants a man who shares her love of books and truly loves her with all his heart.
Will Dora find the perfect man or will she settle for less? Will Dora finally get her life together and survive living in L.A.? LITERACY AND LONGING IN L.A. is a delicious literary feast that all bibliophiles will be sure to enjoy.
Some women shop. Some eat. Dora cures the blues by bingeing
on books--reading one after another, from Flaubert to bodice
rippers, for hours and days on end. In this wickedly funny
and sexy literary debut, we meet the beguiling, beautiful
Dora, whose unique voice combines a wry wit and
vulnerability as she navigates the road between reality and
fiction.
Dora, named after Eudora Welty, is an indiscriminate book
junkie whose life has fallen apart--her career, her
marriage, and finally
her self-esteem. All she has left is her love of literature,
and the book benders she relied on as a child. Ever since
her larger-than-life father wandered away and her
book-loving, alcoholic mother was left with two young
daughters, Dora and her sister, Virginia, have clung to each
other, enduring a childhood filled with literary pilgrimages
instead of summer vacations. Somewhere along the way
Virginia made the leap into the real world. But Dora isnβt
quite there yet. Now sheβs coping with a painful separation
from her husband, scraping the bottom of a dwindling
inheritance, and attracted to a seductive book-seller who
seems to embody all that literature has to
offer--intelligent ideas, romance, and an escape from her
problems.
Joining Dora in her odyssey is an elderly society
hair-brusher, a heartbroken young girl, a hilarious
off-the-wall female teamster, and Doraβs mother, now on the
wagon, trying to make amends. Along the way Dora faces some
powerful choices. Between two irresistible men. Between
idleness and work. And most of all between the joy of
well-chosen words and the untidiness of real people and real
life.
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