Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese’s hit Netflix series, Pretend It’s a City.
‘The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever’ DAVID SEDARIS
‘She’s inexhaustible – her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour’ MARTIN SCORSESE
‘The rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny’ HADLEY FREEMAN
Lebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life – from children (‘rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money’) to landlords (‘it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches’). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our exhausting culture of self-betterment (‘3.40pm. I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and smoke a bit more’).
The Fran Lebowitz Reader was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-06-22
‘The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever’ DAVID SEDARIS
‘She’s inexhaustible – her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour’ MARTIN SCORSESE
‘The rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny’ HADLEY FREEMAN
Lebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life – from children (‘rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money’) to landlords (‘it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches’). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our exhausting culture of self-betterment (‘3.40pm. I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and smoke a bit more’).
The Fran Lebowitz Reader was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-06-22
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Reviews
Unique .... Lebowitz offers vocational guides for aspiring heiresses, popes, empresses; manuals for landlords; guidance to the rich who wish to meet the poor
The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever
Despite now being over 40 years old, the essays still glitter, every bone-dry sentence pared down and packed with her unmistakeable personality
Hilarious ... an unlikely and perhaps alarming combination of Mary Hartman and Mary McCarthy.... To a dose of Huck Finn add some Lenny Bruce, Oscar Wilde and Alexis de Tocqueville, a dash of cabdriver, an assortment of puns, minced jargon, and top it off with smarty pants
Fran Lebowitz is the rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny
In a world of humming, hawing, couching and obfuscating, there's nothing more refreshing than a dose of Fran Lebowitz
In a world of humming, hawing, couching and obfuscating, there's nothing more refreshing than a dose of Fran Lebowitz
A forcefield of comic self-certainty in a world of anxious uncertainty
'the most well-connected iconoclast since Dorothy Parker'
The funniest woman in America
A marvellous raconteur, full of wit, wisdom and rebellion. Genuinely one of the funniest people in the world
As witty, original, and impeccably discerning as the woman herself, The Fran Lebowitz Reader is a modern classic set to be read for generations to come
She's inexhaustible - her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour
Right on the mark ... Among the things she hates ... baggage-claim areas, high tech, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan