Sunday, August 15, 2010

Book Review: Summer at Tiffany


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! It was so enjoyable to read. It's the author's memoir about the summer of 1945 when she and her friend take off from the University of Iowa (which I now live just minutes away from!) and go to New York City, where they end up getting summer jobs at Tiffany, of all places. They were the first women to ever work on the floor there. Her writing brings that time and place to life vividly. Among many other experiences, Judy Garland came into Tiffany for a shopping trip while they were working there, and they were in Times Square when the end of WWII was announced. This is my favorite way to read about history, through the perspective of people who actually lived it. She wrote this for her children and grandchildren but anyone would benefit from reading this very nicely written memoir.

*My favorite quote from the book, since I'm an "Easterner" now living in Iowa, so I've had the fun of putting up with my fellow Easterner's jokes about Iowa:

"Besides the wild 'Iowa-ho-ha' lines the Easterners fed us, now we weren't even on the map! Wait till Marty hears this one. She had vowed that the next time Iowa was put down, she'd say, 'Do you know which state has the highest literacy rate?' We had a heyday dreaming up comebacks."