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  1. $17.50 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

Shopgirl

by Steve Martin

Shopgirl Cover

ISBN13: 9780786885688
ISBN10: 0786885688
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Review-a-Day   (What is Review-a-Day?)

"Readers should be grateful to have such an elegant and insightful guide to the human heart. That it is wrapped in such a tender and enchanting story makes it all the more valuable." Georgie Lewis, Powells.com read the entire Powells.com review

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

From the actor, comedian, and New York Times bestselling author comes a bittersweet story of modern day love and romance.

One of our country's most acclaimed and beloved entertainers, Steve Martin is quickly becoming recognized as "a gorgeous writer capable of being at once melancholy and tart, achingly innocent and astonishingly ironic" (Elle). A frequent contributor to both The New Yorker and The New York Times as well as the author of the New York Times bestseller Pure Drivel, Martin is once again poised to capture the attention of readers with his debut novella, a delightful depiction of life and love.

The "shopgirl" is Mirabelle, a beautiful aspiring artist who pays the rent by selling gloves at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus. She captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy, lonely businessman. As Ray and Mirabelle tentatively embark on a relationship, they both struggle to decipher the language of love — with consequences that are both comic and heartbreaking. Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, Shopgirl is a work of disarming tenderness.

Review:

"A delicate, poignant modern romance about a shy shopgirl." Richard Corliss, Time magazine

Review:

"Wryly omniscient, ruthlessly truthful, [Martin] calls to mind Austen with an up-to-date, masculine spin." Vogue

Review:

"Steve Martin's most achieved work to date." New York Times

Review:

"Shopgirl has some of Chekhov's autumn light about it: a story remembering all the really fine recent things." Talk

Review:

"Shopgirl reads as smoothly and pleasurably as the novels of the late W.M. Spackman..." Los Angeles Times

Review:

"Shopgirl is an Audrey Hepburn of a book: slim, lovely, and ever so old-fashioned." People

Review:

"A tender love story." Entertainment Weekly

Review:

"It's the signature combination of exhilaration and vulnerability that Martin offers us with extraordinary confidence." Elle

Review:

"His prose is almost Zen-like and his revelations superb." New York Post

Review:

"The action moves quickly, yet the narrative takes its time to develop, which is a very skillful bit of writing business. Martin's literary fable of a novella is disarming, particularly for those who come to it expecting the biting, zany humor of Pure Drivel, but it may mark a new direction in a noteworthy writer's career." Booklist

Synopsis:

The national bestseller — now available in paperback! With more than 340,000 copies in print, Steve Martin's Shopgirl has landed on bestseller lists nationwide including: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, this story of modern day love and romance is a work of disarming tenderness.

About the Author

Steve Martin is one of today's most talented performers. He has had huge success as a film actor, with such credits as Roxanne, Father of the Bride, Parenthood, The Spanish Prisoner, L.A. Story, and the recent Bowfinger, for which he also wrote the screenplay. He's won Emmys for his television writing and two Grammys for comedy albums. In addition to his bestselling collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, he has also written a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. His work appears frequently in the New Yorker and The New York Times. He lives in Los Angeles.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
mary.raglin, October 22, 2008 (view all comments by mary.raglin)
A modern semi-classic. I'm a fan of Martin's from way back and to find that he writes in such an insightful way WOW!
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(3 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
Effie, June 2, 2008 (view all comments by Effie)
Intriguing "love" story written in a unique way. Some very penetrating characterizations of people and places, too.
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(2 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
crowyhead, August 22, 2006 (view all comments by crowyhead)
This is a frank but also gentle novel, melancholy and funny and quite lovely. I was afraid it was going to turn into one of those "free spirited young woman teaches jaded man how to live and love" type of things, and there's elements of that, definitely, but it's much less simplistic than it could have been. Martin shows a real wisdom about the way people think, and I definitely had a few shock-of-recognition moments. Good stuff.
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(13 of 22 readers found this comment helpful)
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780786885688
Subtitle:
A Novella
Author:
Martin, Steve
Publisher:
Theia
Location:
New York, N.Y.
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Clerks
Subject:
Young women
Subject:
Love stories
Subject:
Humorous fiction
Subject:
Department stores
Subject:
Medication abuse
Subject:
Beverly Hills
Subject:
Bildungsromans
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Humorous Stories
Copyright:
Series Volume:
v. 3
Publication Date:
October 2001
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
144
Dimensions:
7.96x5.58x.38 in. .39 lbs.

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