Synopses & Reviews
I've divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don't think placing this ad is the biggest comedown I've ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34.
Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds.
They Call Me Naughty Lola is a testament to the creativity and humor that can still be found among men and women longing for love and allergic to the concepts of Internet and speed dating. Here is an irresistible collection of the most brilliant and often absurd personal ads from the world's funniest and most erudite lonely-hearts column. The ads have been called surreal haikus of the heart, and in an age of false advertising, the men and women who write them are hindered neither by high expectations nor by positivism of any kind. And yet, while hopes of finding a suitable mate remain low, the column has produced a handful of marriages, many friendships, and at least one divorce.
Here are the young, old, fat, bald, healthy, ill, rich, and poor hoping that they can find true love, or at the very least, someone to call them Naughty Lola.
Review
"They may be bald, aging, or chubby, but as this collection reveals, those who place personals in the London Review of Books are ever hopeful." Library Journal
Synopsis
A whimsical collection of personal ads as published in the London Review of Books is comprised of some of the lonely-hearts column's most biting and erudite entries, in which hopefuls abandoned both positivism and false advertising in their quests for desirable partners. 50,000 first printing.
Synopsis
From the same U.K. publisher who brought readers Eats, Shoots and Leaves comes this collection of personal ads from the young, old, fat, bald, healthy, ill, rich, and poor hoping they can find true love, or at the very least, someone to call them Naughty Lola.
About the Author
David Rose is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and has worked for The Guardian, The Observer, and the BBC. He is the author of five previous books, including Guantanamo (The New Press), and lives in Oxford, England.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction
Love is strange -- wait 'til you see my feet
I've divorced better men than you
Last time I had this much fun, I was on forty tablets a day
Golden nutritious wheat in a rotting column of chaff
I once came within an ace ofmaking my own toothpaste
Vodka, canasta, evenings in, and cold, cold revenge
They call me naughty Lola
My last chance to get a man fell in autumn, 1992
I'm not a vet, but I do enjoy volunteer work
My mind is a globe of excitement
Must all the women in my life take the witness stand?
Like the ad above, but better-educated
The harsh realities of my second mortgage
This column reads like a list of X-File character rejects
Failure? Pah! I invented the word
Evel Knievel / chronology of jumps and injuries
Index