The Anglophile - Softcover

Laurie Gwen Shapiro is a documentary filmmaker and the author of The Matzo Ball Heiress and The Unexpected Salami, an ALA notable book. She lives in New York City with her husband and their daughter.

Nice Jewish Girl makes good, as in Shapiro's previous offering, The Matzo Ball Heiress. Shari Diamond is living in the uber-hip East Village, working on her graduate degree in the little-known language Volapük and dating a Nice Jewish Boy. Happy? Not she. Her long-sought-after research subject has bitten the dust, her NJB Kevin has shown his true boring colors and her passion for all things British remains unfulfilled; she's never set foot on the other side of the Pond. A conference in Chicago finds her squiring about a charming, appropriately pasty gentleman of the English persuasion, by the swoonable name of Kit Brown. Letting Kevin float conveniently out of her mind, she passes a delicious night in the company of His Britness, only to discover in the morning he is the mysterious world expert in Volapük-and he's already solved her thesis. Bugger! What's a girl to do? Why, make a public fool of herself and then invite him back to New York, of course. The story unrolls according to chick-lit formula; astute readers surely won't be in breathless anticipation of which man she ends up with. Tales of Shari's Queens upbringing and glimpses of her hilarious family (Aunt Dot and her pet skunk, for instance) add humor and humanity to an otherwise blasé tale.
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