Thursday, October 10, 2013

Book Review - Summer at Tiffany, Marjorie Hart




Summer at Tiffany

 

Marjorie Hart


Category: Nonfiction: Memoir: Adventure

Synopsis: The author recounts working for Tiffany and Co. in New York City during the summer of 1946.

Date finished: 16 September 2013

Rating: ****½

Comments:
Chances are if you created a Wordle of my reviews, the word “charming” would be about the largest. I live to be charmed by books. That’s why I read. Well, that, and to learn. And to escape. Regardless. This book is capital-C Charming. I smiled the whole way through.

I was charmed by the 1940s naiveté of Marjorie and her friend Marty. When a prominent NYC man tells them his wife loves Tiffany’s, that he’s “worked for them for years” they think he literally works for Tiffany and use him as a reference when interviewing there!

I was charmed by the way they found themselves in the right place at the right time—at Tiffany’s when Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich walk in and in Times Square when Roosevelt announced the end of World War II.

I was charmed by their mishaps and adventures, like when Marjorie opens a case of loose pearls in the Tiffany elevator, and they skitter to the floor. Or when she’s learning to sniff brandy when the vice president of Tiffany and Co. shows up unannounced.

I was charmed by her letters home, by her romance with her military man Jim, by her wartime frugality. I was charmed by her Norwegian heritage, her mention of lutefisk and lefse (quite Norwegian myself, I grew up on lefse and own my grandmother’s ruby glass lutefisk bowl). I was charmed by her hokey gee whiz exclamations. I was charmed by her mention of Iowa sports announcer Dutch Reagan, who decades later, of course, becomes President Reagan. 

I was just charmed. I ate the book up. It was a nice refreshing romp through a sweet time in history and in Marjorie’s life. I’m so glad her writers group encouraged her to write it!

Would you recommend this to a friend?
Wholeheartedly.

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