Summer In The City

"I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

True. I love New York in August, despite the heat and gross smells. So many people are away - and yet no matter how many people are away, Midtown, as always, is so crowded you can barely push your way down the sidewalk. It is exactly what I love and hate most about New York.

I recently started a job at a big publishing company - a job I've been hoping for, and working towards, for so long that I never thought this day would come. So far, it has been wonderful (and busy); I am loving everything about it. The feeling that my dedication to finding a job in this industry has finally paid off - after all the times I doubted and cursed myself - is so great that I feel I'm going to burst with relief. Best immediate prize for getting this job: the Take shelves scattered around my office, which are exactly what they sound like - shelves where you can just take any and all the books that you like. Hundreds of books. For the taking. It is magical.

Recently read (and soon to be written about, I swear): Rachel Shukert's Everything Is Going To Be Great, Tana French's Faithful Place, Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants, Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, plus the bunch of books I read over the past few months that I never got to. They're a-comin'.

Currently reading: Joshua Ferris's Then We Came To The End. Phenomenal.

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