Ground Up - by Michael Idov (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Mark and Nina descend on New York to educate the locals on authentic cafe culture. What follows is a brutal and hilarious downward spiral that will strip them of money, friends, and finally, sanity--and offer salvation through something they had never experienced: failure.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Light streams through the windows as the espresso machine roars; a gorgeous, rich scent fills the air; and witty conversation unspools over the porcelain cups.</p><p>That's the café dream. Mark and Nina are about to experience the reality. Determined to re-create the perfect Viennese coffeehouse, they descend on New York's gritty but hip Lower East Side to educate the locals on authentic café culture. Soon Mark and Nina are in a downward spiral that will strip them of money, friends, sex life, status, shelter, and, finally, sanity--and offer salvation through something they have never experienced: disaster.</p><p>Inspired by the author's own coffeehouse hell, <i>Ground Up</i> is a sharp and funny portrait of a New York constantly reinventing itself, and a surprisingly tender story of falling out of love and back in it again.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>"Charming, manic, and delicious. A caffeinated valentine from a New York already gone, but certainly not forgotten. I drank it right up and felt oddly comforted." --<i>Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan</i></p><p>"Every quotable sentence in Michael Idov's brilliantly funny first novel (First novel? How is this possible?) induced in this reader awe and jealousy. Ground Up's narrator is a voice and sensibility I'd follow into any story, any neighborhood. There's talent here of the Nabokovian kind, wresting truth, love, and mordant wit from delightfully misguided dreams. I loved every word." --<i>Elinor Lipman, author of Then She Found Me</i></p><p>"<i>Ground Up </i>is a rare breed--a sparkling work of light satire written by a ridiculously talented man. The book starts out funny, keeps being funny, then actually gets funnier. There is not a wasted word, not one lame passage. Mr. Idov likes to say that he is not a 'serious' writer. Meanwhile, his brilliant novel flips the bird to our humorless, insecure literary caste system and reminds us of another author of witty urban stories: the young Anton Chekhov. But, thanks to Idov, my pleasant habit of using a coffeehouse as an office is forever tinged with guilt." --<i>Anya Ulinich, author of Petropolis</i></p><p>"A fiercely funny yet frequently touching novel about the nightmare that the American dream can become . . . Idov . . . strikes all the right chords--both cultural and emotional. Narrator Mark Scharf and his wife, Nina Liau, decide to open a hip coffeehouse on Manhattan's Lower East Side, based on their romantic memories of one they had visited in Vienna . . . Everything that can go wrong will, in a manner both hilarious (the coffeehouse) and poignant (the marriage) . . . Though the protagonist's own book reviews are usually caustic, even he would give this debut a rave." --<i>Kirkus Reviews (starred review)</i></p><p>"A sagely wry novel . . . Packed with insight and frequently hilarious asides, Idov's debut mercilessly takes down 'money is an illusion' bohoism." --<i>Publishers Weekly</i></p><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><p>Michael Idov is a staff writer for <i>New York</i> magazine and a frequent contributor of Russian-language columns and criticism to major Moscow publications. <i>Ground Up</i> is his first novel.</p>
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