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Dating Tips for the Unemployed
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

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Average Rating
Published:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2016
Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
One of the Believer’s Best Books of the Year: One woman’s journey through that awkward period between being born and dying.
 
A modern odyssey about trying to find one’s home in the world, this collection of wickedly funny and offbeat vignettes touches upon quantum physics; the Donner Party; arctic exploration; Greek mythology; Rocky I, II, V, IV, VI, and III respectively; and literary immortality. Dating Tips for the Unemployed “melds novel, autobiography, and all manner of asides as [the author] flails at art, love, and friendship with the wry intelligence of someone just wise enough to realize they have no idea what they’re doing. A flat-out joy to read” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
 
“In engaging episodes, Iris-the-character neurotically navigates dating in New York City, smokes pot on Greek islands with hapless lovers, drinks too much, deals with disapproving family, and eats a lot of cannoli. Smyles’s surreal, lyrical voice elevates these everyday scenarios into the realm of the fantastic and absurd. Included in the book are hilariously stylized advertisements full of false promises, such as ‘Health Secrets of the Roman Empire’ and ‘Have Your Portrait Painted By An Elephant!’ all for a price. Smyles is sharp, melancholy, and wickedly funny. She is unafraid to reveal and revel in her character’s flaws because it is what makes them so achingly, relatably human.” —Interview
 
“Something like a cocktail of Dorothy Parker, James Joyce, and Philip Roth iced, sweetened, and blended.” —The Nervous Breakdown
 
“Whimsy, satire, and rollicking social commentary . . . Ms. Smyles is a misanthrope-of-the-people, a standout on the order of Fran Lebowitz.” —The East Hampton Star
 
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More Details
Street Date:
06/28/2016
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780544703681
ASIN:
B011H55PGU
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Iris Smyles. (2016). Dating Tips for the Unemployed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Iris Smyles. 2016. Dating Tips for the Unemployed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Iris Smyles, Dating Tips for the Unemployed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Iris Smyles. Dating Tips for the Unemployed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
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Anne Arundel County Public Library11
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Grouped Work ID:
94c14fc4-dcd3-5e17-ff69-ea16ec57af6c
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Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 03, 2017 06:47:22
Date Updated:
Jul 20, 2023 11:00:44
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 05:41:16
Last Metadata Change:
Mar 24, 2024 05:41:16
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 05:41:19
Last Availability Change:
Jan 24, 2021 08:25:46
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 04:05:51

OverDrive Product Record

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      • bioText: Iris Smyles's stories and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, BOMB, the New York Observer, Best American Travel Writing 2015, and other publications. Her first novel, Iris Has Free Time, was published in 2013. She lives in New York and Greece. Visit her at www.IrisSmyles.com.
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One of the Believer’s Best Books of the Year: One woman’s journey through that awkward period between being born and dying.
 
A modern odyssey about trying to find one’s home in the world, this collection of wickedly funny and offbeat vignettes touches upon quantum physics; the Donner Party; arctic exploration; Greek mythology; Rocky I, II, V, IV, VI, and III respectively; and literary immortality. Dating Tips for the Unemployed “melds novel, autobiography, and all manner of asides as [the author] flails at art, love, and friendship with the wry intelligence of someone just wise enough to realize they have no idea what they’re doing. A flat-out joy to read” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
 
“In engaging episodes, Iris-the-character neurotically navigates dating in New York City, smokes pot on Greek islands with hapless lovers, drinks too much, deals with disapproving family, and eats a lot of cannoli. Smyles’s surreal, lyrical voice elevates these everyday scenarios into the realm of the fantastic and absurd. Included in the book are hilariously stylized advertisements full of false promises, such as ‘Health Secrets of the Roman Empire’ and ‘Have Your Portrait Painted By An Elephant!’ all for a price. Smyles is sharp, melancholy, and wickedly funny. She is unafraid to reveal and revel in her character’s flaws because it is what makes them so achingly, relatably human.” —Interview
 
“Something like a cocktail of Dorothy Parker, James Joyce, and Philip Roth iced, sweetened, and blended.” —The Nervous Breakdown
 
“Whimsy, satire, and rollicking social commentary . . . Ms. Smyles is a misanthrope-of-the-people, a standout on the order of Fran Lebowitz.” —The East Hampton Star
 
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        July 25, 2016
        Smyles's collection of stories and essays���her first book since her 2013 novel, Iris Has Free Time���chronicles the author's young adulthood in New York City after growing up in a right-leaning Greek family from Long Island. After a very strong, nonstop funny first story about a trip to Greece in which everyone wants to engage the tired protagonist in conversation, the rest of the book largely catalogs Iris's litany of boyfriends (an assortment of overweight, "toothless," and avuncular types) with varied results. Some stories, such as "Enter the Wu-Tang," which pokes fun at private school alumni who act like they're gangster rappers ("Having gone to public school, I had more street cred than all of them"), are successful and relatable. Other pieces, such as "Advertisements for My Posthumous Papers," though humorous, are overly long. Smyles also delves into the fun dynamic of her family: she can relate to her insomniac father, who has a basement full of late-night infomercial purchases and ran a party store when she was young. While her mother always seems to be lamenting her daughter's biological clock, Smyles herself is content to date and even be alone. She starts her own literary magazine and publishes the occasional story, to the nonchalance of her non-artistic older brothers. By the time the book winds down, our protagonist is 35 and the owner of an apartment in Brooklyn that was purchased by her parents. On paper, Smyles might seem spoiled and privileged, but her humor, self-awareness, and ability to tell a good story make her good company.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        April 15, 2016
        Smyles (Iris Has Free Time, 2013) delivers a maddening and moving not-quite-novel, not-quite-memoir about a wayward eccentric who can't connect with others. Depending on how you look at it, Iris is a writer who spends not a moment of this novel writing--except that she has somehow managed to finish every page the reader holds. Instead of working, Iris thinks about her inability to maintain healthy relationships while simultaneously trying to frighten her friends and lovers away. As with most precocious would-be intellectuals, she's able to list plenty of reasons why friendship is just too much of a hassle, even wishing for a Facebook- and Kickstarter-esque service that would allow "friends" to support one another monetarily in lieu of actually--God forbid--spending time together. In one of the book's many hapless episodes, Iris even attempts to scare off a particularly boring boyfriend by popping in multiple documentaries about historic explorations gone haywire--the Donner Party, Shackleton & Co.--right before the doomed couple has sex. "I press on," Iris confides to her reader, "viewing my debasement not as a failure of will but the final straw in a heroic tale of survival." Characteristically, debasement is easier for Iris than actually cutting ties and facing the world alone, a reality she attempts to avoid at all costs. Emotional survival is the name of the game, since Iris lives in Manhattan thanks to an influx of cash from her parents that her brother dubs "I-fare, 'like welfare but for Iris.' " At once both tone-deaf and bitingly funny, Smyles has created a contemporary portrait of the disaffected artist barely making her way in the big city, facing no repercussions except her own loneliness. Structured in small episodes like Homer's Odyssey, which serves as an epigraph for the book, Smyles' adventuress calls to mind a Jane Bowles heroine who's read Ulysses while scrolling in despair through 10 open apps on her iPhone. Smyles' portrayal of Iris in all her weirdness offers much to recognize, fear, and embrace. Walking the line between self-obsession and thoughtful portraiture, Smyles explores an inextricable link between sex and loneliness, self-loathing and self-acceptance in contemporary New York.

        COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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One of the Believer’s Best Books of the Year: One woman’s journey through that awkward period between being born and dying.
 
A modern odyssey about trying to find one’s home in the world, this collection of wickedly funny and offbeat vignettes touches upon quantum physics; the Donner Party; arctic exploration; Greek mythology; Rocky I, II, V, IV, VI, and III respectively; and literary immortality. Dating Tips for the Unemployed “melds novel, autobiography, and all manner of asides as [the author] flails at art, love, and friendship with the wry intelligence of someone just wise enough to realize they have no idea what they’re doing. A flat-out joy to read” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
 
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