{"product_id":"9780141196312-the-best-of-everything","title":"The Best of Everything","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. There's Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor's office; naive country girl April, who reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; and, Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eRona Jaffe's frank, scandalous and thrilling 1958 novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Best of Everything \u003c\/i\u003efollows a group of young women as they negotiate office romances, workplace politics, broken engagements, tiny apartments, lecherous bosses, heartbreak and lasting friendship, published in Penguin Modern Classics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew York, 1952: Four young women have come to the city: to find love, to build their careers and to savour the indefinable optimism of the times. Caroline is the college graduate, determined to escape the typing pool and become an editor. April is the beautiful country girl with a penchant for disastrous romances. Aspiring actress Gregg is tangled in a dangerous love affair with a playwright; and divorcée Barbara writes about lipsticks by day and cares alone for her daughter by night. Famously bedtime reading for \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e's Don Draper, \u003ci\u003eThe Best of Everything \u003c\/i\u003eportrays the lives and passions of these ambitious young women with intelligence, affection, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRona Jaffe (1931-2005) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan. Jaffe wrote her first book, \u003ci\u003eThe Best of Everything\u003c\/i\u003e, while working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications in the 1950s. Published in 1958, it was later made into a movie, starring Joan Crawford. During the 1960s she wrote cultural pieces for \u003ci\u003eCosmopolitan \u003c\/i\u003emagazine. Jaffe wrote sixteen novels during her career, including the controversial \u003ci\u003eMazes and Monsters \u003c\/i\u003e(1981), adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you enjoyed \u003ci\u003eThe Best of Everything\u003c\/i\u003e, you might like John Dos Passos' \u003ci\u003eManhattan Transfer\u003c\/i\u003e, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It harks back to a saner time when choosing progress and modernity was as straightforward as ordering dinner - \"Two Scotches with water on the side, and two steaks\"' \u003cbr\u003eJulie Burchill, author of \u003ci\u003eAmbition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Decades before \u003ci\u003eSex and the City\u003c\/i\u003e, Jaffe recorded the minutiae of women's lives and broke powerful taboos'\u003cbr\u003eJoan Smith, \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40942953103457,"sku":"9780141196312","price":9.52,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_32393769.jpg?v=1737221624","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780141196312-the-best-of-everything","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}