At B & N Reads Somers tagged five recent books that use cultural anthropology to brilliant effect, including:Primates of Park Avenue, by Wednesday MartinRead about another entry on the list.
The greatest trick Wednesday Martin ever pulled was obfuscating her own wealth and privilege, the wealth and privilege that gave her access to the Upper East Side Manhattan that she eviscerates with almost gleeful scientific rigor in this memoir. While readers outside of the ultra-rich Manhattan neighborhoods described in this witty, sometimes arch book might not have embraced her if they realized how much an outsider Martin really wasn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that her detailed examination of the strange, insular world of rich mommies and trophy wives is equal parts horrifying (for the average person with human emotions) and entertaining (for everyone who enjoys seeing smug people taken down a notch).
--Marshal Zeringue
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