Cover of The Anxiety of Everyday Objects

The Anxiety of Everyday Objects

Winona Bartlett, secretary at a New York City law firm, has secret dreams of a more creative career—to be more than a "non-filmmaking filmmaker." Nevertheless, she admits to finding a sense of security—even delight—from the basic rules and rituals of white-collar servitude. Then one day, into her coffee-making, dictation-taking world walks Sandy Spires, a beautiful, commanding—and blind—lawyer who joins the firm and inspires Winona to renew work on her long-languishing film. Meanwhile, Winona's love life is a mess: Her relationship with Jeremy the Sincere is doomed, her other dates are always disasters, and she stubbornly ignores the attentions of her engaging colleague, Rex. Just as Winona hits bottom romantically and also realizes Sandy is not who she's pretending to be, she comes to understand that she might need to take a more honest look at herself.

Read more

The Great American Secretary's novel meets The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, this charming, inspiring and wonderfully written portrait of the dynamics of office life speaks to every woman who has felt caught between duty and her heart's desire.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 288 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Anxiety of Everyday Objects? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Anxiety of Everyday Objects. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Coffee And Kung Fu Shares chick lit, fiction, general fiction
  2. Grosse Pointe Girl: Tales from a Suburban Adolescence Shares fiction
  3. A Sense of Belonging Shares fiction, chick lit, fluff
  4. The Man of My Dreams Shares fiction, chick lit, contemporary fiction

“People who read The Anxiety of Everyday Objects tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Girlfriends Club
  2. The Half-Life: A Novel
  3. Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross
  4. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy : The Fab 5's Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better

“If you want more of the same (women’s fiction), start with these.”

  1. Knit Two
  2. Wolves in Chic Clothing
  3. The Booster
  4. These Girls

“If it was the chick lit that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Cigarette Girl
  2. Any Place I Hang My Hat
  3. Slacker Girl
  4. The Ice Chorus

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Knock Me Up, Boss: A Bad Boy Office Romance
  2. If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling
  3. Driven to Date
  4. Katie's Art of Seduction