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This week’s reviews- Holiday edition

Written on: May 23rd, 2009 by: in Reviews

I wasn’t planning to review any titles this week because of the holidays- presumably everyone has already selected their beach/campfire reading for the weekend and blog readership will be scant! However, I felt I should mention this one title since over the course of two days I have seen three separate and glowing reviews for it, from sources as different as Elle magazine and the New York Review of Books.

Clancy Martin’s “How to Sell” is a coming of age novel of a kind, set in the mercenary and amoral world of the high-end jewelry business. The protagonist, an appealing con-man, drops out of school at age 16 to join the family business, seduce his older brother’s girlfriend, and try to enrich himself without losing his soul. It’s quite possible that the diamond industry, with its cruelty, superficiality, and greed may be serving in this novel as some kind of broader metaphor for American society. I’m just saying, maybe.

You can read more about the novel here (you’ll need to enter your library card ID and PIN to access the NoveList database), and see other Delaware Library Catalog fiction and non-fiction books about the diamond trade here.