In April 2018, I was following the International Booker Prize (then Man Booker) for the first time, reading political books translated from Arabic and Chinese, post-post modern books translated from Korean and Polish, and some stuff I can’t even explain translated from Hungarian. Less, a novel about an American man’s midlife crisis, wasn’t really on my radar, despite winning the Pulitzer Prize that very month.

I vaguely remember seeing the cover and thinking, that looks like chick lit. These days, I would probably assume it was a “spicy” romance, but these were more innocent times. More specifically, the cover reminded me of a Sophie Kinsella novel, perhaps a gender-swapped Shopaholic. Turns out I wasn’t far off!

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