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I'm mostly here to enjoy myself : one woman's pursuit of pleasure in Paris / Glynnis MacNicol.

Summary:

"When you're a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you've been told is a lie? Come to Paris, August 2021, when they City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets. After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend's apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity. What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman's pursuit of radical enjoyment. The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine, a plethora of gooey cheese, midnight bike rides through empty Paris, handsome men, afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre, nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity. In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette... if she'd had access to dating apps), I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission. The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself-as you are-is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is. Here's the proof."-- Front flap.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780593655757
  • ISBN: 0593655753
  • Physical Description: 275 pages ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: [New York] : Penguin Life, [2024]

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:
Prologue : à Paris -- The only thing to do Is go -- Good decisions -- Prized control, yearned after momentum -- Fruitz -- Pass sanitaire -- No seeds attached -- On va prendre. Liberator -- Skin hunger -- The assumption. Grazing the watercress -- A moveable feast. Le chiot Italian -- The young women. Le football -- Time and again -- Woman reclining -- To the sea -- Oui, monsieur -- I do believe I've had enough.
Subject: MacNicol, Glynnis, 1974- > Travel > France > Paris.
Pleasure.
Feminism.
Women authors, American > Biography.
Americans > France > Paris.
Feminism.
Women's movement.
Paris (France) > Description and travel.
Genre: Autobiographies.
Travel writing.

Available copies

  • 8 of 13 copies available at NC Cardinal. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Brown Library System.

Holds

  • 14 current holds with 13 total copies.
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Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
George H. & Laura E. Brown Library B Mac (Text) 30308101352236 Adult New Biography Available -