Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin
Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin
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Arbitrary Stupid Goal

Author: Tamara Shopsin

Narrator: Tamara Shopsin

Unabridged: 3 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/18/2017

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

“Arbitrary Stupid Goal is a completely riveting world—when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life.” —Miranda July

In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos. The center of Tamara’s universe is Shopsin’s, her family’s legendary greasy spoon, aka “The Store,” run by her inimitable dad, Kenny—a loquacious, contrary, huge-hearted man who, aside from dishing up New York’s best egg salad on rye, is Village sheriff, philosopher, and fixer all at once. All comers find a place at Shopsin’s table and feast on Kenny’s tall tales and trenchant advice along with the incomparable chili con carne.

Filled with clever illustrations and witty, nostalgic photographs and graphics, and told in a sly, elliptical narrative that is both hilarious and endearing, Arbitrary Stupid Goal is an offbeat memory-book mosaic about the secrets of living an unconventional life, which is becoming a forgotten art.

About Tamara Shopsin

Tamara Shopsin is an illustrator, graphic designer, writer, part-time cook, and a co-owner of the New York City eatery Shopsin’s. She is the author of Mumbai New York Scranton, What Is This?, and Arbitrary Stupid Goal; and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the books This Equals That and Offline Activities.


Reviews

Goodreads review by karen on September 30, 2018

this book is, with no exaggeration, one of the best things i have ever read. i read this book because i love kenny shopsin and this is written by his daughter, who also loves him. kenny shopsin is something of a legend: a take-no-shit new yorker with the pottiest of mouths and a crazy-ass restaurant......more

Goodreads review by Roxane on September 04, 2017

I bought this book after reading an excerpt online somewhere and absolutely loved it. It is an intimate, strange, meandering portrait of the New York City that keeps New Yorkers living in New York. It's also a portrait of a family and their store/restaurant. It's a series of loosely connected charac......more

Goodreads review by Trin on March 31, 2017

Despite the title/cover, this is in no way an angry or cynical book. It's a love song to New York and to the author's family and to their family business. And it's the type of memoir that you want to live in: that time, that place, those people.......more

Goodreads review by Conor on July 12, 2018

I went back and forth on this one. It's kind of cool to get the insider's look at what was apparently a landmark establishment, but a lot of this seemed like boring filler at times. I went from liking it to being ready to be done with it a number of times, but I ended up with a marginally favorable......more

Goodreads review by Drew on August 10, 2017

5+ A magnificent kind of memoir - elliptic, funny, poignant, with a kind of recursive logic that makes more sense the further along you read. It's the story of a restaurant, of an ideology, of a man who was so many wonderful things and plenty of flawed ones too, of a city and a time and a way of life......more


Awards

  • New Yorker Best Books of the Year