Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

I'll be completely honest, I had no clue that Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's until I saw the movie Capote. I have intended to read In Cold Blood for a while now, so when I saw this book in a little coffee shop/bookstore combo in Chattanooga, I picked it up.

I love the way Capote frames this story. It is told from the perspective of Paul Varjak, a struggling writer living in Manhattan's Upper East Side. The book is made up of Paul's recollections of his encounters with Holly Golightly, a woman who lives in the same brownstone that Paul does on the Upper East Side of New York City. I forget where I heard it, but the best description I have heard of Holly Golightly is "a grown-up Lolita." She is sexual but innocent, coy but boisterous. She is described in the book as a "bad little good girl adrift in New York."

After reading and enjoying the book, I watch the movie, which I hadn't seen in a long time. Oh god, it was dumb. It took a story replete with complex emotions and human desires and reduced it to a kitschy love story. Lost in Translation bears more resemblance to Capote's book than the Hepburn/Peppard movie does. This is a great story, and the version that I bought came with a few other short stories that were good as well.