Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Selfie as Big as the Ritz: Stories
    A Selfie as Big as the Ritz: Stories
    A Selfie as Big as the Ritz: Stories
    Audiobook4 hours

    A Selfie as Big as the Ritz: Stories

    Written by Lara Williams

    Narrated by Imogen Church

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "If you're a young woman navigating life's crazy and wondrous tumult, British writer Lara Williams' new story collection A Selfie as Big as the Ritz is for you." — ELLE

    British author Lara Williams perfectly captures the bleak, surreal, and often hilarious period of life that every late-twenties woman will recognize in this charming audiobook.

    She finds herself single, twenty-nine, partially-employed, and about a half a stone overweight. Roller dexter of eligible friends rattling thin. Thirties breathing down her neck like an inappropriate uncle. She jogs. Looks good in turquoise. Finds herself punctuating gas “better out than in!” patting her stomach like a department store Santa. This is who I am, she thinks.

    The women in Lara Williams’ debut story collection, A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, navigate the tumultuous interval between early twenties and middle age. In the title story, a relationship implodes against the romantic backdrop of Paris. In “One of Those Life Things,” a young woman struggles to say the right thing at her best friend’s abortion. In “Penguins,” a girlfriend tries to accept her boyfriend’s bizarre sexual fantasy. In “Treats,” a single woman comes to terms with her loneliness. As Williams’ characters attempt to lean in, fall in love, hold together a family, fend off loneliness, and build a meaningful life, we see them alternating between expectation and resignation, giddiness and melancholy, the rollercoaster we all find ourselves on.

    “A dark wonder. An often harrowing (and in parts, very, very funny) debut, it targets the unfathomable nonsense of relationships, work and modern living with a keen eye, head-spinning wordplay and enough compassion to crush your heart. Buy it for everyone you know." —The Skinny

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateOct 31, 2017
    ISBN9781427295422
    A Selfie as Big as the Ritz: Stories
    Author

    Lara Williams

    Lara Williams is the author of the short-story collection A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, which was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Edinburgh First Book Award, and the Saboteur Awards and longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Also the author of Supper Club, which won the Guardian “Not the Booker” Prize and was named as a 2019 Book of the Year by TIME and Vogue, she is a frequent contributor to publications such as The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Vice, and Dazed.

    Related to A Selfie as Big as the Ritz

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Shipstead, Ryan, Walker, and More

      May 17, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Maggie Shipstead, Eimer Ryan, Sarai Walker, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Millio

      5 min read

    • Article

      Rachel Gets Remarried

      Jun 4, 2018

      RACHEL CUSK IS NOT A RADICAL—AT LEAST NOT anymore. Critics lambasted her as a “bad mom” when she asserted that marriage and motherhood deprive women of any sense of self in her memoirs A Life’s Work (2002) and Aftermath (2012). Years later, she’s sti

      2 min read

    • Article

      For Snow Queens Who Have Considered Suicide Because Paul Newman in the First Twenty Minutes of Paris Blues Is Too Much

      Jun 14, 2022

      But I start with the great Sidney Poitier because his stardom was an established part of the Freedom movement in 1964, and he was to be the chaperone of my inner awakening that dramatic year. Indianapolis, my hometown, had some brave marches and two

      10 min read

    • Article

      Lauren Oyler And Patricia Lockwood On Their ‘Evil Twin’ Internet Novels

      Feb 8, 2021

      I hate it here. Everyone agrees that “here” sucks. We are miserable and unproductive and lonely all at once. Time goes fast but not in the way that it flies when you’re having fun, more like when you wake up after a nap to find that it’s suddenly dar

      7 min read

    • Article

      ‘My “Sad Girl” Fans Concern Me’: Ottessa Moshfegh In Conversation With Carmen Maria Machado

      Jul 2, 2022

      At 41, Ottessa Moshfegh has appeared on the Booker prize shortlist, for her debut novel Eileen, and the bestseller lists, with My Year of Rest and Relaxation, for which she is currently collaborating on a film adaptation. Her new novel, Lapvona, is s

      8 min read

    • Article

      Interlude

      Mar 28, 2022

      Interlude
      10 min read

    • Article

      Fourteen First and Last Sentence Novels

      Apr 22, 2022

      I think of this as a new literary form, a type of novelistic prose poem, a hybrid, a chimera, whose main currency is delight, wonder, and mystery. The post Fourteen First and Last Sentence Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson

      Dec 2, 2022

      Chantal V. Johnson reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Guerrilla Thriller

      Feb 5, 2023

      Guerrilla Thriller
      4 min read

    • Article

      Elif Batuman on Fictionalizing Her Life, and Learning to Fact Check

      Mar 21, 2017

      In 2015, the New Yorker writer Elif Batuman was given a book contract to write an autobiographical novel about a Turkish-American journalist moving to Turkey to write for a New Yorker-like publication. Batuman herself had spent several years there wr

      7 min read

    • Article

      American Myth: The Short, Beautiful Life of Breece D’J Pancake

      Jun 26, 2017

      The best American writer of his generation would have been sixty-five this week. The post American Myth: The Short, Beautiful Life of Breece D’J Pancake appeared first on The Millions.

      14 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Selfie as Big as the Ritz

    3/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words