Ground Up

By Michael Idov

Book Overview

Inspired by the author's own coffeehouse hell, Michael Idov's Ground Up is a sharp and funny portrait of a New York constantly reinventing itself, and a surprisingly tender story of falling out of love and back in it again.

Light streams through the windows as the espresso machine roars; a gorgeous, rich scent fills the air; and witty conversation unspools over the porcelain cups.

That's the caf dream. Mark and Nina are about to experience the reality. Determined to re-create the perfect Viennese coffeehouse, they descend on New York's gritty but hip Lower East Side to educate the locals on authentic caf culture. Soon Mark and Nina are in a downward spiral that will strip them of money, friends, sex life, status, shelter, and, finally, sanity--and offer salvation through something they have never experienced: disaster.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374531544
• ISBN13: 9780374531546
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

I generally feel uncomfortable giving out five stars, but...

... I can't come up with anything I DIDN'T like about the novel. I'm going to take the liberty to do what the author takes careful steps to avoid: indulge in cliche. That said, Ground Up is the literary equivalent of a perfectly made latte. Wait, was that a cliche? Regardless, I'll let you decide what it means; I'm just telling you what reading it felt like to me. For some, this is probably the least useful review possible, but some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. And you who know what I'm talking about are the people who will enjoy Ground Up.

Pretty interesting.

I have always been interested in folks starting up a restaruant business and since this was pretty much autobiographical, it was facinating to know that pretty much everything that happened in the book happened in real life. I think the writing was better than the story - I'd be intereted in reading something non-autobiographical from the author.

The American Dream gone bad -- with humor!

For anyone who ever dreamed of how ideal it would be to run your own business -- a quaint bookstore or cute coffee shop -- this book should be read as a warning treatise waking you up out of your naive reverie. Idov has an expansive knowledge of food and language, which he uses with great effect here to offer of a portait who naively enter the business world, believing they can wow the residents of the Lower East Side of Manhattan with a thoroughly authentic Viennese-style coffeehouse. They quickly learn the realities of what they have to do to compete with the Starbucks-style competitors and the descent from the heights of their idealistic fantasies to the pits of their daily struggles to earn enought to even pay their rent makes for a very entertaining read. The main protagonist, his lawyer-trained wife, her domineering mother and the ex-Israeli landlord who controls the Lower East Side all make for terrfiic characters. If you enjoy the author's wonderful use of language, I can strongly recommend Robert Cohen's [Amateur Barbarians: A Novel, as I suspect you will enjoy Cohen's masterful prose style, as well.

Ground Up: A Praise

A very fun and engaging book - read over a weekend. At a basic level, it is superbly written - great language, references to anything that can be referenced in a sentence. Humor is excellent, sharp, original and sufficiently self-depreciating; satire is equal-opportunity and leaves few characters untouched, yet doesn't go overboard. It is also much more than a story of one coffee shop's failure; rather, the plot line (with some great twists) is the canvas for a much broader picture. The author is on top of mostly everything that has been happening NYC recently, and the book contains a good snapshot of that, which New Yorkers are certain to recognize and appreciate, and everyone else should get to know, before it happens in a city near them. Read it - you are certain not to be bored.

This jolt of caffeine lifted me up

I loved this coffee with some fluffy whipped cream story not only for the lively plot which blended satire, romance and history but also for the slightly snotty highly skilled flare that Idov has with a sentence. With hints of Waugh, Nabokov, Chekhov, and Goncharov, Idov skewers cultural pretensions as he tells about the failed coffee house built by two young, prosperous New Yorkers, both born of immigrants, at the same time that he reveals himself to be the real deal. He also refocuses New York, touchingly reminding the reader that it is far more than the flashy home of the latest downtown or Madison Avenue trend. It also represents the first waking moment of the American dream for so many of our families as they entered this country. I read it in two sittings this weekend, and I am still thinking about it and admiring it.