Steve Martin’s third book will be hitting stores soon (yes, that Steve Martin). The novella, titled Shopgirl, follows Mirabelle through her lonely job, budding relationships – you know the sort of thing people write about. I’m not sure what I expected from a work written by Steve Martin, but from the excerpts which I have read so far, it seems quite good.

An excerpt from an excerpt:

Six days after their first date, which had cut Mirabelle’s net worth by twenty percent, she runs into Jeremy again at the Laundromat. He waves at her, gives her the thumbs-up sign, then watches her as she loads clothes into the machines. He seems unable to move, but speaks just loudly enough for his voice to carry over twelve clanking washing machines, “did you watch the game last night?” Mirabelle is shocked when she later learns that Jeremy considers this their second date. This fact comes out when at one abortive get-together, Jeremy invokes the “third date” rule, believing he should be received at second base. Mirabelle is not fooled by any such third date rule, and she explains to Jeremy that she cannot conceive of any way their Laundromat encounter, or any encounter involving the thumbs-up sign, can be considered a date.

Two excerpts from Shopgirl are available at Contentville.com and at Previewport.com.
It should be noted that Contentville is an ugly site and will require a (phony) email address before giving you access to the excerpt.