
Mergers and Acquisitions
Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages
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Narrated by:
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Dorothy Dillingham Blue
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By:
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Cate Doty
About this listen
A compulsively listenable behind-the-scenes memoir that takes listeners inside the weddings section of The New York Times - the good, bad, and just plain weird - through the eyes of a young reporter just as she's falling in love herself.
Growing up in the South, where tradition reigns supreme, Cate Doty thought about weddings...a lot. She catered for them, she attended many, she imagined her own. So, when she moved to New York City in pursuit of love - and to write for The New York Times - she finds her natural home in the wedding section, a first step to her own happily ever-after, surely. Soon, Cate is thrown into the cutthroat world of the metropolitan society pages, experiencing the lengths couples go to have their announcements accepted and the lengths the writers go in fact-checking their stories; the surprising, status-signaling details that matter most to brides and grooms; and the politics of the paper at a time of vast cultural and industry changes.
Reporting weekly on couples whose relationships seem enviable - or eye-roll worthy - and dealing with WASPy grandparents and last-minute snafus, Cate is surrounded by love, or what we're told to believe is love. But when she starts to take the leap herself, she begins to ask her own questions about what it means to truly commit....
Warm, witty, and keenly observed, Mergers and Acquisitions is an enthralling dive into one of society's most esteemed institutions, its creators and subjects, and a young woman's coming-of-age.
©2021 Cate Doty (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
One of Better Homes & Gardens’ 11 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer
One of PopSugar’s 25 New May Book Releases That Deserve a Place on Your Kindle
One of Good Morning America’s 30 May Books to Add to the Stack
One of The Skimm's 18 Can’t-Miss Beach Reads for Summer 2021
“If your weekends consist of devouring the weddings section of The New York Times, Cate Doty's Mergers and Acquisitions needs to be on your TBR list.” (Marie Claire)
“Doty gives fascinating insight into this particular job, a holdover from the paper's society pages, and writes intelligently about the place that weddings continue to hold in modern culture. The book is for romantics and skeptics alike.” (Oprah Daily)
“Mergers & Acquisitions, former New York Times journalist Cate Doty’s account of her time on the weddings beat, is a reception-worthy buffet of juicy backstories that didn’t make it into print, including her own.” (Martha Stewart Living)