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<book>
  <amazon-description>In &lt;i&gt;Literacy and Longing in L.A.,&lt;/i&gt; hailed as &#8220;the most delightful read of the year&#8221; by Liz Smith in the &lt;i&gt;New York Post,&lt;/i&gt; authors Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack captivated readers with a brilliantly imagined first novel. Now Kaufman and Mack return, introducing a character with a unique voice you&#8217;ll never forget: Cassie Shaw, an irrepressible young woman who reinvents herself &amp;mdash; with unexpected consequences &amp;mdash; in a funny, wise, and utterly original novel about friendship, love, wildlife, and other forces of nature.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;In the wilds of Topanga Canyon, Cassie is right at home &amp;mdash; with the call of birds, the sound of wind in the trees, the harmony of a world without people. But everywhere else, life is a little harder for Cassie. Her mother believes in Big Foot. Her wisecracking pet parrot is a drama queen. And at the age of thirty, newly single and without a college degree, Cassie desperately needs a decent paycheck. Which is why, against all her principles, she lies on her r&#233;sum&#233; for an office job at an elite university &amp;mdash; and then finds herself employed in academia by two professors who are as rare as the birds she covets.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;One of her new bosses is Professor William Conner, a sexy, handsome, cheerfully aristocratic expert in animal behavior. Soon, under Conner&#8217;s charismatic tutelage, Cassie carefully begins her personal transformation while meeting the kind of people who don&#8217;t flock to wildlife preserves &amp;mdash; from impossibly brilliant academics to adorably spoiled college boys. But her future &amp;mdash; and unlikely new career &amp;mdash; is teetering on one unbearable untruth. And Cassie&#8217;s masquerade is about to come undone . . . in a chain of events that will transform her life &amp;mdash; and the lives of those around her &amp;mdash; forever.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A novel for late bloomers of every exotic shade and stripe, &lt;i&gt;A Version of the Truth&lt;/i&gt; is pure entertainment &amp;mdash; at once hilarious and wry, lyrical and uplifting.</amazon-description>
  <author>Jennifer Kaufman</author>
  <catalog-url>http://lakenet.llcoop.org/search/X?A+Version+of+the+Truth+Kaufman</catalog-url>
  <category-id type="integer"></category-id>
  <created-at type="datetime">2008-07-22T11:58:17-04:00</created-at>
  <description>Newly single and without a college degree, Cassie is in desperate need of a paycheck and lies on her resume to get a job with Conner, a professor of animal behavior at an elite college, but her new life is about to unravel after she discovers a rare bird on a nature preserve.</description>
  <id type="integer">2248</id>
  <isbn>0385340192</isbn>
  <title>A Version of the Truth</title>
</book>
