Description: "A Year in Van Nuys", as you can probably guess, is not quite the same as a year in Provence. It's funnier, for one thing. Especially in the hands of Sandra Tsing Loh (a self-described neurotic, non-achieving, downwardly mobile 'Dumpy') who in this send-up of Peter Mayle's classic covers the waterfront, as it were, of the sweltering grid that is the San Fernando Valley. With forty-one interconnected stories, with titles like "What I Was Forced to Eat Over the Holidays", "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to My Career", "Say No to Funny E-mail", and "A Time When Careers are so Dead Even One's Relatives Seem Interesting", the author hilariously demonstrates how the Valley represents the real Los Angeles -- not plastic breasts and BMWs but a place as unpolished as her life: no health insurance until you're 35; driving a 1987 Acura that valets think would be better handled by a wrecking ball.

Always wondering why, at her age, she's not actually in Provence (or even Santa Fe or Seattle), Sandra Tsing Loh takes the year to discover why it's her perfect home.

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