The Sky's the Limit

Gaines reads his book about high-end Manhattan residential real estate with unflagging enthusiasm for conspicuous consumption and the sort of people who admire Donald Trump. He covers the business of real estate and the history of apartment-dwelling well, and the mixture of anthropological observation of the super-rich and sheer voyeurism makes the book compulsively listenable. While Gaines's subtle New York accent does fit the material, occasional mispronounced or dropped words and hard-to-endure attempts at a Southern accent are distracting. Bonus material includes most of the book's photos (in color), but photos of apartment interiors and a map would have been an enhancement. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine