'Shopaholic' novels focus on life of glamor

Maybe it's an aftermath of "Sex and the City." But the shallow glamorous life of New York fashionistas is favorite fodder for pop culture these days.
"Shopaholic & amp; Sister," the fourth in a series of lightweight "shopaholic" novels, is soon to be published. The highly publicized book "The Devil Wears Prada," fiction based loosely on a Vogue magazine editor, will soon be made into a movie.
New York heiress and quintessential girl-about-town Paris Hilton became a star after appearing in a remarkably bad reality show. And even Donald Trump, the ultimate icon of '80s greed, is everybody's new favorite television celebrity.
So it's not surprising to see yet another new book in the same genre. It's "Bergdorf Blondes" (Miramax Books, $23.50), a created chronicle of the so-called Park Avenue princesses on an eternal quest for the best fake tan, botox doctor and rich, good-looking fiance.
It's by Plum Sykes, a young, chic British woman who lives in New York and works as contributing editor to Vogue. Her characters can't have too many Marc Jacobs labels in their closets and love, love, love Chanel sample sales. They know life has gone south when they have an urge to buy a DVD player. And when they get depressed, they self-medicate with a stay at the posh Ritz hotel.
Sykes' book tosses around lots of status names non-New Yorkers may have learned from television's "Sex and the you-know-what."