cover image Last Night I Dreamt of Cosmopolitans: A Modern Girl's Dream Dictionary

Last Night I Dreamt of Cosmopolitans: A Modern Girl's Dream Dictionary

Josie Brown. St. Martin's Griffin, $11.99 (163pp) ISBN 978-0-312-34057-5

First-time author Brown dishes about dreams in a volume that aims to be both witty and enlightening. >From what it means to dream about Abercrombie & Fitch (Brown says it indicates an inner struggle between nostalgia for the old and appetite for the new) to what it means to dream about a zoo (the lesson here, Brown says, is that ""Your love for him should be a feast of the senses, so dig in""), this alphabetically organized little volume serves up plenty of spirited, fluffy inanities. Dreaming about Nicole Kidman means that you're feeling vulnerable, but dreaming of Renee Zellweger is a reminder that ""pluck equals luck""; a nocturnal appearance of an empty Dooney & Bourke purse suggests you should live a fuller, more creative life, whereas an empty Hermes purse signifies the guilt you feel over paying too much for a bit of frivolous frippery; cats (the animal) warn of unfaithful men, while Cats (the musical) means...well, it isn't exactly clear, but it seems to have something to do with hoping your dreams will come true. In most of the entries, the logic is shaky, the explanation is unconvincing, and the humor falls flat.