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Who would have predicted that Carrie Bradshaw would possess the resilience of a cockroach in a nuclear war? Nearly five years after the final episode of SATC, her teenage years are being dreamed up by Candace Bushnell, and last night Michael Patrick King announced there'd be a sequel to the movie. But as for Bushnell's new book One Fifth Avenue, now that the economy's collapsed, does its focus on wealthy uppercrusters and consumerism mean that people won't want to read it? Bushnell has thought of various ingenious reasons that they will!

In a Huffington Post interview, she says that her book is a "snapshot" of New York before the current crisis—which we guess means it's not so much irrelevant as historically meaningful? Also: "Everyone says that in harder times people seem to want slightly escapist entertainment. Maybe people will stay home more and read books." Maybe! And if they do, they'll find that Bushnell doesn't actually approve of the rampant materialism her characters embody:

"I'm not condoning it; I just think it's interesting. I'm just recording it. Some of the satire in the book is about the materialism and the dangers of that, and the emptiness as well."

Like when Carrie realized she'd spent $40,000 on shoes but had nowhere to live! That was a salutary lesson to us all.

Candace Bushnell on Sex, Money and Sarah Palin [Huffington Post]