Warren Bell in an NRO article "Condumb?":

In 1856, Gustave Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary in part as a indictment of the promulgation of lending libraries, which were causing Emma-types to read the mass-culture novels of the day, and thereafter dream of romance and lovers. So, too, Sex and the City 140 years later, with the additional pernicious effect of promoting the Cosmopolitan as a suitable cocktail for people who are not holding poodles or smoking through a long black cigarette holder.