Tuesday, July 26, 2011

2011 book 190

Amor Towles' Rules of Civility
I'm just going to flat-out say it: this is going to be on my best of the year list. Doesn't matter about all the awesome books by great writers coming out this fall. This is tops.

I read a review that summarized it as "Mad Men in the 1930s" and that's accurate enough; our protagonist, Katey, is a young secretary with a madcap best friend whose world changes thanks to a chance encounter on New Year's Eve 1938. Towles nails a variety of New York cultures and populates the city with a myriad of believable and likable characters. And the writing is impeccable and beautiful. Great, great story--completely absorbing. A+.

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