Why did I love this book?
The very rich and those who are fighting to stay so, as well as those who never will be, mingle together all wanting something from the other. This book transported me to a time where characters glittered, as did New York in 1928. But being vulnerable is a terrifying thing. They fight so hard to keep their champagne-infused house of cards from crumbling and even when it does, they lie and lie again to protect themselves and to protect the lie itself. It’s so bloody human.
From the second I started reading The Rules of Civility, I was all in. Towles’ way with words made me envious of his gift. But mostly I was entranced by the language, so beautifully rendered by every character – each of whom ‘presents’ a certain charm, poise, confidence brilliantly obscuring their fear and fallibility – as so many of us do.
4 authors picked Rules of Civility as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow, a “sharply stylish” (Boston Globe) book about a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust into high society—now with over one million readers worldwide
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have…