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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Historical fiction

Rules of Civility

3peat author

Amor Towles is officially a 3-time author at BOTM, which is a pretty big deal!

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Amor Towles, on your first book!

by Amor Towles

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Volume 0
Volume 0

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Quick take

As refreshing and sophisticated as a well-made martini. This book revives the New York high society of yesteryear.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Movieish

    Movieish

  • Illustrated icon, Love_Triangle

    Love triangle

  • Illustrated icon, Critically_Acclaimed

    Critically acclaimed

  • Illustrated icon, NYC

    NYC

Synopsis

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 little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

Why I love it

As fans of The Gentleman of Moscow know, Amor Towles has a gift for capturing a certain time and place in history and putting his readers immediately there. His debut novel is Towles at his most playful: Rules of Civility is set in the jazz clubs and swanky bars of late 1930s New York City, when a plucky young woman who’s barely scraping by gets swept up into the world of Manhattan’s elite. The book is a gem, with dialogue so cinematic you could imagine Katharine Hepburn firing off Towles’s lines.

Other books by Amor Towles

Member ratings (4,448)

Modern classics
Death on the Nile
Rules of Civility
The Goldfinch
Kitchen Confidential
The Kite Runner
All the Light We Cannot See
Free Food for Millionaires
The Secret History
The History of Love
Modern classics
View all
Death on the Nile
Rules of Civility
The Goldfinch
Kitchen Confidential
The Kite Runner
All the Light We Cannot See
Free Food for Millionaires
The Secret History
The History of Love