Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Aug 20, 2011

Cynthia rated it:

Immigrants or Trust Funds?

“Rules of Civility” is a love story for a city. Specifically New York City during the last few years of the 1930’s. That’s not to say that Towles's characters aren’t fully realized. They are. In fact the dialog is outstanding. When a character opens their mouth you know immediately if they haunt the docks or Park Avenue. At one point the three principle protagonists are out larking and sneak into a Marx Brothers movie. Think of how exaggerated the acc More...

26 comments like (23 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

This is just delightful fun. It's a love letter, a limerick, a lollipop, a literary longing. Grab your shaker of martinis and your cocktail onions and take a ride with Katey Kontent through the streets of 1938 Manhattan. She's just a working girl trying to make it on her own, but with the right (or wrong?) friends, she manages to borrow a little glamour...and a helping or two of trouble besides.

The book is not without its flaws. I was only going to rate it four stars. After I read t More...

18 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2011

Anne rated it:

The prologue to this novel takes place at an exhibition of photographs by Walker Evans 1966. The author tells us that Evans had waited 25 years to show these photos to the public due to a concern for the subjects' privacy. The photos are taken with a hidden camera in the NYC subway car and "captured a certain naked humanity," Kate sees an old friend, Tinker Grey in two of these pictures. In one he's clean shaven, wearing a custom shirt and a cashmere coat. In a photo dated one ye More...

23 comments like (26 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

If a novel could win an award for best cinematography, this would take home the gold. Amor Towles's sophisticated retro-era novel of manners captures Manhattan 1938 with immaculate lucidity and a silvery focus on the gin and the jazz, the nightclubs and the streets, the pursuit of sensuality, and the arc of the self-made woman.

The novel's preface opens in 1966, with a happily married couple attending a Walker Evans photography exhibition. An unlikely chance encounter stuns the woman, K More...

0 comments like (24 people liked it)

Sep 05, 2011

Carol rated it:

It's really hard to put my finger on what made me like Rules of Civility so much. I'm partial to debut novels and their authors so when 4 to 5 star reviews started pouring in on GoodReads for this book, I quickly added it to my list.

The setting of New York, the city would not normally make me clamor to read this book, but the 1938 New York that Rules of Civility depicts captured me right away. I can only believe this is due to Amor Towles ability as a writer. The story seems fairly More...

14 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2012

Jeannette rated it:

Rating 4-1/2 stars.

There are so many things to recommend about this book. It is well-written, and peppered with passages that make you laugh, or cry, but always make you think. The characters are well-drawn, and fully human. And, it had so many twists, that it was never predictable; it always kept me reading.

Tinker Grey, handsome and well-bred, lives his life by the principles set forth by a young George Washington, The Rules of Civility of the title. The author inclu More...

10 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2012

Emma rated it:

Blargh, I'd been having such good luck with Goodreads Choice finalists.

I really should have put it down after page two, when the female, working-class narrator describes her roommate as follows:

"Eve was one of those surprising beauties from the American Midwest.
In New York it becomes so easy to assume that the city's most alluring women have flown in from Paris or Milan. But they're just a minority. A much larger covey hails from the stalwart states that begin More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2012

Julie rated it:

This jarring, sad book confused me. Amor Towles brings it all: satire, poignancy, whimsy, wit, irony, tragedy, charm. He creates iconic characters that pulse with whatever Jazz Age fire the Depression didn't extinguish. He dusts off overwrought cliches of New York and reworks them in the best tradition of Woody Allen. The result is a city as full realized as any human character. Towles polishes the story until it glows in a patina of history, and wraps it in a package of beautiful writing. It is More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Alena rated it:

I cannot possibly write a review that reflects the intelligence and sophistication of this book. Integrating art, photography and literature into his portrait of 1938 New York, Amor Towles also tells a great story about the choices made by one young woman -- Kate/Katey/Katherine Kontent, and her friends.

Kate is smart, funny, unpredictable and determined, all qualities that make a fine heroine. But she's also imperfect, which makes her infinitely more interesting. Likewise the character More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2012

Kate rated it:

One of the reviews on the book jacket reads, "The best novels are the ones that completely transport you to another time and place. This beautifully written novel does just that."

I couldn't have said it better.

The book references one of my favorite poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems (complete text here: http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html) and Rules of Civility felt like a novel version of that poem.

My favorite line from the El More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Verena rated it:

This book reminded me of "The Great Gatsby". It takes place a decade later, and it does not have the emotional power nor the dramatic imagery of TGG. But its characters are from the upper-crust of New York City society, or are aspiring to join it. The narrator, Katey Kontent, is a secretary from a middle class background. She joins a social group of twenty-somethings who frequent the Greenwich Village jazz clubs to drink and to party. Thirty years later Katherine recalls her interactio More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

I put all my books on the side when this one came in from the library. I love experiencing the world of privilege that belonged to the NY elite in the early 20th century. While this takes place the year after Edith Wharton's death, it is the same society, which has become more elite with the onslaught of the Great Depression.
One of the main themes that the book explored was the loss of some dreams as we fulfill other aspirations. In the end, the protagonist writes, "I love Val. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Paola rated it:

[Review also appeared on Amazon.co.uk]

I decided to read "The Rules of Civility" because the blurb on the Amazon page mentioned a jazz quartet in 1937 and stated that the protagonist, Katey Kontent, knew " how to type eighty words a minute, five thousand an hour, and nine million a year and that if you can still lose yourself in the first chapter of a Dickens novel then everything is probably going to be fine". With those two lines, I had already identified with Ms More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Karla rated it:

Every woman has a story of how they loved, lost and grew into the woman they are. This reads like a personal journey into an extraordinarily unbending and intelligent woman named Katy. I enjoyed reading how her life became what it is by so many influences of people, books and places she encountered in a short period of her life as she found herself. This is the perfect reflecting novel that shows how everything imprints and shapes our heart and minds with a heroine that blazes her way in 1930's More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Becky rated it:

It took me a long time to finish this book, way longer than I expected. Though I think the main character was smart, witty, snappy and fun, I felt that the story itself lacked a little focus. It wasn't until about two thirds of the way through that I realized what the arc was. Several times characters were reintroduced, and I had to seriously jog my memory to remember their first appearance or relevance. If it hadn't taken so long to read the first time, I'd probably read it again now that I " More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2012

lana rated it:

This was a sweet portrait of New York in the late 30s, and I enjoyed the characters and the plot. I find, however, that when it's all said and done there's not much to say about it. The central characters all strive to reinvent themselves, and they do- Eve find social status and then abandons it again for the thrill of yet another chase (Los Angeles). Katey goes from a position in a legal secretary pool to one as the editor's assistant (and eventual editor) of a new, flashy Conde Nast magazine. More...

0 comments like

Feb 15, 2012

Nancy rated it:

The publisher's description doesn't do this book justice. It is so much more than a coming of age story of a Bright Young Thing in New York City in the late 1930's. I can't quite describe what it IS, other than totally captivating.

I could have read the book from cover to cover if time had permitted. I was thoroughly engaged from the first page to the last and that is a rare feat in a work of contemporary fiction. Towles did a wonderful job creating a sense of place; I really felt like More...

0 comments like

Feb 04, 2012

Steve rated it:

http://www.stevedow.com.au

BIG debut on the martini circuit, big shoes to strap into. ‘‘But as it goes with such things,’’ muses Katey Kontent, the bookish daughter of a Russian emigre and star grammarian and syntactician of a Manhattan law firm typing pool, ‘‘I eventually grew into my legs and ultimately prized them. I found I liked being taller than the other girls.’’

Gender aside, much the same can be said for the first-time older male author who gives 25-year-old Katey More...

0 comments like

Jan 31, 2012

Stefanie rated it:

Loved this book at the beginning...loved the idea of "the one that got away" and found the voice of Katie to be interesting, likable and intriguing given that this was a woman on her own in NY in the '30's...enjoyed reading about high society and the opportunities of NY in this time period and liked how the writer gave just a little info about her childhood and background.

Really enjoyed the first 2/3 or so of the book and based on that wish I could've given it 4 stars but f More...

0 comments like

Jan 28, 2012

Suzanne rated it:

It's hard to believe that the protagonist of "Rules of Civility" was created by a man. Katey Kontent certainly quaffs her Martinis and Champagne like one of the guys, but the story of love, ambition, loss, doubt, and living with one's choices is one of universal resonance for women.
Katey and her friend Eve meet Theodore `Tinker' Grey, a charismatic and wealthy man while celebrating New Year's Eve in a decidedly downscale jazz club.
What follows is Gatsby-esque: an intricate More...

0 comments like

Jan 16, 2012

Jessica rated it:

I heard wonderful things about this book through the fall and once I got my library card I added this to my hold list.

Set in 1938, TROC follows Katey Kontent, a Russian girl from Brighton Beach working as a legal secretary in Manhattan and living in a women's boarding house. Katey and her friend Eve encounter the wealthy and charming Tinker Grey on New Year's Eve and within hours their lives are intertwined.

During this one year, Katey, Eve and Tinker will go through all kind More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2012

Bess rated it:

I loved this book at the very beginning - that is the inside front jacket cover. The hero - TInker Gray - the heroine Katey Kontent. What's not to love about characters with those names? I may come back and give this book 5 stars, but I need to let it live with me a little longer.

This book was sort of Mad Men ish but set in the late 1930"s. I loved the mannerisims, stereotypes, formalities, classes, the good manners and politeness, it was divine.

Many authors love t More...

1 comment like

Dec 19, 2011

Lianne added it

Even though I knew this was a fabricated treatment of a certain historical period (late 1930's in New York City) I was nonetheless seduced by the glamour of the social scene, witty repartee, the characters at the same time both shallow and deep. The world that is depicted feels like a sophisticated black and white movie. The characters have blind spots and because of their unconsciousness their lives are profoundly changed in a moment. The main woman character is Katey Kontent, a twenty-five yea More...

0 comments like

Dec 08, 2011

Hazel rated it:

Anyone who tells you this book is like Sex and the City or all martinis and high life, or even an ersatz Fitzgerals... well, smile politely and then go out and buy it.

In Katey, the narrator, the writer has created a wise (but not too wise), witty gem who you'd want to follow into a bar or the trenches, either would do. She's neither overwhelmed or too cynical about the moving escalator that is New York in the thirties, she grows before your eyes to find what she is absolutely brillia More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Michael rated it:

One of my favorite characters in Rules of Civility is Fran Pacelli, a five-foot-nine City College dropout from North Jersey who "unsettled the prim at the boardinghouse by wandering the halls without a shirt on and asking loudly if they had any extra booze." Another favorite is Evelyn Ross, a "surprising beauty from the American Midwest." When Evelyn passes out drunk in a New York City alley, the only clue to her identity is the library card the police find in her coat pocket More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 30, 2011

Bill rated it:

This book is like a great lobster bisque: rich and light. This is one of my (new) favorite books.

The setting is NYNY in 1938. The plot and atmosphere and characters are all very compelling. I felt immersed in a tall tale with real people riding the wave of times that are simultaneously tough and great.

The writing style was truly special. Towles is so witty without seeming to try hard. Maybe it's me, but Towles seems to be a bit of a goof. I just imagine him cracking up at More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Lee rated it:

The title "Rules of Civility" refers to a pamphlet by that title written by a sixteen-year-old George Washington, though its story brings us to New York City in 1938. It is a time and place ably rendered by Towles through the eyes of his protagonist, Katey, who is a quick-witted twenty-something of Russian descent always fully aware of her surroundings.
The book grabbed me on page one when the 1950’s were described as an era when “America had picked up the globe by the heels and s More...

0 comments like

Nov 24, 2011

Amy rated it:

Travel back to 1938 New York City for a delightful and thoughtful read. The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles explores NY high society and class structure as it is on the cusp of change that inevitably comes after World War II. On New Year’s Eve 1937 Katey Kontent and her friend meet the charming and wealthy banker, Tinker Grey. But of course New York City is the capital of those who are attempting to reinvent themselves and appearances can be deceiving. An unforeseeable accident changes the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Kathleen added it

Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles, Narrated by Rebecca Lowman, Produced by Penguin Audio, Downloaded from audible.com.

This is a debut novel, well written, and evoking the time period of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the rich and famous. Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of
Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising 25-year-old named Katey Kontent. The story opens on New Year's Eve in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, where Katey and her boardinghouse More...

0 comments like

Nov 06, 2011

Julie rated it:

Sublime! Rules of Civility concerns the fortunes of a young woman, Katey, working as a secretary in New York, in 1938, a year in which her life intersects with four people who change it in various ways. Katey is not born into the wealthy and rarified New York in which she finds herself in 1938. At the same time, she is intelligent and savvy and thus a wonderfully keen observer of the brave new world in which she finds herself. She is also a participant in it, and the novel is very much conce More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)