Rules of Civility

Beautiful novel. Not so much the prose, which was nice, but the depiction of a breathtakingly beautiful Manhattan. It reminds me of Whit Stillman movies. Loved the female characters. While this was written by a man, it struck me that the women in this book were so much more assertive participants in their destinies than the women in books by contemporary first time female writers like Curtis Sittenfeld & Marisha Pessl. (It may have something to do with the fact that Towles is older than these women were when they published their first novels.) I recommend this to everyone and would love to loan you my copy!