- So many rave reviews, I couldn’t resist.
I also recommend:
- Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
- The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen
Summary from GoodReads:
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast–rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne’er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is a ahead of her time,and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets.
My Review:
Early this year, several tweets and blogs popped up extolling the virtues of this lovely little book by Amor Towles (even the name spells class, folks, even the name), and I had an extra audible credit and was looking at making a few road trips, so I picked it up.
I spent several hours in the car falling under the spell of Rebecca Lowman as she carefully, meticulously, and with just the right amount of enthusiasm, narrated the adventures of Katey Kontent and her friends, Tinker and Eve. I’m already in love with this period of history (1938), and Amor Towles captured the elegance, refined nature, and beauty in a way that was simple, understated, and beautiful.
As I listened to the story I relaxed – my mind filled with images that were last evoked by reading The Great Gatsby, and I giggled with girlish delight upon meeting some of the most well-rounded characters I’ve been introduced to. This is such a quiet, unassuming book, but it’s filled with a story that leaves no detail left unsaid while not wishing to presume upon you to say them.
If you picked up on book, or just one audio even, this year – just one, I’d recommend this be put on the top of your list of choices. It’s a beautiful book and I just cannot praise it enough.
Don’t just take my word for it! Check out what these bloggers say!
Unputdownables | Linus’s Blanket| Bookworm with a View
