Sample
  • Rules of Civility

  • A Novel
  • By: Amor Towles
  • Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
  • Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (9,786 ratings)

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Rules of Civility

By: Amor Towles
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
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Editorial reviews

Amor Towles is approaching 50 and making a living as a principal at an investment firm. One wouldn’t expect his debut novel to be told from the perspective of a wise-cracking young lady of 25, but Towles is good at surprises. Katherine Kontent (“like the state of being”) is a legal secretary trying to climb the social ladder and squeeze all the juice out of Manhattan. She is the only slightly less seductive sidekick to Eve, who leaves her wealthy family behind to act like a mash-up of Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles and Truman Capote's Holly Golightly. It's the Upper East Side in the winter of 1939 — ripe for ripping off F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway or whatever writer you prefer from the era of roaring alcoholism, but Amor Towles doesn’t take the bait.

Neither does narrator Rebecca Lowman, who has good fun with the zippy dinner conversations while managing to keep Kate's sporting sense of dignity intact as both lovers and day jobs threaten to collapse her up-and-comingness. Lowman, who has a long string of television series bit parts from Will & Grace to Law & Order to her credit, slips easily into the everywoman role and adds notes of believable determination to our heroine's struggle for better circumstances. Who will marry Tinker Grey and who will get the promotion at Conde Nast are interesting plots, but none of this is the surprise - the plot surprise is all the more devastating. Towles gives us some glitter, but he doesn't gloss, and that is the biggest surprise. The women in this book are fraught with the tremendous burden of appearing charming but unintelligent, and Lowman lets in enough sharp tones to give their dilemmas and revelations a substantial bite. Towles has fleshed out these familiar archetypes in a unique direction, so much more rich and thick than the flat characters with which novels of this time period are usually laden. Megan Volpert

Publisher's summary

From the number one New York Times best-selling 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, 25-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.

Hear why Rules of Civility is Our Book of the Summer.
©2011 Amor Towles (P)2011 Penguin

What listeners say about Rules of Civility

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Really hard to finish

I found this book really hard to finish. The story is not very engaging even though the reader’s performance was well done. I consider a book worth reading if it gives me at least 1 new thing to reflect upon that I hadn’t considered before. This book didn’t do that. Too descriptive. The characters have no depth. It feels like the author was more focus on her writing style than the book’s content

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Hauntingly raw and undoubtedly enduring

A searing listening experience for me and one I know i will not be shaking anytime soon. Like family members who leave us too soon and you can’t imagine life without is how real I feel the ending of this book. I never write reviews and am sorely ill-equipped to do so here, but to say I highly recommend. And to say thank you to Rebecca Lowman for such a beautifully intimate narration. I certainly now understand what all the fuss is about Mr. Towles! Hats off!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Amor Towles does not disappoint!

Towles’s Lincoln Highway was outstanding so I thought I would give this one a try. Fabulous, captivating & wonderful character development. I felt like I was in the story with them. Narrator was perfect. Will definitely listen again!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

long and verbose

I kept going until the end. LOTS of characters to keep track of. Hard to follow transitions. i would be about done listening to it but then a little thing would actually happen. I was hoping for more.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Poor ending

I did not like the reading of all the dRules of Civility at the end of the book

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Loved everything about it

Towles has the gift of being able to fully transport you into his stories. This book was phenomenal in every way.

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Profoundly Wonderful

It has been years since a novel knocked my socks off, and this absolutely did. The story unwinds from a seemingly simple plot to an ending in which the characters’ life decisions/intersections hit home on a universal level, and it happens almost imperceptibly as one reads. I also loved how the characters come from different walks of life and intertwine. The end is exquisite.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Great writing!

I had read his third book first, the Lincoln Highway and loved it except for the end. I didn't enjoy this as much although I did really like the main character Kate. The writing is wonderful though, very lyrical and made you feel as if you were a part of the great gatsby era.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Towles Does It Again

Towles writes the best character studies in fiction. I always have a book hangovers when I finish one of his stories. We all have a Tinker Gray somewhere in the fabric of our lives.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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What a powerful and exquisite story

Amor Towles is one of our new stellar novelists of the 21st century. This first book of his, like his others, paints exquisite descriptions of the thoughts and moods of the characters of this 1938 New York. It’s told in the first person of a young a woman who lives a normal life but falls in the rich young men of the city. Towles has a masterful touch for description and the characters unfold in front of you one by one. Can’t recommend this highly enough.

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