Darien Library Adult Summer Reading Grand Finale Party with Author Amor Towles

Darien Library will conclude its popular Adult Summer Reading program on Wednesday, August 17 at 7 p.m. A wine and cheese party will include a special presentation from Amor Towles, author of “Rules of Civility,” and the Grand Prize drawing for an iPad2.

Critics and readers alike have compared Towles’s writing to that of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Henry James, Somerset Maugham, and Mary McCarthy.

O, The Oprah Magazine, included “Rules of Civility” on their Summer Reading Page with the headline, “The Novel We Couldn’t Put Down.”

From the publisher, about “Rules of Civility”:

A sophisticated and entertaining debut novel about an irresistible young woman with an uncommon sense of purpose.
Set in New York City in 1938, “Rules of Civility” tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year- old named Katey Kontent. Armed with little more than a formidable intellect, a bracing wit, and her own brand of cool nerve, Katey embarks on a journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool through the upper echelons of New York society in search of a brighter future.
The story opens on New Year’s Eve in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, where Katey and her boardinghouse roommate Eve happen to meet Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a ready smile. This chance encounter and its startling consequences cast Katey off her current course, but end up providing her unexpected access to the rarified offices of Conde Nast and a glittering new social circle. Befriended in turn by a shy, principled multimillionaire, an Upper East Side ne’er-do-well, and a single-minded widow who is ahead of her times, Katey has the chance to experience first-hand the poise secured by wealth and station, but also the aspirations, envy, disloyalty, and desires that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her orbit, she will learn how individual choices become the means by which life crystallizes loss.
Elegant and captivating, “Rules of Civility” turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come. A love letter to a great American city at the end of the Depression, readers will quickly fall under its spell of crisp writing, sparkling atmosphere and breathtaking revelations, as Towles evokes the ghosts of Fitzgerald, Capote, and McCarthy.

“In his smashing debut, Towles details the intriguing life of Katherine Kontent and how her world is upended by the fateful events of 1938. ...Towles’s depiction of how the upper class can use its money and influence to manipulate others' lives in profoundly unsavory ways -- that give his vision depth and complexity. His first effort is remarkable for its strong narrative, original characters and a voice influenced by Fitzgerald and Capote, but clearly true to itself.” -- Publishers Weekly

Amor Towles was born and raised just outside Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale University and received an MA in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. He is a Principal at an investment firm in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children.

A book signing will follow the presentation. Books will be available for purchase.

For more information, visit darienlibrary.org or call 203-6551234.

Additional parking for evening and weekend Library programs on Thorndal Circle (behind Nielsen’s)

(Attached photos: Amor Towles, headshot; “Rules of Civility” cover)