George Washington's Rules of Civility

There were one hundred ten "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation" school boy George Washington was supposed to know. As part of an exercise in learning those Colonial manners, he wrote them all in a copy book. Rule 1: "Every action done in company, ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present." Rule 110: "Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." And in between the first and last are other gems such as this: "Shake not the head, feet or legs, roll not the eyes, lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth and bedew no man's face with your spittle by approaching too near him when you speak." (From the Colonial Williamsburg website.)

All one hundred ten rules can also be found in the Appendix of Amor Towles novel, Rules of Civility. I really need to find a new way of saying how much I enjoy a book besides, "I loved this book!" Towles debut novel is smashingly smart. I hope he writes many more books. A New Englander by birth, he writes about New York - not the city where he currently lives - but the Manhattan of post-depression, pre-WWII years.
As J. Courtney Sullivan says on the back of the dust jacket: "The best novels are the ones that completely transport you to another time and place. This beautifully written debut does just that. With wit, wisdom, and rich language, Towles introduces a cast of unforgettable 1938 New Yorkers, who change the book's heroine in surprising and absorbing ways."
This is the first book in a long time that as soon as I finished reading it, I was ready to begin reading again. If it were my own copy instead of the library's, it would have passages underlined and notes written in the margins. I found truths about myself in this book and I want to remember them. Besides that, it is a Cinderella story of sorts, but one in which the heroine's wit and moxie take her out of her humble tenement and her fairy godmother is against her as much as she is for her. I think anyone who enjoys smart writing and bygone eras would enjoy this book. The Gotham City of this book is the New York I would like to visit.

Seldom do I quit a book. I almost always feel obligated to finish reading something once I've begun - especially if I'm already half way through it. Especially if the book is set in 1927 and is about a young girl brave enough to leave her Virginia mountain home for the bright lights and progressiveness of life in Chicago. Winslow Homer's 1873 painting "Girl In A Hammock" beautifully illustrates the cover of Sarah Pawley's Finding Grace. This book seemed to have everything going for it - even a "4" given it by a previous reader - but I just couldn't keep reading it. I can't even give it a "1" (nor a "-1" as I recently saw in a book that I did like).

I completed my third audio book with another of M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth mysteries - this one Death of a Dreamer. Listening to a book while walking on the track or treadmill really does make the onus easier.

Numbers two and three of Victoria Thompson's 'Gaslight Mysteries' - Murder On St. Mark's Place and Murder On Gramercy Park - went down just as smoothly as the first did. I'm really enjoying the sleuthing of Detective Frank Malloy and Midwife Sarah Brandt in 1890's New York. Happily Gibson Memorial Library has eleven of the twelve Thompson has written so far.

Emilie Richards is another writer I can depend upon if I'm looking for a well written light romance. I had already read the first two of her Happiness Key novels (set in Florida, of course), so finding the latest, Sunset Bridge, on the 'new books' shelf at the library meant it was my turn to read it. This one had the added thrills of a hurricane and a bridge collapse but what I found most disturbing were all the passages about pies. One of the main characters, Wanda, has started her own pie business after losing her long time job as a waitress. Just as I wanted a martini while reading the Towles book and tea while reading the Gaslight books, I wanted pie all the time I was reading this book. Last year for my birthday, I made myself a coconut cake - this year it just may be a coconut creme pie!