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The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

I really enjoyed both Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow (Rules of Civility is my favourite), so I was very keen to read this one.

Here is the blurb …

Emmett returns home to pick-up his little brother Billy, tie-up his late father’s estate and get out of town for good. Since leaving the Kansas youth facility where he’s served time, Emmett has wanted one thing: to give them both a fresh start – and that means heading out to the sparkling west.

Young, precocious Billy has plans of his own – to get to San Francisco, where he believes their long-estranged mother is waiting for them. However, as soon as they’ve loaded Emmett’s bright blue Studebaker with their few belongings, trouble arrives and brings its sidekick in the form of Duchess and Woolly, two runaways from the very facility Emmett just left behind him.

Insatiable Duchess and his devoted, but slow companion Woolly soon wreck Billy’s plan to get onto the open road, one well-intentioned blunder at a time. Each young man sees this journey as his chance to pursue his dreams, settle scores and find riches. And a simple journey quickly becomes a dazzling odyssey filled with obstacles, villains and ruses fit only for heroes to overcome.

Bursting with life, charm and unforgettable characters, The Lincoln Highway is an extraordinary journey through 1950s America from a master storyteller.

This is a beautiful story told from different view points, each one unique and compelling.

Still Life by Sarah Winman is still my favourite for the year, but this is a close second.

Another review

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Filed under 4, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Recommended

The Rules of Civility – Amor Towles

I read about this novel on someone’s blog, but I can’t remember who (sorry!). I ordered it from the library and it is obviously very popular because it took about six months to arrive.

I loved this novel. It is a mixture of The Great Gatsby, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mad Men and Sex in the City!

 Set during the hazy, enchanting, and martini-filled world of New York City circa 1938, Rules of Civility follows three friends–Katey, Eve, and Tinker–from their chance meeting at a jazz club on New Year’s Eve through a year of enlightening and occasionally tragic adventures. Tinker orbits in the world of the wealthy; Katey and Eve stretch their few dollars out each evening on the town. While all three are complex characters, Katey is the story’s shining star. She is a fully realized heroine, unique in her strong sense of self amidst her life’s continual fluctuations. Towles’ writing also paints an inviting picture of New York City, without forgetting its sharp edges. Reminiscent of Fitzgerald, Rules of Civility is full of delicious sentences you can sit back and savor (most appropriately with a martini or two). –Caley Anderson

This novel is beautifully written – Katey has some pithy one liners.  This novel has an amazing sense of place – the reader is transported back to New York in the 1930s. There is cocktails, jazz and ‘smart-talking dames’. The characters do unexpected things or I should say everything is not what you assume.

This novel is witty, clever and fun and I want to go and read it again (although I expect someone else is waiting for it at the library).

Here are more reviews …

 http://readingthroughthebs.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/review-of-rules-of-civility/

http://giraffeelizabeth.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/rules-of-civility-amor-towles/ 

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Filed under Fiction, Recommended