BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: COPYRIGHT ©: April 2, 2024; ISBN 978-0593296370; PUBLISHER: Viking; PAGES: 464; UNABRIDGED (Hardcover Info from Amazon)
-Digital: COPYRIGHT ©: April 2, 2024; ISBN: 980593296387; PUBLISHER: Penguin Books; PAGES: 458; UNABRIDGED (Kindle Info from Amazon)
*Audio: COPYRIGHT ©: April 2, 2024; PUBLISHER: Penguin Audio; DURATION: 13 hours, 23 minutes; Unabridged; (Audible Info from Amazon/Audible)
-Feature Film or tv: No.

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTED:
I learned in 2023, that this book would be coming out in April 2024, from the author himself when he was doing an interview-style presentation at the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California. I put a hold on the audio the moment it was available for a hold in my Libby app, but I knew even then I would probably be using one of our credits for it at Audible.

-ABOUT:
No, sorry. I’m not giving even the tiniest bit away. (Well, I guess I do later in the excerpt.)

-OVERALL OPINION:
Splendid!
As a child, I’d have to say my favorite author was E. B. White (“Charlotte’s Web”) and then when I got a little older, it was the many authors who wrote under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene (“Nancy Drew” series). In my 20’s I read a lot of science fiction, but my favorite author was Richard Bach (“Illusions”). It wasn’t until my 40’s that I finally listened to “David Copperfield” who won me over to calling Charles Dickens my favorite. Now? I’m sure you can guess, or I wouldn’t be writing all this here. Amor Towles. His characters are every bit as charming and huge-hearted as David (Copperfield), but rather than intolerably evil villains, he, so far anyway, fills that spot with circumstances. There are unkind people representing those circumstances, but no dwelling on, say, the schoolmaster of my worst nightmares.
And Mr. Towles writes with great patience. He takes the time to work out where a story will end early on, rather than fall into the George RR Martin trap of being led by the story and never finding a fitting end. And the nuances and jewels one discovers along the way, like references back to previous stories make discoveries all the richer for our familiarity with a person, an item, or an image’s past.
Every story in this book is . . . I’ll say it again, SPLENDID!

AUTHOR:
Amor Towles (From Wikipedia)
“Amor Towles (born October 24,1964) is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011),[1] A Gentleman in Moscow (2016),[2] and The Lincoln Highway (2021).[3] Towles began writing following a career in investment banking.”
Towles was born and raised in Boston, to Stokley Porter Towles, an investment banker at Brown Brothers Harriman and a philanthropist, and Holly Hollingsworth. His parents later divorced. He has a brother, Stokley Jr.; a sister, Kimbrough; and two stepbrothers.[4] When Towles was 10 years old, he threw a bottle with a message into the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, he received a letter from Harrison Salisbury, who was then the managing editor of The New York Times. Towles and Salisbury corresponded for many years afterward.[5]
He graduated from Yale College and received a Master of Arts degree in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. The thesis for his M.A. titled Temptations of Pleasure was published in the The Paris Review in 1989.[6]”

NARRATORS:
Edoardo Ballerini (From Wikipedia)
“Edoardo Ballerini (born March 20, 1970) is an American actor, narrator, writer, and film director. On screen he is best known for his work as junkie Corky Caporale in The Sopranos and the hotheaded chef in the indie film Dinner Rush (2001). Ballerini is a two-time winner of the Audio Publishers Association's Best Male Narrator Audie Award (2013), Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter; 2019 Watchers by Dean Koontz) and the co-author of the 2021 collection of stories The Angel of Rome, with Jess Walter. His directorial debut, Good Night Valentino, premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.[1]”

J. Smith-Cameron (From Wikipedia)
“Jean Isabel Smith (born September 7, 1957), credited professionally as J. Smith-Cameron, is an American actress. She gained prominence for her roles in the television series Rectify (2013–2016) and Succession (2018–2023), the latter of which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.”

*Both Narrators were pitch perfect!!!

GENRE:
Fiction; Short Stories; Novellas

LOCATIONS:
New York; and Los Angeles; Moscow

DEDICATION:
“In Memory of My Father Stokley Porter Towles.”

SAMPLE QUOTATION: From “The Line"
“During the last days of the last Tsar, there lived a peasant named Pushkin in a small village one hundred miles from Moscow. Though Pushkin and his wife, Irina, had not been blessed with children, they had been blessed with a cozy two-room cottage and a few square acres that they farmed with the patience and persistence appropriate to their lot. Row by row they would till their soil, sow their seeds, and harvest their crops—moving back and forth across the land like a shuttle through a loom. And when their workday was done, they would journey home to dine on cabbage soup at their little wooden table, then succumb to the holy sleep of the countryside.

Though the peasant Pushkin did not share his namesake’s facility with words, he was something of a poet in his soul—and when he witnessed the leaves sprouting on the birch trees, or the thunderstorms of summer, or the golden hues of autumn, he would feel in his heart that theirs was a satisfactory life. In fact, so satisfactory was their life, had Pushkin uncovered an old bronze lantern while tilling the fields and unleashed from it an ancient genie with three wishes to grant, Pushkin wouldn’t have known what to wish for.

And we all know exactly where that sort of happiness leads.

2. Like many of Russia’s peasants, Pushkin and his wife belonged to a mir—a cooperative that leased the land, allocated the acres, and shared expenses at the mill. On occasion, the members of the mir would gather to discuss some matter of mutual concern. At one such meeting in the spring of 1916, a young man who had traveled all the way from Moscow took to the podium in order to explain the injustice of a country in which 10 percent of the people owned 90 percent of the land. In some detail, he described the means by which Capital had sweetened its own tea and feathered its own nest. In conclusion, he encouraged all assembled to wake from their slumbers and join him in the march toward the inevitable victory of the international proletariat over the forces of repression.

Pushkin was not a political man, or even a particularly educated man. So, he did not grasp the significance of everything this Muscovite had to say. But the visitor spoke with such enthusiasm and made use of so many colorful expressions that Pushkin took pleasure in watching the young man’s words float past as one would the banners of an Easter Day procession.

That night, as Pushkin and his wife walked home, they were both quiet. This struck Pushkin as perfectly appropriate given the hour and the delicate breeze and the chorus of crickets singing in the grass. But if Irina was quiet, she was quiet the way a heated skillet is quiet—in the moments before you drop in the fat. For while Pushkin had enjoyed watching the young man’s words float past, Irina’s consciousness had closed upon them like the jaws of a trap. With an audible snap, she had taken hold and had no intention of letting go. In fact, so tight was her grip on the young man’s arguments, should he ever want them back, he would have to gnaw through his own phrases the way a wolf in a trap gnaws through its ankle.”

RATING:.
5

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
4-12-2024 to 4-20-2024 ( )

"But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. At least not if you're overeducated, overpaid, and living in New York."

I believe this collection of short stories, anchored by a novella (a noirish crime caper that really is a bit too long to qualify as a novella) is the finest writing Amor Towles has ever done. I count myself a superfan, so this is very high praise. This is stunning. Funny, poignant, elegant, brilliantly observant, old-fashioned in the best way, and filled with the sort of prose that is the reason I read. This is the writing I am chasing after all the time, and here I caught it. Maybe the best part is that, without being saccharine, and while revealing many of the characters' choices that are less than noble, Towles leaves me liking humans more than I usually do. Everyone is so complex and somehow relatable, even the people barely on the page. I could not stop from empathizing all over the place. I loved everyone as they were, with all their realness, in part for, rather than in spite of their selfishness, defensiveness, snobbery, and greed. Beautiful. ( )

Compelling set of short stories - my favorite was the last, The Didomenico Effect - and a novella utilizing a character from ‘Rules of Civility,’ Evelyn Ross. The novella is a real page turner, as Evelyn, landing in LA, befriends Olivia de Havilland and helps her deal with a set of compromising photos that could damage her reputation (and that of many other actresses, by the way). It becomes a detective story, of sorts, with Evelyn showing surprising grit.

I continue to be amazed at Towles’ writing ability, his cleverness in relating a story. I rarely find another author that speaks to me the way he does. Someone who has a story to tell, and who can tell it so beautifully…that’s hard to find. I hope he continues to publish - I look forward to anything he sends out in the future. ( )

Table for Two - Towles
Audio performance by Eduardo Ballerino and J.Smith-Cameron
5 stars

To begin with, in the section called New York, there are six excellent short stories. I enjoyed every one of them. They were full of interesting characters, wonderful New York City atmosphere, humorous situations, and surprise endings. The audio performers, especially Ballerino, were able to express every sly nuance.

Part two of this book, Eve in Hollywood, begins as a series of connected short stories. These stories were previously published as an ebook. The stories are a continuation of events from Rules of Civility. They follow Evelyn Ross after she leaves New York City. I’d read these stories before. I was lucky enough to purchase a kindle copy before the author removed it from distribution. They were very good stories, but they left Eve before her Hollywood adventure really began. Towles was right to extend her story. With a few alterations and some additional content, Eve has the chance to really leave her mark on Hollywood. Towles connects the dots of the original sequence of stories to tie all the characters together for a very satisfying revenge caper.

My only regret in reading this book was that I didn’t reread Rules of Civility first. ( )

This delightful collection, six short stories and a novella, seems like an in-between the big novels for Towles, who is a writer who can perfectly balance character study with slimmer plotting. The stories all have little twisty endings that you might or might not see coming, but either way, they add up to a most enjoyable journey. The Line is about a muzhik who transfers his genial customer skills from Russia to NYC; The Ballad of Timothy Touchett features a forger and his employer; Hasta Luego’s main character is a lovable man who falls off the wagon and relies on a stranger to catch him; I Will Survive centers the joy of roller disco; The Bootlegger takes place at Carnegie Hall, where a noveau riche couple encounters a devoted symphony lover; and The DeDomenico Fragment describes the difficult splitting of an inherited painting. The novella, Eve in Hollywood, is a sequel to Rules Of Civility, his outstanding first novel, and can be read joyously as a stand-alone. Those of us who savor every word Towles writes will be pleased to sink into the warmth of his writing and into his obvious love for humanity without judgment, quite rare these days. ( )