My love affair with Amor Towles

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I still can't put this down. It feels like a love affair - sneaking glances, hurried words, stealing away to unlit rooms, just to taste Towles' prose on my lips.

I love Katey. I want my own Wallace Wolcott and Dicky Vanderwhile, and cried when they left. I hated Eve. I wanna punch Tinker on the face and wrap my arms around Hank, or maybe the opposite. I adore Anne Grandyn, her grandeur, her poise, her strength. I miss New York, and fell in love over and over again for the blinding lights, the nostalgic feeling for the future, every feeling, every word that is New York. Katey Kontent is my heroine. I'm Amor Towles' lover. This book will take you in.



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Current read: Rules of Civility

The crisp sound of plastic ripping under my fingers, the smell of paper, the smooth plane of the cover slightly disturbed by embossed letters, the crowded parking lot, lines of impatient work people, a woman clicks her tongue loudly, a man wipes his sweating nape, a girl staring me down over his boyfriend's shoulder. I looked up once, she looked away. I smirked and read and read and read, my body humming with lust over pages of prose. The van abruptly arrived, the line pushed me forward, I trip over words. Inside the capsule-like vehicle, bodies cramped against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-rib, knees against the back of the seats, I pray for a short ride home. 

"On Friday nights, we let boys whom we had no intention of kissing buy us drinks, and in exchange for dinner we kissed a few whom we had no intention of kissing twice."

Bad days

There are bad days and there are great ones. Good days are always short lived, bad days are tougher on us. We obsess over it, painstakingly analyze what went wrong, wish and pray that we could undo it. It's a hopeless case and it crushes us, deep in our bones. Well, for me.

Others can take on that bull with both hands on its horn, I scream and run away. I internally scream, and internally curse myself, and internally run away. I had a bad day. It's not about luck, fate, the cosmos, or anything. It was words, words that hit me like sticks and stones.

Here's my solution to a bad day (if not effective, seek professional help):

"Books are hardbound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am a happy victim of books." - Karl Lagerfeld

We all have different beliefs of what our own heaven would look like when we die. If afterlife was eternal we'd want to spend it with the things we'd never get tired of, our guilty pleasures. 

Photo by Todd Selby/The Selby Is In Your Place

Karl Lagerfeld's library, I died! Not only is he the genius behind Chanel, he's also BFFs with my girl crush, Blake Lively! And he has this glorious stack of books in his Paris studio! Lucky guy. 

Photo by Toddy Selby/The Selby Is In Your Place

I feel like staring at the photo for the rest of the day. If I was there, I'd just stand in the middle of the room, my eyes glazed over in awe and vomit rainbows. I mean, who won't!

48 Laws of Power

 Got my package from Bookay-Ukay yesterday!!! 

Not even close to a self-help book. I wouldn't even call it that. I wanna devour this in one greedy gulp! The Art of Seduction soon!

Posting from work. Done early! Articles up at Asia Daily Wire.