Short Stories Anthologies
By: Amor Towles
Narrators: Edoardo Ballerini,
J. Smith-Cameron
Publisher: Viking | Penguin Audio
ISBN: 978-0593296370
Publication Date: 04/02/2024
Format: Other
My Rating: 5 Stars
From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.
Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
Praise
“A knockout collection. ... Sharp-edged satire deceptively wrapped like a box of Neuhaus chocolates, Table for Two is a winner.”
—The New York Times
“Superb ... This may be Towles' best book yet. Each tale is as satisfying as a master chef's main course, filled with drama, wit, erudition and, most of all, heart.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Table for Two is a smorgasbord of deliciously mischievous tales imbued with Towles' signature wit and worldliness.”
—Time
“These are jam-packed, juicy stories.”
—Star Tribune
“Towles continues to show his signature wit and literary prowess in this new collection, making Table for Two a can’t-miss for current or future fans of his work.”
—Chicago Review of Books
“Towles excels with this collection. Readers unfamiliar with his novels will love these examples of his shorter fiction and they will be pure catnip to his legions of fans. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Table for Two is a masterful, subtle collection of thoroughly entertaining stories.”
—BookPage
“A sneakily entertaining assortment of tales.”
—Kirkus
About the Author
Author photo Dmitri Kasterine
Garrison, NY.
Born and raised in the Boston area, Amor Towles graduated from Yale College and received an MA in English from Stanford University. Having worked as an investment professional for over twenty years, he now devotes himself full time to writing in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and two children. His novels Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway have collectively sold more than six million copies and been translated into more than thirty languages. Both Bill Gates and President Barack Obama included A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway on their annual book recommendation lists.
Rules of Civility (2011) was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of the year. The book’s French translation received the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald.
A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and was named one of the best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR.
The Lincoln Highway (2021) debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Towles’s short stories have appeared in the Paris Review (#112), Granta (#148), British Vogue, and Audible Originals. Access to some of these stories as well as a few short essays can be found in the Other Writing section of this website.
Towles wrote the introduction to Scribner’s 75th anniversary edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night and the Penguin Classics edition of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. “As for Clothing”, Towles’s essay on Walden, appears in the anthology Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau.