Friday, March 23, 2012

Five top books on Gilded Age New York

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on Gilded Age New York:
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton, who once said that "the air of ideas is the only air worth breathing," explores what happens when Newland Archer, a New York gentleman engaged to marry his sweet-but-conventional upper-class fianceƩ, falls for a scandal-plagued woman he's just met, Countess Ellen Olenska. The first Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by a woman, this novel brilliantly memorializes the social life of Gilded Age Manhattan, as it weaves a timeless tragedy out of the tensions between duty and passion.
Read about the other books on the list.

The Age of Innocence also appears on Frances Kiernan's five best list of books that helped her understand the ways of New York society and David Kamp's list of six books that are notable for their food prose, and is among Elaine Sciolino's six favorite books, Mika Brzezinski's 6 best books and Honor Blackman's 6 best books.

--Marshal Zeringue