The Magnificent Ambsersons
by Booth Tarkington
Published in 1918 (I finished it on February 15, 2011)

I am discovering so many classics that I've never heard of. This is one of them. Well, it was. Now I know a little more about the book and author and the time period too since that's a nice bonus of period books. It takes place in a time when grand balls are winding down and the automobiles are edging out the horses. The story itself deals with the pitfalls of pride. While it's not a new concept, it works well here because you really pull for the main character, while still wanting some humility to befall him. His counterpart is almost unbelievably wise in some of her comments and observations. If anything, they seem like the oddest of pairings.

It's timeless in its lessons: we're allowing modern inventions to speed up our lives to displace human interaction, gossip wrecks lives unless we simply ignore it, idleness is a dangerous habit, and life is nothing without goals and risks.

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