Currently reading
Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean
The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen
Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader
Edith Wharton: Novels (The House of Mirth, The Reef, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence) (Library of America)
Wharton's novel is a departure from what you expect in a novel of manners and it can even be described as depressing. The question of what are we to take from this is strong as it seems to chronicle a wasted life to serve as a lesson for others. It does show the the attractions and terrors of society, especially against the inability of an individual to face reality and make adjustments.