Books like Very Important People by Ashley Mears

In Edith Wharton’s classic, Lily Bart, a beautiful and intelligent young woman devoted to luxury, struggles to navigate New York’s strict social hierarchy and moral expectations, ultimately confronting the limits of her independence.

A first‑century‑turn English novel by E. M. Forster that explores social conventions, class distinctions, and the relationships among families and sisters.

Evelina is a comic novel of manners that follows a young London debutante as she navigates the social world of 18th‑century England, learning wit, confidence, and the subtleties of love.

The author, a sociologist and former model, draws on personal experiences and interviews with industry insiders to examine the economics, politics and arbitrariness of the glamor business. She takes us behind the brightly lit runways and glossy advertisements of the fashion industry in this insider's study of the world of modeling. She has worked as a model in New York and London, and draws on observations as well as extensive interviews with male and female models, agents, clients, photographers, stylists, and others, to explore the economics and politics, and the arbitrariness, behind the business of glamour. Exploring a largely hidden arena of cultural production, she shows how the right "look" is discovered, developed, and packaged to become a prized commodity. She examines how models sell themselves, how agents promote them, and how clients decide to hire them. An original contribution to the sociology of work in the new cultural economy, this book offers an analysis of the invisible ways in which gender, race, and class shape worth in the marketplace.

A satirical look at Manhattan’s Park Avenue princesses, who chase tans from a Portofino tanning salon, private jets and ATM‑rich boyfriends, all while flirting with the ever‑elusive fiancé.

740 Park, built in 1930 on Manhattan's Gold Coast, has been home to America’s wealthiest families—Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Chrysler, Niarchos, and modern billionaires—offering a rare social history of elite New York life.

A satirical look at Boston’s gilded upper class through three generations of the Apley family, exploring social customs, inheritance, and the rise of American security between 1866 and 1933.

Witty high‑society journalist Gus Bailey becomes embroiled in a costly slander suit after repeating a fake story about a congressman, while he struggles to uncover the truth behind billionaire Konstantin Zacharias’s mysterious death.

Explores how 'hip' evolved from underground culture to a global cultural touchstone, charting its influence on music, fashion, gender, race, and mainstream commerce over the twentieth century.