The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton.

An acute delight, not least for the names: Undine Spragg! Indiana Frusk! Elmer Moffatt! (Moffat, a self-made billionaire with a rapaciousness to collect all and only the very best things, made me think of the many dazzling gifts of Pierpont Morgan lingering in vitrines in various New York museums.) Undine is "fiercely independent and passionately imitative," and Wharton charts her careening career through New York and Parisian high society near the turn of the 20th century, as she uses everything (and everyone) around her to chase her insatiable need for status:  

"Even now, however, she was not always happy. She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them."

It's a book that chills, as you recognize behaviors and attitudes unchanged in a hundred years. (This NYT feature on the cost of Undine's splendid gems and clothes makes plain the level of eye-popping wealth she craved.)