A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
Paperback | Penguin Books | March 26, 2019
The Gist
An aristocrat is spared by the Bolshevik party and sentenced to house arrest in a hotel for the rest of his life because of a poem he wrote that fanned the flames of the revolution.
Read if you like
Amor Towles
Tolstoy
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer
Historical fiction
The Verdict: Settle In, Read It, Savor It
Unlike most of the aristocracy, Count Alexander Rostov is spared by the Bolsheviks and sentenced to house arrest at the grand Metropol Hotel in the heart of Moscow. As some of the most tumultuous decades of Russian history unfold, Alexander is set on his own journey of self-discovery. From finding friendship to love to newfound family, he finds purpose in this new world. Affable, well-read, well-traveled, quick-witted, and honorable, his dynamism is what holds the novel together and immediately draws readers in. All of Towles’s characters are built in this way, whether they are on the page for a few sentences or continue to return throughout the book they too are complex. Through these rich characters and scenes, Towles creates a slow, but steady momentum as he inches the plot forward book by book (there are five in total). It’s the type of book that you want to settle into and savor and immediately want to read again once you’ve reached the last page.
