Book Bearings
A Gentleman in Moscow
- 511 pages · about 9 hours
- First published 2016
- 28 editions
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1 About this book
In 1922 Count Alexander Rostov is brought before a Bolshevik tribunal and sentenced to house arrest for life in the Hotel Metropol, the grand Moscow hotel near the Kremlin where he has been living. Moved from his suite to a small attic room, he sets about making a full life inside the building's walls. Over the following decades, while Soviet history passes outside the windows, he makes friends among the staff and the guests, works in the hotel's restaurant, and finds himself responsible for a young girl. Amor Towles's novel was published in 2016.
- Historical fiction
- Literary fiction
- Political fiction
- Political
- Aristocracy (Social class)
- Relationships
- Hotels
- Moscow (russia)
2 What to expect
A historical novel set almost entirely inside one Moscow hotel, where a Russian count lives under house arrest from 1922 for more than thirty years. It is about making a rich life in a small space: friendship, food and wine, manners, parental duty and loyalty, with Soviet history kept mostly in the background. The tone is charming, witty and leisurely, the hero unfailingly gracious, and the pace is slow until the final part.
Good for readers who want: charming historical fiction, a witty hero, and an unhurried, delightful read.
3 About Amor Towles
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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