A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles

I can only recommend A Gentleman in Moscow to you strongly - it is a truly wonderful story and you will not regret spending some time in the Count’s company.

First published in 2016, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is a novel I have often picked up in book stores, only to return to the shelf with the thought of “another time”. That time arrived in 2022 and none too soon.

Set in the early 1920s in Moscow, Count Alexander Rostov becomes a prisoner in the Hotel Metropol during the Russian Revolution, deemed an unrepentant aristocrat. Over the years that follow, his place within the hotel and the people who come and go from his life within it change, providing a novel which is both exciting and soothing all at once, while Russia undergoes total upheaval outside the hotel doors.

The difficulty I often have is when a book comes highly and broadly recommended, I am too often disappointed by them, which is why I think it took me so long to pick A Gentleman in Moscow up. I need not have been concerned - it was so much better than I could ever have imagined, and one I suspect I will re-read in years to come, such was my enjoyment.

Towles is a good writer - this is, in my view - a far stronger story than his debut novel, Rules of Civility, which I thought was just OK. Funny and humane, this novel will appeal to those who enjoy general fiction, mystery, history and period drama, and who appreciate a giggle while they read.

I believe there is a film adaptation being made and I hope it can live up to the wonder of this novel - film adaptations so rarely do. I look forward to seeing Count Rostov come to life. Until then, I can only recommend A Gentleman in Moscow to you strongly - it is a truly wonderful story and you will not regret spending some time in the Count’s company.