A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles. New York: Random House, 2016. (Large Print) 719 pages.  ****


"Towles immerses the reader in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. " If the Count leaves the hotel, he will be killed, so the Count settles in and adapts to his new home. When he is moved from his suite to an attic room and only allowed to take a few personal belongings with him, He manages to extend his living space to the room next door and create a cozy study. While dining in one of the hotel's restaurants, he is befriended by Nina Kulikova, a precocious nine-year -old. Their friendship spans decades and provides a nice sublot to the horrors experienced by the Russian people. The visitors and employees in the hotel become the Count's family and even though he is confined by his sentence, he lives a somewhat charmed life.

 I enjoyed this novel and have heard many rave reviews about it. The story did lag for me in some sections of the book, but I kept going to find out what happens to Nina and her daughter Sofia. I was tempted to research the events and places mentioned as I read it, however, I decided to just enjoy it as written. Towles has a style of writing and weaving his tale that the atrocities experienced outside of the hotel seem not to exist. Other reviewers have suggested that it reads as a fantasy or fairy tale rather than historical fiction. Whatever label you assign to it, it's a delightful tale of friendship, loss, and love.

I received a copy of this book through an Instagram #quiltersbookpassport. Someone posts a book that they are willing to share along with 4 fat quarters of fabric. Ten people may claim it and the owner sends it to the first person. That person has 30 days to read it and keeps the original fat quarters and sends 4 of her own. The last person sends it back to the owner. I've read a few books this way and have not been disappointed in the book or the process.

Born and raised in the Boston area, Amor Towles graduated from Yale College and received an MA in English from Stanford University.

Mr. Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, which was published in 2011, was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2011. The book has been translated into over 20 languages, its French translation receiving the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald.

Mr. Towles’s second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, which was published in 2016, was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year in hardcover and was named one of the best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR. The book has been translated into over thirty languages including Russian. In the summer of 2017, the novel was optioned by EOne and the British director, Tom Harper, to be made into a 6-8 hour miniseries starring Kenneth Branagh. For more information about Amor Towles

I mailed the book and fat quarters to the next name on the list and added a needle holder to the package. Great fun!

#quiltersbookpassport #agentlemaninmoscow #historicalfiction