A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles has invited me to a delightful dinner at Metropol's Boyarsky 'the finest restaurant in Moscow, if not in all of Russia' and over an unhurried dinner of saltimboca has spun the tale of 'Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt,' who has been sentenced to a life of house arrest in a 100 square foot room hidden away at the heights of the Metropol. And what a tale it is! At its heart Count Rostov holds court with a charming cast of characters and has seduced me into wanting even more. Towles' unhurried pace circuits all of life and love and honor and devotion while restricting himself to the horizon of a single building in a city and a country suffering to preserve its identity before a skeptical world. I've already purchased 'Rules of Civility', but see myself rereading 'A Gentlemen in Moscow' again first. To the top of my all time favorites, 'A Gentlemen in Moscow, will settle into slot number 2, behind only 'East of Eden'. It is that grand, it is that intriguing, it is that good!