Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?
Introduction to the author and book
Amor Towles (born 1964) is an American novelist, born and raised in Boston, to Stokley Porter Towles, an investment banker and philanthropist, and Holly Hollingsworth. His parents later divorced. He has a brother, a sister, and two stepbrothers.
He graduated from Yale College and received a Master of Arts degree in English from Stanford University. After graduating, Towles was set to teach in China on a two-year fellowship. However, this was abruptly cancelled due to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. From 1991 to 2012, he worked as an investment manager and director of research at Select Equity Group in New York.
When Towles was 10 years old, he threw a bottle with a message into the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, he received a letter from Harrison Salisbury, then managing editor of The New York Times, who had found the bottle. Towles and Salisbury corresponded for many years afterwards.
Towles resides in Manhattan, with his wife Maggie, their son Stokley, and their daughter Esmé. Towles is a collector of fine art and antiques.
Towles published his first novel (Rules of Civility) to great acclaim in 2011.
A Gentleman in Moscow, was his second novel. It was on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list for 59 weeks, was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award. A television adaptation starring Ewan McGregor was released on Paramount+ in March 2024.
Towles’ third novel, The Lincoln Highway, was published on October 5, 2021. It was chosen by Amazon as the best book of 2021. By May 2022, it had been on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for 30 weeks.
A Gentleman in Moscow – (495 pages) First published in the UK in 2017
Both an exquisite comic masterpiece and a profound meditation on what gives life purpose, A Gentleman in Moscow views the events unfolding in the decades after the Russian Revolution through the eyes of a Russian aristocrat under house arrest (for the rest of his life) in an attic of the opulent Hotel Metropol.
On 21 June, 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.
Surely one of the most memorable and charming characters in all literature, Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit (who has never worked a day in his life and is now stripped of the trappings that defined his life) must live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.
With the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov undertakes his own transformation and, in a decades-long quest for what makes us who we are,
unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose … and of how much control over his own life he can exert in the most unpromising circumstances.
A supremely uplifting novel … elegant, witty and delightful – much like the Count himself – Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year.
Very funny, tender and as laughably accurate an account of the dismal nature of life in Soviet Russia as one could hope for … Quite apart from the ingeniously ludicrous plot and the acutely drawn characters, what adds to the joy of this book is the precision of Towles’ prose. Again and again he conveys exactly the right impression with a deliciously surprising choice of words … a sheer delight. – William Hartson, Daily Express
A work of great charm, intelligence and insight. – Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
No historical novel was ever more witty, insightful and original – Sunday Times, Culture Magazine
This novel is astonishing, uplifting and wise. Don’t miss it. ― Chris Cleave
A Gentleman in Moscow is a tale abundant in humour, history and humanity, with a poignant message about time passing. That Towles also makes this rollicking good fun is no mean feat. ― Sunday Telegraph
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Vicki James & Helen Sinclair
The next book for October 25 will be …
“Leonard and Hungry Paul” by Rónán Hession (published August 2019 – 245 pages. Amazon 4.5*)
Rónán Hession skilfully weaves a narrative that reminds us of the profound beauty found in the simplest experiences.
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