Postscript

I keep reading, of course, and can’t let this book get lost without adding it to my list. I read Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility some time ago and liked it very much, so purchased his new one, A Gentleman in Moscow, and spent a week being delighted with his writing once again. I know we all have different reading tastes (I cannot enjoy wildly dysfunctional families or mayhem) so you can count on at least reasonable civility in my list of likes. I am very comfortable in thinking this could be a great Christmas gift for a reader on your list. (The graphic and review were lifted from Barnes & Noble.)

The New York Times Book Review – Craig Taylor
…sly and winning…Solzhenitsyn this is not. The frost gathers outside, but the book proceeds with intentional lightness…Towles is a craftsman…he chooses themes that run deeper than mere sociopolitical commentary: parental duty, friendship, romance, the call of home. Human beings, after all, “deserve not only our consideration but our reconsideration”—even those from the leisured class. Who will save Rostov from the intrusions of the state if not the seamstresses, chefs, bartenders and doormen? In the end, Towles’s greatest narrative effect is not the moments of wonder and synchronicity but the generous transformation of these peripheral workers, over the course of decades, into confidants, equals and, finally, friends.