A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. There's fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood, and poetry. The book is technically historical fiction, but you'd be just as accurate calling it a thriller or a love story.

“A Gentleman in Moscow” has the air of a fairytale to it, an insistence on seeing the good in people, in noticing their nuances and making room for them, in forgiving them for their foibles. It's an optimistic book and I think we could do we a few more of those in the world.

"A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles is a book in which every page is a lesson in mindfulness, even if the word mindfulness is not mentioned even once. Of course, it is also a book about strength, humility, grace, open-mindedness, and kindness.

Is A Gentleman in Moscow a true story? Not quite. Though Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and the decades of house arrest that he endures within the Metropol are a work of Amor Towles's imagination, the setting in which the events unfold is a real hotel, with a history that rivals any work of fiction.