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Hello and welcome! My name is Emma and I've been a bookseller for over a decade. I also write fantasy under the name E. M. Epps. This blog features my Two-Paragraph Book Reviews. One paragraph from me. One from the book. Here's why I keep it short.

You are here: Home > Review: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles

Review: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles

Image Emma 20 October 2018

Thumbs up for A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Literature.

A Russian Count is placed under house arrest in a Moscow hotel in the early 20’s. My two coworkers and I (I work in a bookstore) all have different taste in books, with areas of overlap. A Gentleman in Moscow is the first book we’ve all adored. Very few things are as purely charming. If you don’t read it with a smile on your face, I worry about you. It is droll, philosophical, and, despite the fact that almost all of it takes place in a single location, full of event. This is one of those rare situations in which the book everyone is talking about is genuinely a work of genius. Your friends who read a lot have probably been pestering you to read it; allow me to add my voice to theirs.

True, duels were fought by convention at dawn in isolated locations to ensure the privacy of the gentlemen involved. But were they fought behind ash heaps or in scrapyards? Of course not! They were fought in a clearing among the birch trees with a dusting of snow. Or on the banks of a winding rivulet. Or at the edge of a family estate where the breezes shake the blossoms from the trees…. That is, they were fought in settings that one might have expected to see in the second act of an opera.


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Tagged historical fiction, literature, thumbs up
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My bookstore is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, so we will earn a commission if you click through my links and make a purchase. I, personally, am also an affiliate of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and will likewise make a commission if you click through those links and make a purchase. Having to use Amazon doesn’t fill me with joy, but they’re the only good affiliate program for used books available right now. So…that’s the way it is.

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