A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is set entirely and exclusively in a hotel.

But before you conclude that such a confined narrative space couldn’t possibly hold your attention for 495 pages, think Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.

When the hotel in question is a place which, ever since its opening in 1905, had been ‘a gathering spot for the glamorous, influential and erudite’, there is no shortage of characters and incidents on which to effortlessly hang the narra...