A Gentleman in Moscow in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 20, 2019 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it

Shelves: cooking, healing, around-the-world, moving-and-starting-over

Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest at an elite hotel in Russia after been condemned as an unrepentant aristocrat by the Bolsheviks. And so the hotel and its inhabitants become his life, and an outsider might be saddened for the constriction Rostov must suffer. But Rostov is a gentleman, and as a gentleman, he has been taught from birth how to live a noble life, and, constrained or not, it is a noble life that Rostov lives.

I fell in love with this man, with the grace he bestows ...more

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Jan 19, 2021 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, favorites, france, philosophy, old-age, purpose, parenting, friendship

A man confined to a hotel for the rest of his life? It sounded like the ideal book for our book club during pandemic times.

I liked this book very much when I read it in 2019, but I loved it after this reread.

I am left thinking about many things.

I had many questions:
What does it mean to be a gentleman? What other people did he run across during his confinement who would be considered gentlemen (or gentlewomen)? What people did he meet who were considered gentlemen by others but were not really g ...more

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Sep 06, 2017 Kathy rated it it was amazing

I'd describe this as a gentle book, reminiscent of John Irving, in my opinion. The writing is witty, humorous at times, and descriptive; the action is slow--in a good way. Delightful. ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Eleanor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, favorites

This is a great book about a nobleman in Russia after the Russian Revolution who was sentenced to house arrest in the Metropole Hotel in St. Petersburg, solely because of his class. The story focuses on his life in the hotel and is a fascinating portrait of a man making the best of a bleak situation with grace. It is more of a character study than a plot-driven story and I initially had trouble getting into it. After I embraced the slower pace of the novel, I found myself captured by Count Alexa ...more

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