Overview
The mega-bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers that is soon to be a major television series One of five Summer 2019 reading picks by Bill Gates "The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, and] twists of fate." -- The Wall Street Journal He can't leave his hotel. You won't want to. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility --a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count's endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
Amor Towles grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College and received an M.A. in English from Stanford University where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. His novel, "Rules of Civility" reached the bestseller lists of The New York Times, the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times. The book was rated by The Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best works of fiction in 2011. The book has been published in 15 languages. In the fall of 2012, the novel was optioned to be made into a feature film. Viking/Penguin published Towles's next novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, on September 6, 2016.
Professional Reviews
"Marvelous" - Chicago Tribune
"This finely composed new novel by Amor Towles stretches out with old-World elegance." -The Washington Post
"The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, twists of fate and silly antics." - The Wall Street Journal
"A winning, stylish novel." - NPR.org
"Enjoyable, elegant." - Seattle Times
"The perfect fall book to curl up with while the world goes by outside your window." - Refinery29.com
"Who will save Rostov from the intrusions of state if not the seamstress, 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. With them around, a life sentence in these gilded halls might make Rostov the luckiest man in Russia." - The New York Times Book Review
"Irresistible . . . In his second elegant period piece investment banker turned novelist Amor Towles continues to explore the question of how a person can lead an authentic life in a time when mere survival is a feat in itself . . . Towles''s tale, as lavishly filigreed as a Faberg egg, gleams with nostalgia for the golden age of Tolstoy and Turgenev . . . reminding the reader that though Putin may be having a moment, it''s Pushkin who''s eternal."
-- O, The Oprah Magazine
"The book moves briskly from one crisp scene to the next, and ultimately casts a spell as encompassing as Rules of Civility , a book that inhales you into its seductively Gatsby-esque universe." --Town & Country
"In all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight . . .This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can''t begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind. A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles'' stylish debut, Rules of Civility ." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"In his remarkable first novel, the bestselling Rules of Civility , Towles etched 1930s New York in crystalline relief . . . His latest polished literary foray into a bygone era is just as impressive . . . an imaginative and unforgettable historical portrait." - Booklist
"House arrest has never been so charming as in Towles''s second novel, an engaging 30-year saga set almost entirely inside the Metropol, Moscow''s most luxurious hotel. . .empathetic, and entertaining." - Publishers Weekly Praise for Rules of Civility
"An irresistible and astonishingly assured debut about working class-women and world-weary WASPs in 1930s New York...in the crisp, noirish prose of the era, Towles portrays complex relationships in a city that is at once melting pot and elitist enclave - and a thoroughly modern heroine who fearlessly claims her place in it." -- O, the Oprah Magazine
"With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age...[his] characters are youthful Americans in tricky times, trying to create authentic lives." -- The New York Times Book Review
"This very good first novel about striving and surviving in Depression-era Manhattan deserves attention...The great strength of Rules of Civility is in the sharp, sure-handed evocation of Manhattan in the late ''30s." -- Wall Street Journal
"Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent...[Towles] clearly knows the privileged world he''s writing about, as well as the vivid, sometimes reckless characters who inhabit it."
-- People
"[A] wonderful debut novel...Towles [plays] with some of the great themes of love and class, luck and fated encounters that animated Wharton''s novels." -- The Chicago Tribune
"Glittering...filled with snappy dialogue, sharp observations and an array of terrifically drawn characters...Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change." --NPR.org
"Glamorous Gotham in one to relish...a book that enchants on first reading and only improves on the second." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer From the Hardcover edition.
