Other five-star reviewers have said most everything I might say. I did not want A Gentleman in Moscow to end and will make the rare move (for me) of reading it again, this time for the Kindle so that I can save my favorite references and passages. I was almost entirely taken in by the twists and turns, wholly willingly, and thoroughly enjoyed Towles’s prose, settings, and characterizations. Spying on Russian history unfolding from the 20s through to the 50s was an entertainment; I kept expecting Ninotchka to appear as a character. The references to Montaigne and other thinkers gave me pauses to think for myself. Some authors might have set their essays on the strength and endurance of the human will in a more conventional prison or gulag. Many thanks to Towles for his choices and reminder that classic virtues and manners do not need to be casualties of cultural and political upheavals.