A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is perhaps the perfect pandemic book. I read it in the early months and finally bought a copy for my own shelves recently. The book follows the life of Count Alexander Rostov through 30 years under house arrest in the ornate Metropol Hotel in Moscow. Despite the tight confines. the book is a meandering saga of sorts. It can be slow moving at times and stops for minutia regularly, but that is sort of the point. By book’s end there is a sincere feeling of passage of time and satisfaction that is hard to come by.

One of my favorite lines in the book comes early when the count arrives in his new room, barely larger than a closet:

He surveyed the furniture that had been stacked around him and reminded himself how, as a youth, he had longed for trips to France by steamship and Moscow by overnight train.

And why had he longed for those 2 particular journeys?

Because their births had been so small!

What a marvel it had been to discover that a table folded away without a trace; and the drawers built into the base of the bed; and the wall mounted lamps just large enough to illuminate a page. This efficiency of design was music to the young mind. It attested to a precision of purpose and the promise of adventure. For such a world would have been the quarters of Captain Nemo when he journeyed twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea. And wouldn’t any young boy with the slightest gumption gladly trade one hundred nights in a palace for one aboard the Nautil­us?

Well. At long last, here he was.