authors

Amor Towles

• Dec 15, 2023 A Gentleman In Moscow By Amor Towles It is a bit suspicious that this was published after Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel came out, but as much of a Anderson fanboy as I am, I think this may have done it better. Declining customs of an aristocratic hotel of the Old World, charm and poise pitted against the bureaucratic gray new age, a man out of place whose chief attribute is knowing how never to be out of place. Sweet, a bit twee, all in all quite solid, an excellent book to recommend to a grandmother or at least my grandmother.
• Mar 2, 2024 Rules Of Civility By Amor Towles There is something half-full about books by Amor Towles, and I can't quite place it. Maybe it is just an undue obsession with trappings of wealth? Or maybe they are just without objectionability - feels like most proper literature is a bit more transgressive, pushes the bounds some how, does something a bit more. Which is not to say its not good! It is quite good (perhaps not quite as good as A Gentleman in Moscow), engaging, easy to digest. I think there is something to the well-read protagonist's predilection for Agatha Christie; the reading experience is not so different, and at the end you are left with a pleasant sense of conclusion.