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Summary, Analysis & Review of Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow by Instaread
- Narrated by: Dwight Equitz
- Length: 28 mins
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Publisher's summary
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is the story of a Russian aristocrat-turned-waiter who lives 32 years of his life under house arrest at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. Set in post-revolutionary Russia, the novel follows its protagonist, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, as he develops new friendships, family, and loves, all while confined within the walls of the Metropol.
In 1922, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Rostov, originally a gentleman from Russia's Nizhny Novgorod province, is deemed a threat to the Communist Party and sentenced to house arrest at the hotel where he has been living in luxury. The party is suspicious of Count Rostov, who left Russia after the tsar's execution in 1918, but returned four years later. What saves Rostov from being executed is a single poem published in 1913 espousing revolutionary ideals, to which he claims authorship.
Please note: This is a summary, analysis & review of the book and not the original book.
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When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right to determine our own lives? When did we first ask the question, how can I be free? It all began in the 1790s in a quiet university town in Germany when a group of playwrights, poets, and writers put the self at center stage in their thinking, writing, and their lives.
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fascinating overall, too much drama
- By soup cook on 11-27-22
By: Andrea Wulf
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Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
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Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
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The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
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Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
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Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
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Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
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The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
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Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
- By: Gerald Martin
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
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Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
- By Paola Herrington on 01-08-13
By: Gerald Martin
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Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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Outlaw Marriages
- The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples
- By: Rodger Streitmatter
- Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40 - sometimes as many as 50 - years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.
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Sames Sex Couples Through History
- By Susie on 12-11-12
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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
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C. S. Lewis - A Life
- Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
- By: Alister E. McGrath
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
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Awakening my curiosity and desire to read more!
- By Pearl Glacier on 03-13-13
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When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
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Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Manifesto
- On Never Giving Up
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: Bernardine Evaristo
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling and Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism.
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Glorious performance and inspiring story
- By Maggi Morehouse on 01-25-22
What listeners say about Summary, Analysis & Review of Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow by Instaread
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- pewpewMerca
- 09-01-17
Good summary
Nice and succinct. Just what I need. Will look at other Instaread summaries. This is my first.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Pjk
- 12-26-17
What about?...
I have now listened to A Gentleman in Moscow twice and suspect I will revisit it again and again in the future. This review and analysis was good but I don't believe he and I viewed the protagonist in the same way. Although we both saw the good in him, I saw him as one who had learned young to except his surroundings...before and after the revolution. He is gifted in his ability to make friends- Mishka during University years, his handler at the Metropole, etc. etc. The revolution did not change him. He is the adaptable to life and thus is free.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca
- 12-01-19
decent
Good overall. Less self advertising would be better. Errors in plot mentioned by others noted.
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- David Springer
- 11-13-18
you got it wrong
I was very disappointed that you got certain plot elements wrong. For instance, Nina does not give the book of gold coins - she receives it; what she gives is the backpack that contains material about Russian leadership useful to the American spymaster. Even Cliffnotes would do better than you!
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5 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-15-24
Worthless !
If you have read this novel do not bother listening to this. Would love to hear the author review this review.
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- Sherrie Klein
- 08-16-17
Errors
There are several mistakes in the summary and the character reviews regarding actions taken and beliefs held.
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4 people found this helpful
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- James
- 12-27-18
Waste of time
It Takes a beautiful written book and reduce it to s fourth grade book report
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3 people found this helpful
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- E.B.
- 02-18-19
Dry, if flawed, review
Having just listened to the truly marvelous A Gentleman in Moscow, I listened to this book with dismay as it offered only a straightforward review of the plot and characters. There was no analysis to speak of. Good for someone who is having a test on it and didn't remember it well.
Worse, though, is that I counted at least 4 mistakes in the plots points. One major and the rest minor, but still! This should have been caught by anyone who edited this book and who, presumably, actually read the Towles novel.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Memmons
- 03-25-21
Does NOT capture ANY of the book’s essence!
Since I loved Amor Towles’s AGentleman in Moscow (I listened to it twice, all the way through!), I thought how nice it would be to listen to this Review Summary and Analysis. I wanted to hear about some of the nuances of the book, see if the analyzer and I agreed, hear about connections that I might have missed or misinterpreted. I couldn’t be more disappointed!
Even the summary was ‘off’, it didn’t capture the sweetness of the story. And the analysis kept referring to what the lead character ‘learned’, rather than what the lead character brought to the table in the first place.
I am sad!
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2 people found this helpful