If I were a character in this terrific novel, I would remember exactly who had recommended it to me, under what circumstances, and everything else about them. Alas, I am not, nor do I really wish I were, but as a story it has that kind of appeal, of making me think, what would I have done. The plot covers a dozen or so years, from Bulgaria in the early 1930s to America in 1946, and it concerns a group of NKVD recruits whose allegiance to one another is stronger than their allegiance to the NKVD. Or is it?

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Looking back, I cannot remember which particular recommendation engine thought I might like to read this. I asked a couple, telling them how much I had enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See and A Gentleman in Moscow. After I had ploughed through a couple of things for work and John Le Carré’s Sing...

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There isn’t much I can say about this luminous book that has not already been said by people far more accomplished than me. I found it a spell-binding read; the different points of view, the empathy for Marie-Laure and Werner, the timeline weaving back and forth, here and there.

How I came to read...

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I’ve just finished the most delightful book I have read in a very long time. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is simply breath-taking in the way it spins its magic. I freely confess to being extremely sentimental, easy to tears in a film or even music, but I don’t recall having wept tears of joy...

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At the end of September, David Runciman interviewed Ian McEwan on Talking Politics. Their conversation about McEwan's two most recent books was so interesting that I went and bought both almost as soon as I got back home from my walk. I wasn’t disappointed.

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