This book is gorgeously written. I have always loved disappearing into stories, but unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. The other night, however, I sat up from reading with tears running down my cheeks. Not because this plot requires tears (at the point I’m in), but because Mr. Towles’s writing is so perfect. So eloquent. So incredibly what a good story should be: something that takes me to another time and place and experience.

Sometimes that travel occurs through plot, sometimes it occurs through writing. In this case, it is both; but certainly most distinctively, it is through the writing. It matches the period and the story. Previously, I have hoped that I could write as wonderfully as Kristin Hannah. Her novels have been balm to my soul: The Winter Garden, The Nightingale, True Colors. The list goes on! And that is still a goal that I aspire to.

This book, this author’s voice, has taken me somewhere else completely. Maybe it’s the timing of when I’m reading it — I have a lot on my mind and on my plate and I have only been able to read occasionally over many months. But it is truly a treasure to me. At this point, how I am going to read is selective. It is special. I want to savor it like a piece of uncommon dark chocolate. I’m practically on the verge of reading with a flashlight under my bed covers in giddy defiance of the rest of the house being asleep. It is a slow, gentle burn and just what I am currently in need of. In homage to the early ’90s sketch show “In Living Color,” I give this book two snaps up, a high five, and a hip bump. Such a great read!

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.