Historical Fiction · Free kit
A Gentleman in Moscow
In June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is spared a firing squad and sentenced to spend the rest of his life inside Moscow's Hotel Metropol. Moved from a grand suite to a servant's attic, he watches a century arrive through revolving doors, kitchens, and a child who was only supposed to stay a month. Amor Towles's novel is witty, lavish, and unexpectedly tender: a story about making a life in reduced rooms, and whether courtesy is resistance — or a beautiful way to look away.
“If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”
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A Gentleman in Moscow Icebreakers
Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.
Personality Reveal
1. If your world suddenly shrank to one building, would you become the person who learns everyone's name — or the person who perfects a closed door?
Personality Reveal
2. Are you more likely to solve a bad day with a ritual (same mug, same chair, same walk) or by breaking the ritual on purpose?
Personality Reveal
3. In a group, do you take the head of the table, or the seat where you can see the whole room without being the show?
Funny & Light
4. What tiny courtesy do you still insist on — holding a door, writing a thank-you, dressing for dinner at home — that friends tease you for?
Funny & Light
5. Have you ever given a stranger an unnecessarily detailed recommendation (a dish, a seat, a shortcut) as if you worked there?
Funny & Light
6. What is the most ridiculous object you would pack if you had ten minutes to move from a big room to a tiny one?
Would You Rather
7. Would you rather live in a beautiful public place where someone can always find you, or a plain private place where no one ever does?
Would You Rather
8. Would you rather be known for impeccable manners that hide what you feel, or for saying the true thing and watching the table go quiet?
Would You Rather
9. Would you rather have a life full of exquisite small pleasures you cannot leave, or a larger life with worse coffee and an open door?
Hot Take
10. Hot take: manners are not shallow — they are how strangers agree not to harm each other. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
11. Hot take: a person can live a complete life in a few rooms, and people who need constant new scenery are just bored, not free. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
12. Hot take: raising a child who is not legally yours can be a deeper kind of parenthood than biology. Agree or disagree?
Personal Connection
13. When have you had to make a home inside a limit you did not choose — a job, a city, a body, a waiting period — and what actually made it livable?
Personal Connection
14. Who in your life shows love by setting a table, mending a sleeve, or remembering how you take your tea, instead of making a speech?
Personal Connection
15. What skill did you learn because someone older treated it as a duty — carving, hosting, listening, showing up on time — that you still hear in their voice?