The first few pages of [a:Amor Towels|20724993|Amor Towels|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s [b:A Gentleman in Moscow|34066798|A Gentleman in Moscow|Amor Towles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551480896l/34066798.SY75.jpg|45743836] are a list of things I don't like novels to start with: a map; a poem I don't get; a courtroom transcript. (What it didn't have of things I don't like was a list of the cast of characters and a long quote in a foreign language with no translation.) There are also, later, footnotes, which I don't think need to be in novels.
This had my hackles up, but it turns out to be one of the more delightful novels I've read in ages. Another thing I don't like in novels and would be tired of even if I did is them centering on people locked in small spaces. ([a:Emma Donoghue|23613|Emma Donoghue|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1591714728p2/23613.jpg]'s [b:Room|31685789|Room|Emma Donoghue|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472239721l/31685789.SX50.jpg|9585076] started out that way and it would've been far less readable—by me, anyway—if it had continued in one room for its entirety, but it didn't.) I'm mentioning this because A Gentleman in Moscow takes place in a confined space, a large hotel in the heart of the title city, but there's such a variety in the people and the action that it doesn't feel at all stuffy. (Taking place in a small area, by the way, makes it perfect pandemic reading.)
Towles's language is elegant and graceful to the point that I can imagine some finding it to be stuffy, but it's got oomph. This is one of those books that, while long, I was sorry to see end. Oh, you learn some history from it too. And the footnotes are as pleasant to read as the rest of the text.

Count Alexander Ilyick Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank.
Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee.