In the September reading thread, at least three of us mentioned recently reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Yoyobon, Carolyn and myself). At one point I posted: A question for those who've read A Gentleman in Moscow ... Did you notice that all the chapter titles start with the letter A?

This evening, I visited the Q&A tab of the Amor Towles website and learned this is one of the two most frequently asked questions that Towles receives about the book. Here is his answer:

As you’ve probably noted, all of the book’s chapters are titled with words beginning in A. Why is that so? To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a good answer. Early in the drafting of the novel, I had the instinct that I should follow the rule, and I trusted that instinct. One reader has suggested that it was my own version of playing “Zut”; another has suggested it was a tribute to the first letters in the names Alexander and Amor; a third has suggested it was because the book is about new beginnings. All of these answers strike me as excellent!