Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival by Owen Matthews ![]() Filled with medieval stories and escapades with fellow travelers, this is a fine specimen of great travel writing. Want a big colorful look at a vast country full of endless surprises? Ian Frazier's lively account of travels in the most remote parts of the world will take you there. An accessible glimpse into an idea that was built on grand ideology, this is a slice of Russia that is worth taking a bite into. Francis Spufford is that kind of special and brings alive the dreary concrete buildings, the drab landscape and the early days of the Russian planned economy, in this immensely readable novel. It takes a special person to spin boring old economic theory into a deeply engaging and riveting novel. ![]() Is it a case of suicide or murder that has leads all across Europe? Set in nineteenth-century Russia, this is the first volume of a thrilling series for lovers of mysteries. The Winter Queen: A Novel by Boris AkuninĮrast Fandorin, a member of the Criminal Division of the Moscow Police can tell there's more to the story when he is sent to investigate a case of a young student from a rich family who shoots himself to death. Moving between Russia of the past and contemporary America, this is a powerful novel about the power of art to sustain us through life's darkest hours. In such a climate, when a serial killer is on the loose, government agent Leo Demidov must do everything he can to zero in on a perpetrator the State will never admit exists.ĭuring the interminable and deadly siege of Leningrad during WWII, as the city's residents undergo the worst privations, a museum worker commits to memory many priceless works of art at one of the local institutions. The commonly spun narrative for mass consumption in Stalinist Russia is that it is a paradise on earth and any storylines that suggest otherwise are immediately squashed. With powerful insights into a repressive society, this is a revelatory novel about freedom and truth and the power of love to overcome the worst in all of us. When even walls have ears and allegiances are shaky, it becomes difficult to know whom to trust and what the cost of doing the right thing truly is. This is a remarkable look at everyday citizens who don't know where to turn for information, whose lives are so colored by insidious tyranny that options are few and escape impossible.Īndrei, a young doctor and his wife, Anna, are making a life in post-WWII Russia when a directive to treat a high-ranking Soviet officer's child changes their seemingly peaceful life. We present here a mix of fiction and nonfiction books specifically about Russia and Russians, both before and after the disintegration of the powerful federation that was the USSR.Īll That Is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeonĪs if the deadly Chernobyl disaster weren't tragic enough, it left exposed the systemic corruption of the Russian police state in its wake. For those of us who remember the duck-and-cover drills, the race to space and the many subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which world geopolitics permeated everyday lives, a peek behind the Iron Curtain is as fascinating as it is informative. ![]() The Cold War might be a thing of the past but the "Red Menace" still rules the West's collective imagination.
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