Where is your nonfiction section please.
Mud Sweeter Than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania, by Margo Rejmer, translated from the Polish by Zasia Krasodomska-Jones and Antonia Lloyd-JonesUsed and new at SecondSale.com What was meant to be has already happened.Time smooths out the edges of our recollections; the past is distorted by the weight of the present. Albania isn't a country I... Continue Reading →
Book review: Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism, by Slavenka Drakulic What a weird day to be writing about a book on democracy in Europe, as it teeters precariously in the United States. But I think Americans would do well to consider democratic processes and totalitarian histories in Europe, because it's abundantly clear that... Continue Reading →
The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War, by J.W. Mohnhaupt, translated from German by Shelley Frisch (Amazon / Book Depository) published November 12, 2019 The English translation of J.W. Mohnhaupt's German bestseller The Zookeepers' War opens with scenes from (West) Berlin's Zoological Garden as the Second World War reached Berlin's doorstep. It follows... Continue Reading →
Book review: Border, by Kapka Kassabova (Amazon / Book Depository) This book tells the human story of the last border of Europe. It is where Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey converge and diverge, borders being what they are. It is also where something like Europe begins and something else ends which isn’t quite Asia. This is... Continue Reading →
Book review: Secondhand Time, by Svetlana Alexievich (Amazon / Book Depository) In writing, I’m piecing together the history of “domestic,” “interior” socialism. As it existed in a person’s soul. I’ve always been drawn to this miniature expanse: one person, the individual. It’s where everything really happens. 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time is... Continue Reading →
Book review: Within the Whirlwind, by Eugenia Ginzburg (Amazon / Book Depository) The most fearful thing is that evil becomes ordinary, part of a normal daily routine extending over decades. It's hard to believe, considering the popularity over time and general excellence of Eugenia Ginzburg's first memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind, that her second one... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Great Successor, by Anna Fifield (Amazon / Book Depository) I didn't imagine a book about Kim Jong Un would be an unputdownable page-turner, but here we are. I'm not sure anything I write about The Great Successor is going to do it justice as it's tough to encapsulate, but I'll try. Kim Jong Un... Continue Reading →
Book review: Journey into the Whirlwind, by Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg I opened the door briskly, with the boldness of despair. If you are to jump over a cliff, better take a run at it and not pause on the brink to look back at the lovely world you are leaving behind. Eugenia Ginzburg's memoir of... Continue Reading →
Book review: Stalin's Daughter, by Rosemary Sullivan (Amazon / Book Depository) “What would it mean to be born Stalin’s daughter, to carry the weight of that name for a lifetime and never be free of it?” “I want to explain to you, he broke my life.” Even writing a biography showing the many sides of... Continue Reading →
Image of Workers' Party of Korea Monument in Pyongyang by Mannen av börd, edited by Entheta (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons Book review: The Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan, and Pierre Rigoulot (Amazon / Book Depository) During the first days of my detention, I met a kid who wore... Continue Reading →
Book review: Miss Ex-Yugoslavia, by Sofija Stefanovic Amazon My mother said, "just imagine this situation we're in is a massive black cloud falling from the sky, and be like a net. Allow it to pass through you." I pictured a net through which a black cloud is squeezed, dispersing into many pieces; I imagined holding... Continue Reading →
Book review: Dancing Bears: True Stories About Longing for the Old Days, by Witold Szabłowski Amazon / Book Depository Another version of this book, newly published in its first English translation, has the subtitle "True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny". That sums up perfectly what it's about - stories about how and seemingly... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 