I grabbed this book when I was in the Cleveland airport killing time. I had just finished another book and this one caught my eye. Who can resist anything Russian. Music, poetry, art, books - if its Russian, its tortured and just so emotionally clutching. You hear Russian music and you're like - ah - I feel like I'm a peasant in some field and I feel anguish and -- well, anyways, you get the idea - TORTURED.... I love Russian literature - its so dramatic.
So anyways, I picked this book up because I'm just so taken and haunted by Russian stuff. Elif Batuman is the author. She's Turkish and she's a professor at Stanford. In fact, I've been working at Stanford and I've sworn that one of these times I'm going to email her and try to meet up with her. I am so intrigued by her.
Possessed is her story of her possession, like mine, with all things Russian. She takes most of the major Russian authors and then creates her story that intermeshes with them. Its about her travels in different countries for study and for teaching. She introduces a lot of different authors including one or two that I'd never really heard of. I'm still trying to track down some lit from Isaac Babel - I'm getting ready to Amazon it.
Its definitely a fun read and informative, but a little too much personal stuff about her life sometimes, my thought. Oh, there's one part where she talks about the Ice Palace that Anna Ivonaova had built in St Petersburg... again, those Russians...
Axis Sally - The American Voice of Nazi Germany. Written by Richard Lucas. Picked up from a Borders clearance sale by Alison Behn. This was literally one of those "LOOK! CHEAP BOOKS!" purchases which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I think everyone has heard the name Axis Sally and many people may even know a little bit about her. Well, now I know a lot about her! The author states in the beginning that, basically, he knows she did a bad thing but he was trying to be a very unpartisan party and give her a "fair trial" by showing what her life really was. He goes from her birth to her death and everything in between including her whole history in Germany and the only thing that I really drew out of it all was that, until the day she died, she protested her guilty conviction of treason and - she was an extremely stupidly self-centered person. She cared so much about clothes and nice things and fame that she would literally have starved herself.
This was definitely an interesting book as the author made it so and I, swallowed it up within a few days. Its a pretty easy read, at least, considering I liked the subject matter.
I love love love anything written by Erik Larsen! Two of my favorites being "Devil In the White City" and "Isaac's Storm" -- you'll have to check these out on line or at your local bookstore (which after this Saturday, there will be one less in your neighborhood :( ).
Larsen has a really approachable way of writing so even people who aren't into history (I'm not saying I'm not) are intrigued. He knows how to mesh history with "dirt" and comes out with a wonderfully intriguing story. All is historical but pasted together to give a big picture of a family that was sent to Berlin as the US Amabassador during the beginning of the Hitler-regime. This is the view of the amabassador himself as well as his daughter who was momentarily taken in by all the robust German lifestyle, the rosy cheeks and the country's "team" spirit.
As always, Erik Larsen can takes little points that most other authors would overlook and paint a big picture of a time and place that is completely tied together.
Definitely read this one! Its about 300 pages and I flew through it in about 4 days!
And I am now currently caught up on my reading list. I've got one in my bag right now that is an exceptionally interesting topic - but I won't spoil the surprise for a future post!
Axis Sally - The American Voice of Nazi Germany. Written by Richard Lucas. Picked up from a Borders clearance sale by Alison Behn. This was literally one of those "LOOK! CHEAP BOOKS!" purchases which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I think everyone has heard the name Axis Sally and many people may even know a little bit about her. Well, now I know a lot about her! The author states in the beginning that, basically, he knows she did a bad thing but he was trying to be a very unpartisan party and give her a "fair trial" by showing what her life really was. He goes from her birth to her death and everything in between including her whole history in Germany and the only thing that I really drew out of it all was that, until the day she died, she protested her guilty conviction of treason and - she was an extremely stupidly self-centered person. She cared so much about clothes and nice things and fame that she would literally have starved herself. This was definitely an interesting book as the author made it so and I, swallowed it up within a few days. Its a pretty easy read, at least, considering I liked the subject matter.
Larsen has a really approachable way of writing so even people who aren't into history (I'm not saying I'm not) are intrigued. He knows how to mesh history with "dirt" and comes out with a wonderfully intriguing story. All is historical but pasted together to give a big picture of a family that was sent to Berlin as the US Amabassador during the beginning of the Hitler-regime. This is the view of the amabassador himself as well as his daughter who was momentarily taken in by all the robust German lifestyle, the rosy cheeks and the country's "team" spirit.
As always, Erik Larsen can takes little points that most other authors would overlook and paint a big picture of a time and place that is completely tied together.
Definitely read this one! Its about 300 pages and I flew through it in about 4 days!
And I am now currently caught up on my reading list. I've got one in my bag right now that is an exceptionally interesting topic - but I won't spoil the surprise for a future post!
Happy reading!
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