“The Slynx” is one of those works that kept circulating on the edge of my reading consciousness. People were always bringing it up in conversation as something that, of course, we’d all read. Except that I hadn’t. So I finally decided to rectify this error and fill this lacuna in my reading knowledge. Let’s get […]
Read more "#TranslationThursday “The Slynx” by Tatyana Tolstaya"Greetings from the swamp! Or at least that’s what it’s felt like this past week. It’s been in the 90s with massive thunderstorms every day this week until today. Now a cool, fall-like rain is coming down. Neither state has been doing much for my health. The damp has been turning everything into even more […]
Read more "Turning Dreams into Reality (Or at Least Books)"Probably the Russian literature event of the year in the English-speaking world has been the publication of the English translation of Vasily Grossman’s “Stalingrad,” the first part of his two-part series about the battle of Stalingrad that concludes with “Life and Fate.” Me reading “Life and Fate” for my PhD comps while camping out on […]
Read more "“Stalingrad” by Vasily Grossman, Translated by Robert Chandler"It’s August, so the cicadas are whirring up a racket outside my windows. Days are hot, but the mornings are already getting a bit of that pre-autumn chill to them. And–are you ready for this–yesterday I walked ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BLOCK!!!!!!! Considering that last fall I was having to hold onto the wall […]
Read more "Sultry Stories for Late Summer"Bloody Creek Murder I’ve been following along the Winston Radhauser series since the beginning, and have been enjoying it more and more. In this, its sixth installment, the author does a particularly excellent job of combining mystery with family drama. The mixture both brings out the pathos of the interpersonal situation the characters find themselves […]
Read more "“Bloody Creek Murder” by Susan Clayton-Goldner #Mystery #BookReview #NewRelease"Fasten your seatbelts, Russianists: it’s about to get weird. Well, maybe no weirder than usual for literature of this period. Russian literature of the early 20th century was gloriously, insanely bizarre. Writers were flying their freak flag high, and reveling in it. “Beyond Tula” is a case in point. Although in fact, it’s no weirder […]
Read more "“Beyond Tula: A Soviet Pastoral” by Andrei Egunov-Nikolev"Hi All! The insistent barking coming in through my windows suggests that we are, in fact, in the dog days of summer. So if you’re caught up in one of the record-breaking heat waves washing over the planet right now and looking for some cool indoor reading, I’ve got a list of what I’ve read […]
Read more "Who Are You Reading? Plus My Own Reading Recommendations and This Week’s Giveaways"The popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction is an interesting facet of the current literary landscape. Why this? Why now? Some aspects of it are self-explanatory. It’s the perfect way to set the adolescents in a YA novel free from adult/parental restraints, in a kind of modern desert island scenario. In a time when desert islands are […]
Read more "“Some Fine Day” by Kat Ross"I hope everyone is staying cool! It’s that glorious time of year when the towels never dry unless you run the AC and a dehumidifier, and the bugs are out full force. Try to enjoy it, because you know a few months from now we’ll all be whining about the cold. Today seemed like an auspicious day […]
Read more "Catch a Preview of the Next Giaco & Luca Story!"In “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” we meet a new Russia: one that stands with one foot in the recent Soviet past, one foot in the more distant past of Pushkin and Lermontov, and, well, a third foot in the Millennial post-Soviet present. And maybe a fourth foot in the West. Like Chekhov (and Bulgakov), Maxim Osipov […]
Read more "“Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Other Stories” by Maxim Osipov"
E. P. Clark: Author, Book Reviewer, and All-Around Literary Handiwoman 