books

Book Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

August 29, 2011

My life has been pretty chaotic lately. New job, new school, new house, and, thanks to that whoreicane Irene, now we have a sinkhole situation in our driveway. However, when I started reading The Magicians last week, I could feel the chaos melting away and I knew right away this book and its sequel, The Magician King, were going on my list of favorite books. I heard about The Magicians when it first came out, but for some reason I ...

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Book Review: Shush! Growing up Jewish Under Stalin

June 16, 2009

Have you ever read any books that perfectly articulate how you see the world?  Books that you can show to your friends when you don’t feel like explaining your life view and say, “Here, read this, and you will understand me?”  Shush, A Memoir-Growing up Jewish under Stalin by Emil Draitser, is such a book for me. There are a couple of books that really explain what being Russian/Jewish is all about:  From Lenin to Lennon, Sashenka, and  The Russian ...

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Book Review: Turkmeniscam

June 4, 2009

I don’t know about you, but I always love a good story about how the U.S. government screws over its constituents. Turkmeniscam by Ken Silverstein (journalist and fellow Jew) promises such a story and delivers with style. The subtitle, “How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship,” says it all. The amount of corruption that Silverstein uncovers in the United States government is alarming.  He starts with the background of the fallout against Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists ...

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Book Review: Sashenka by Simon Montefiore

May 14, 2009

When I was little, and even through today, my mom used to tell me, “Don’t be so serious, Klara Tsetkin!”  Who, of course, was a feminist and very political woman, subsequently banned in exile to the Soviet Union, where she died. I was never really as hardcore as she was, but I was very serious in my belief of equality for women in everything that encompassed short of calling myself a feminist. Well, Sashenka (diminutive of Alexandra in Russian) Zeitlin ...

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Quickie Book Review: The Golden Veil by Kim Wilkins

April 21, 2009

What it’s about: Two worlds, one is today’s, the other is the place where all pre-Christian Russian mythology has gone Why it’s good: Very pressing plot, complicated characters, an intricately researched Russian culture Why it’s bad: Too short! Moral of the book:Still important to leave a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ for the domovoi Will I like it:  Yes, if you love fantasy and mythology, combined with Russian culture

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