This brought back so many memories for me. I went to Moscow and Leningrad in 1988 as a trip with Art School. This is set later, after the USSR has becThis brought back so many memories for me. I went to Moscow and Leningrad in 1988 as a trip with Art School. This is set later, after the USSR has become Russia, but many of the things that Viv describes: the amazingly empty shops, the babushkas on every hotel corridor corner, the grim buildings and much more, were really evocative for me. When Viv is 20 she lives in Moscow for a year as part of her university degree, teaching English and living with a local family. She meets and falls in love with Bogdan (which translates as Gift of God), a Ukrainian rock musician. While he is off gigging she meets other people, changes jobs, changes who she's living with, and generally it seems, has a (mostly) good time, waiting for the summer, which Bogdan has promised they will spend together in his hometown. It's a long time coming, and when she does finally get there, it's not exactly as she was expecting. One Ukrainian Summer is witty, well written, and captures a particular time and place perfectly. And if you want to win a signed copy, visit my Instagram: @writerclairefuller...more
Nastassja Martin, a French anthropologist has been studying the Evens, a group of people in Siberia and their belief in animism when she encounters a Nastassja Martin, a French anthropologist has been studying the Evens, a group of people in Siberia and their belief in animism when she encounters a bear which bites her face and takes part of her jaw bone before she can stab its side with a pick axe. This is an account of that attack, the terrible rural Russian hospital she is taken to, and the French hospitals who also don't look after her particularly well. However grisly all that sounds, I would have liked more of it, and more of what life is like for the Evens when she decides to return to confront the bear (I had no clear sense of how and where they live exactly). Clearly she cannot really confront the exact bear who attacks her, but is grappling mentally with the encounter and who she has become, how connected she is now to the bear, what her dreams mean, and so on. Towards the end it becomes rather philosophical without making any strong point, but I still enjoyed it very much. Translated from the French by Sophie R. Lewis....more
So hard to describe this book, but I loved it. The narrator, Katya is with her dying mother - a writer of maths text books - telling the story of how So hard to describe this book, but I loved it. The narrator, Katya is with her dying mother - a writer of maths text books - telling the story of how she, and her mother and her husband Len, came from Russia to America. Katya has had 330 happy days with Len in a marriage of 17 years, she is in love with B. but having an affair with Victor. She tries to unravel all of this with the notes about maths on yellow cards that her mother was writing before she became ill. It's funny, and poignant, and heartbreaking about death and lost love. ...more
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