I have been reading...

Its great to keep telling people what you read!  So here we are! I will keep posting what I am reading on this page. This page is just to inform about the books I read and not to give a detailed review of them.

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April 2010

1. In the First Circle – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The great novel about the ‘special camps’ of Stalin, camps which were kept extra secret, full of ‘technical’ prisoners, who were behind the technological development of the USSR. I once again became convinced that Solzhenitsyn is a great artist. The book has beautiful insights about Stalin and life under him.

2. Comrades: Communism: A World History – Robert Service

A brief (well when it comes to Communism 500 pages is brief!) summary of the Communist movement, from the idea to the practice worldwide. Not the best one around, but very good. Service makes brilliant comparisons between Communism and other totalitarian systems such as Christianity, Islam and Nazism.

3. Hope Against Hope – Nadedhza Mandelstam

A brilliant and harrowing memoir about Stalinist times. Its so unique because it tells the tale of all the writers, authors, poets and artists who didn’t fit in the communist scheme of the USSR.

4. Young Stalin – Simon Sebag Montefiore

Excellent biography of young Stalin! From this book I first got to know that Stalin was a poet too!!! Well monsters never lost the right to sing!