pickInformative and quite interesting. It is rather melancholy that many of the exiles believed Navalny was their best hope for an opponent to Putin. Navalny died in prison after this was published.
pick4.5/5
This memoir-novel is a slap in the face. The author recounts her childhood and teenage years in Russia. It's not pretty... Quite sad, and aggravating. Sexual violence is omnipresent, the writing style is direct, uncompromising. We feel for the author, but despite it all, she managed to add some humor in her book. The daughter-mother dynamic is also quite interesting. I'm always impressed by authors divulging so much about their trauma.
December 2025 #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin
Thanks @TheAromaofBooks
pickI hate to see a long weekend go, but at least I got to spend this Sunday wrapped in a blanket reading this powerful, important novella. It is one of the few books about Stalin's Great Purge written during the actual events and centers on the experience of an everyday woman in Leningrad. It was written and hidden away by the author and a number of her friends, published first in France but not in Russia until nearly 50 years after it was written.
so-soThe good: there is some interesting information about the Soviet space programme.
The bad: the author is deeply, deeply biased against the Soviets. He can't admit that they ever did a single thing right.
Also, he snidely dismisses Wally Funk's space flight in a paragraph in which he gets the facts wrong. He claims she was below the threshold (the Kármán line, 100km), but Blue Origin peaked at 107 and WAS above the Kármán line.
This... is very anti-Russian, in a way that feels like being anti-Russian is a principle for him. Like I get their space programme was an omnishambles, but there's just this air of total contempt about it that doesn't feel limited to hatred of incompetence. Not sure if I will finish it.
#EuropaCollective
Leslie and I hope you enjoyed the first reborn
#EuropaCollective read: Mona's Eyes. The discussion is on Leslie's thread, feel free to comment there once you've finished the book.
For January, we'd like to announce the tagged book as our second read. We'll discuss it in the last weekend of the month. We'll keep you posted, let me know when you want to be tagged or removed from the List via @Lesliereadsalot @BarbaraBB
#EuropaCollective
Leslie and I hope you enjoyed the first reborn #EuropaCollective read: Mona‘s Eyes. The discussion is on Leslie‘s thread, feel free to comment there once you‘ve finished the book.
For January, we‘d like to announce the tagged book as our second read. We‘ll discuss it in the last weekend of the month. We‘ll keep you posted, let me know when you want to be tagged or removed from the taglist!
mcctrish, Caryl, GatheringBooks, tpixie, DrSabrinaMoldenReads, AmyG, kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, Gleefulreader, mhillis, youneverarrived, Sapphire, TheKidUpstairs, Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick, Suet624, Deblovestoread, charl08, JulietteReadsALot, Tamra, lauraisntwilder, Amor4Libros, Chelsea.Poole, squirrelbrain, Cathythoughts, CBee, Lesliereadsalot, LitsyEvents, willaful
I'm excited about my #BookSpin but can't even remember putting the #DoubleSpin title on my list! 🙃
As always, thanks Sarah! ❤️
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
