Memoirs

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov is such a good book. Andrey was born in russia, but he feels Ukrainian. He wrote a few books so far and, while this is the first book I read by him it will not be the last.…

Live. Fight. Survive by Shaun Pinner – An ex-British soldier’s account of courage, resistance and defiance fighting for Ukraine against Russia – is a must read. I bought the book almost as it went out. It was only published 3 weeks ago. I was eager…

The Rooster House by Victoria Belim – My Ukrainian Family Story, A Memoir – is such a wonderful book. It is a memoir written by an Ukrainian who lived most of her life in US and Belgium. She went back to Ukraine to search her…

You Don’t Know What War Is by Yeva Skalietska is a short diary kept by a 12 year old Ukrainian girl who fled Ukraine after russia’s full-scale invasion. I hoped that I would enjoy it when I saw it on the shelves at the library…

Hitler, Stalin, mum and dad by Daniel Finkelstein – a family memoir of miraculous survival – is a fantastic book. His mother, Mirjam, was born in Germany to Alfred and Margarete Wiener. Her father started cataloguing Nazi crimes since 1933, even before they moved to…

The death of a soldier told by his sister by Olesya Khromeychuk is a lovely, emotional, beautifully written memoir. It is not a biography of her brother nor is it about the war in Ukraine, these are secondary to the memoir. The focus is on…

Putin’s Prisoner by Aiden Aslin – My Time as a Prisoner of War in Ukraine – written with John Sweeney. I think Brits know Aiden’s name from the media coverage. He is born in Britain, went to Ukraine in 2018, joined the marines, and was…

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff is a book I discovered on Kelly’s blog. I was curious and borrowed it from the library. My copy had both 84 Charing Cross Road and its sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. It was a mix to…

The Fight of Our Lives by Iuliia Mendel – My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World – is a memoir by Zelenskyy’s former press secretary. It is a very good book, in parts autobiographical, but also covering…

The Flight of Andrei Cosmin by Tina Cosmin – is a memoir of an incredible woman who managed to save her husband. All the names are changed, including hers. The book was written in 1945 but published in 1972, after almost all the people died.…

Burying the typewriter by Carmen Bugan – childhood under the eye of the secret police – is a book written by a Romanian author, a memoir with her family in focus, as it was seen by a young daughter whose father was imprisoned because he…

A Moment of War by Laurie Lee is part of a trilogy, but I read it as a stand-alone memoir. It works. I was interested in his memories of the Spanish Civil War. He fought in the war for the Republican cause, with the International…

The Long Shot by Kate Bingham, Tim Hames – The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain – is a fascinating book, very well written and informative. Kate Bingham led the UK Vaccine Taskforce in 2020, picking up contracts for vaccines, working closely with…

How Life Imitates Chess by Garry Kasparov is the second book by him I read, with the first one being Winter Is Coming. This too is a fantastic book, a must read. The book is a blend of stories about chess, games, preparation, but also…

He Was My Chief by Christa Schroeder is the memoir of one of Adolf Hitler’s secretaries. It was hard to think of what rating to give this book. Her style of writing is very good, flows nicely. It was interesting to read about Hitler and…

The Devil’s Workshop by Adolf Burger* is fantastic. I give 5 stars to many books, but sometimes I wish I could give 6 and this is one of them. Burger was a Slovakian Jew in Auschwitz before being included in the largest counterfeiting operation in…