Mariupol 2013-2022 by Hana Josticova – Stories of Mobilization and Resistance – is a fascinating book on narratives and how they create a national identity. She looked at Mariupol and the Donbas region from 2013, pre-Maidan and until russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Mariupol was…
A small town in Ukraine by Bernard Wasserstein – Krakowiec and the storm of history – is the history of a small town, from its establishment in 1423 to 2022. Wasserstein’s family lived there and half of the book is about WWII and the Holocaust,…
Fatal silence by Robert Katz was an interesting book, which I would recommend, but which I awarded only 3 stars. Its subtitle is “the Pope, the Resistance and the German occupation of Rome” and the book was mainly about the resistance. Considering that it starts…
Come to This Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler – How the Holocaust Ends – offers interesting views on pro-war attitudes when it came to Nazi crimes. While researching a well-known case in Latvia regarding the so-called “butcher of Riga,” Herberts Cukurs, Kinstler discovered that…
Storehouses of Empire by Colum Giles – Liverpool’s historic warehouses – is a short book, filled with pictures. It tells a fascinating story of the warehouses built in Liverpool. After the end of the British involvement in the Transatlantic slavery in 1807, the port of…
Evil under the sun by Agatha Christie is a Hercule Poirot murder mystery. I am not usually keen on Hercule Poirot, but I enjoyed this one very much, thus I gave it 5 stars. The blurb of the book is simple, a beautiful woman’s body…
Night Train to Odesa by Jen Stout – Covering the Human Cost of russia’s War – is one of the many books I read by foreigners going to Ukraine after russia’s full scale invasion. This is different not only because of the natural differences in…
Ukraine 22 by Mark Andryczyk (editor) – Ukrainian Writers Respond to War – is a collection of short essays on everyday life written by various writers. Each chapter is an essay, some only 3 pages long, while others are a bit longer. As I imagined…
The Russo-Ukrainian war by Serhii Plokhy is the second book I read by him. The first one was The Gates of Europe. I had high expectations from this book and not only it met them, but surpassed them too. This book, at 300 pages (excluding…
A small, stubborn town by Andrew Harding – life, death and defiance in Ukraine – is a book on a town in Ukraine, Voznesensk. Just as I finished reading the book and I was searching for details on Voznesensk, I saw the news published less…
Getting out by Jonathan Campion – the Ukrainian cricket team’s last stand on the front lines of war – is a book I borrowed from the library by chance. I was looking for another book and this stood out because of its title. I had…
Democracy by Margaret Atwood – Eleven writers and leaders on what it is – and why it matters – is a book published recently. I saw it while I was on holiday in France and my husband bought it for me. As yesterday was a…
Tea, Coffee & Chocolate by Melanie King – How We Fell in Love with Caffeine – is a book I bought from the Bodleian gift shop. It is a small book, but really great. It covers tea, coffee, and chocolate in their own chapters, although…
Night by Elie Wiesel is a book I wanted to read for a while. Now that my studies finished, I can read the books I postponed. Elie was born in what is today Romania. I’ve read a lot of books on the Holocaust, but this…
The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest – Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine – is a classic. I bought it a few months ago and read parts of it. This month I read it cover to cover. What a fantastic book. It is the first…
The College Graces of Oxford and Cambridge by Reginald H. Adams is a book usually bought by tourists and, most likely, finalists like me. I got this from the Bodleian library gift shop last time I went to the library. I wanted to get one…