We play on by Andy Brassell – Shakhtar Donetsk’s fight for Ukraine, football and freedom – is a book recommended by someone who likes football and is a fan of Shakhtar Donetsk. I didn’t watch them play and I’m not that keen on football either.…
Blood of Others by Rory Finnin – Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity – is a book I wanted to read because I saw Finnin at a few events and he is such a great professor. At one of the talks he described…
Ukraine by Yaroslav Hrytsak – the forging of a nation – is the second book I read by this author. The first one was a lovely book about Christmas in Ukraine. This is a history book, but with a difference. While it has all the…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
Stalinist perpetrators on trial by Lynne Viola – Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine – is a fascinating book, well worth reading. The Purges or the Great Terror are well-known. Between 1937 and 1938 over 1.5 million people were arrested and hundreds of…
Communism and Hunger by Andrea Graziosi (editor) – The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective – is a book based on presentations given at a conference from 2014. Each author presented a paper on a different topic, on Holodomor, on the Chinese…
Our Enemies Will Vanish by Yaroslav Trofimov – The russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence – is a book about the events after russia’s full-scale invasion. I had to review this book today, on the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion. This month also…
Not worthy by Lubomyr Luciuk – Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize and the New York Times – is a book published twenty years ago. It was edited by Lubomyr Luciuk, the Director of Research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who called for the stripping…
A Ukrainian Christmas by Yaroslav Hrytsak and Nadiyka Gerbish is a lovely short book, with beautiful illustrations. It offers an insight into the history and traditions Ukrainians have at Christmas. It was a bit more religious than I was expecting, but it is a book…
Borderland by Anna Reid – A Journey Through the History of Ukraine – is a book recommended even by some Ukrainians. I understand the appeal. It is more of a story than a history book, that some might find dry, so it makes sense that…