Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – and Other Tales – is a short Oxford Classic. There are four stories in the book and it’s just above 200 pages, it is well worth reading. The author’s description is that he was a Polish born in…
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…
Stalin’s Apologist by S. J. Taylor – Walter Duranty: The New York Times’s Man in Moscow – is, in itself an apology to Duranty, which was rather unpleasant to read. It’s a dry book, the author talks about other people, and has the imperialistic views…
This is a really good whodunnit. The plot is interesting. Aristide Leonides is killed with poison. He had a much younger wife, who is also going to inherit. Charles Hayward is a criminologist who wants to marry into the family, but his future wife said…
The memory keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken is the second book I read by her. I really like her writing style and I would happily read her future novels as well. I gave this book a very well deserved 5 stars. Like her other…
The Useful Idiot by John Sweeney is a fiction book by an author I read recently, Killer in the Kremlin, that one was non-fiction. It was exactly the kind of book I was looking for, as the subject is Gareth Jones. Jones was a Welsh…
Oxford University by Alice Blackford Millea is fascinating. It has 52 stories from the archives of Oxford, which spans over 800 years. Even though the archives were established at the same time with the Bodleian, in 1634, there area documents that precede this period and…
Our Own Worst Enemy by Thomas Nichols – The Assault from within on Modern Democracy. I read another book by him, The Death of Expertise, and I enjoyed it very much. I liked this book and I recommend it. It is thought provoking and interesting,…
The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Litteken is a fascinating novel. She was inspired by her own family’s history and wrote a beautiful and emotional story. It starts in the summer of 1941 when Nazis are marching towards Ukraine. This is the story of…
The volunteer by Jack Fairweather – One man, an underground army, and the secret mission to destroy Auschwitz – is the story of Witold Pilecki. In the summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, Witold Pilecki volunteered to go undercover in what was…
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…
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie is a murder mystery solved by two amateur sleuths, Bobby and Frankie. Bobby discovers a dying man. His last words were: ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ Bobby starts investigating to see who killed this man. Bobby is…
Giant’s Bread by Agatha Christie is the first book of the 6 written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but the last I read. I gave this one 4 stars, because, unfortunately, the ending is incredibly stupid. Out of the 6, Absent in the Spring was…
The Making of Mămăligă by Alex Drace-Francis – Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish – is a fascinating book. Mămăligă is polenta, while mălai is corn meal. This is a cereal that was brought over to Europe from America. It is interesting to see…
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.…