No comments about Wallpaper City Guide: Moscow (Wallpaper City Guides) (Wallpaper City Guides).

No comments about Russia - Culture Smart!: a quick guide to customs and etiquette (Culture Smart!).

5 comments about Walking on Ice: An American Businessman in Russia.

1. Walking on Ice is a "must read" for American politicians, businessmen, students, or anyone who wants to dive beneath the illusive surface to gain some insight into the Russian mind set. Sadly, all too often we enter the arena of foreign affairs naively thinking we can interact in the same manner as we would with Americans. Granted, Mr. Andresen had a preliminary advantage of being familiar with Russian art, music, and culture; but I believe his success was also due to his gift of being a humbly receptive observer which enabled him to uncover the subconscious intent of those he was negotiating with. This enabled him, when he found himself on "slippery ground," to take the next step in the right direction. This discernment is what he shares with his readers, giving a "nutshell" feeling of how to stay on your feet in the Russian culture. Packed within 142 pages is an insightful guide sprinkled with humor.



2. Having lived, worked, and personally invested with the Russian people, Mr. Andresen clearly has a first-hand vision on building lasting relationships with people we often don't appreciate or understand. Clearly, he has invested a good part of his life in learning and expressing to us what it takes to succeed in this part of the world.



3. This is an excellent read which provides a detailed and insightful guide to the nuances of perhaps the most misunderstood, enigmatic and complex country to grace the earth. It's a survival guide to contemporary Russian culture.



4. Andresen, an American doing business in Russia, has written a lovely book in a most UNbusinesslike style. It's quite literary, filled with surprising and poignant and insightful phrases. I'm not a business person, but am a "Russia" person, and love the warmth rising from this book about slippery, icy negotiations in a rather fluid environment. I'm also not a Russia expert by any means, but have been there many times and found myself nodding and smiling in appreciation while underlining passage after passage in this book. His comparison of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod is wonderful, and makes it clear why we must become well acquainted with all three great cities. His use of music and literature to explain cultural (and business) practices is most enlightening, and the essay collection is simply outstanding. This book will be of great help to all who wish to understand Russia and her people better.



5. I loved reading "Walking on Ice." It's an easy-to-read fun book full of important insights into the Russian (and at times, American) culture.
   For every Rusophile out there, I highly recommend it!

4 comments about Russia, Belarus & Ukraine (Insight Guides).

1. Insight Guide Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine covers a goegraphically vast expanse of the three countries. It offers a comprehensive history of the regions, and an overview guide to slavic and eurasian culture; including music, art, theater, literature, and food. The large section dedicated to cities and towns of the three countries is excellent for a tourist who wants a brief overview of the architectural and cultural highlights of each location. The street, country, and metro maps are excellent. The small list of lodging and restaurants in each city is adequate, but not spectacular, and most listings are on the pricey side. This book did have one deficiency; while it listed the locations of each city and landmark on maps, the writers did provided limited insight as to how to reach these locations from a central point such as the larger cities in each region. There is no mention of specific bus or train routes connecting the cities, and little information about reaching outlying monasteries and resorts, other than a goegraphical direction. I recommend this book as an aid to a tourist on a an organized trip of Russia. It is also an excellent source for the independent traveller who speaks Russian well enough to arrange their own travel between cities by inquiring at train stations or tourist centers. Other useful tools are the language guide, tips on local customs, and the communication information pages, which offer telephone, mail, internet, and wiring information.



2. As usual for the Insight series, this book provides a great deal of practical information on the history, cultures, life, and tourism, especially for the visitor to the great cities of the Russian Federation, along many spectacular photographs. However, I thought the chapter on Lake Baikal was disproportionately long at the expense of other parts of rural Russia. Perhaps the book's greatest deficiency is the skimpy treatment of Ukraine (and Belarus, for that matter), which should now appear in their own full guides. Less than 60 pages of photos and text just doesn't cut it for these two countries combined. A charming photograph of a bunch of Ukrainian schoolkids posing for the camera more or less seems to ask the reader, "What about us?" Simply put, they should have an Insight Guide book of their own next time around.



3. This book gives ou a nice overview of the region, and incredible specific tips for visiting Russia.



4. Book is OK. Nothing that exciting. I prefer the Lonely Planet or Bradt Guides. Some INSIGHT GUIDES A are interesting like the one for Pakistan and the one for India but this one is boring.

5 comments about The Time Travelers Academy.

1. Wow!!! I purchased and read the book in its entirety and loved it!!! Before I purchased the book I read the synopsis and utilized the search inside option... Just what I was looking for in a time travel book. This book is perfect for young adults or those who just love a good time travel book. Its a mixture of romance, action and adventure.
   
   The story line is very easy to follow from start to finish. Professionally written and professionally edited. A great book that would make a great movie.
   
   "The Time Travelers Academy"
   
   A secret training academy that teaches time travel. The hero challenges the grandfather paradox to go back in time and save his fiancé from a tragedy but an unknown aspect of the grandfather paradox stipulates: Something in nature will stop the time traveler from changing the past.
   
   I loved the story line about the "eliminators" entities that will stop a time travelers from changing the past. The hit movie called the Langoliers had similar but very different entities. The Langoliers' job is to erase moments in time that have already passed into history very different from the "eliminators" but a very good concept.
   
   You'll love the characters they are very believable. Each character was out to achieve something. I cant tell you how it ends all I can say is you will not be disappointed...I highly recommend this book.
   
   
   



2. I do like time travel stories, but time travel plays a smaller part in the plot than I expected. Also, the author resorts to a few "deus ex machina" and, at times, the action reminds me of early Flash Gordon comics. Yet, the book is not bad and kept me reading till the end, unexpected twist after twist.



3. This book was not at all what I expected. It is not just another "star trek" sci fiction book. Dark, Complex, and Fun, this novel takes you on a journey that not only creates time travel but explains how it is possible. It is fiction, fantasy and physics all rolled into one. I loved it.



4. I enjoyed this book. It took me a little while to get into it. He had to set up the main characters so it was 1/3 into the book before it got really exiting. Now as for the technical stuff I did not totally get how the time machine traveled or how he could jump to Mars. That seemed a bit out there that's why 4 stars instead of 5. But I'd still recommend for someone to read how enjoys Science Fiction.



5. The idea was interesting, and I even liked the twist of how time works, though I didn't fully understand the explanation. Still, I am willing to suspend belief for a good read. However, the book got ridiculous near the end with impossible feats of superpowers that didn't enhance the story at all. There is suspending belief and just abandoning it all together. Not a good read for time travel book lovers.

5 comments about All the Clean Ones Are Married: And Other Everyday Calamities in Moscow.

1. The book isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be. It tells about the foibles that the author ran into during her time in Moscow. Rather than attempting to explain everything, she focuses in on some things that occured and tells those stories. Her writing is very easy to read and follow, making the book fairly hard to put down. (I ended reading it over an 8 hour period, taking a lunch and Snood break in the middle.)

   I'm sure I'll re-read this book for the sheer entertainment value...




2. The book isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be. It tells about the foibles that the author ran into during her time in Moscow. Rather than attempting to explain everything, she focuses in on some things that occured and tells those stories. Her writing is very easy to read and follow, making the book fairly hard to put down. (I ended reading it over an 8 hour period, taking a lunch and Snood break in the middle.)

   I'm sure I'll re-read this book for the sheer entertainment value...




3. I found this book at the local library and decided that it was worth the read, and it was. Lori brings to life true everyday occurances in modern-day Moscow. They are as she sees them, but a little too observatory for my tastes as I prefer to see through the eyes of my writers. Still, it was a good book and I think that any non-Russian living in Moscow can identify with its humorous, yet at the same time depressing, events of the life. (And yes, all of the clean ones ARE married).



4. Living in Russia is scary. By the end of every book I read about Russia, I am relieved that I don't live there. No matter how upbeat and positive the authors are, and they are all pretty optimistic, they come back home having had a huge dose of Russian reality.
   
   Lori Cidylo is fantastically optimistic. Even though her Ukrainian parents try to tell her that Russia is no place for her, she takes her college degrees in Russian and journalism and goes to Moscow to freelance. To freelance! She gets a job at a U.S. newpaper bureau there and begins to settle in.
   
   Nothing is easy. Finding an apartment when there are no rental listings or yellow pages is a challenge. Buying a clothes washer is a major project. Finding someone to reupholster her garish sofa is a wild goose chase. She even has to iron her dollar bills (American currency is accepted for many transactions) because no one will accept them unless they are clean and unwrinkled. And don't get her started on the problems with dating Russian men.
   
   But all that seems trivial compared to being in Moscow during the showdown between Yeltsin and his rebellious Parliament. Cidylo dodged tanks, snipers, and thugs to get her story. Everyday life in Moscow had trained her well for being a reporter in a war zone. Having survived traffic that jumped sidewalks without regard for pedestrians and hooligans who fired automatic weapons at random, Muscovites (and Cidylo) went about their business despite the revolution, because it might go on for months, after all.
   
   Cidylo's writing style is smooth and easy to read. Her training as a reporter is apparent. The prose is spare and free of unnecessary description. Five stars!



5. As a travel/non-fiction junkie, I chose this book after reading several other Russian based travel accounts, and found this to be one of the most interesting yet. Cidylo goes to great pains to make the reader feel that they are in the moment with her. I found her accounts of what it was like as a foreigner AND a woman to be particularly interesting. The only thing keeping me from giving it 5 stars was the fact that the story did drag at points. Highly recommended otherwise.

5 comments about Winterreise.

1. This book will tell you more about the author than about his subject...

   As someone who lived in the Soviet Union for 22 years, and someone who still visits Russia at least 3 times a year, I have one word for the this book - "chernucha" (Russian word for something that is deliberately made to be depressing by concentrating on the negative). The author has spent all this time in Russia, and this is all he found worthy of photographing?!?! I guess some people can only find inspiration in human depravity.

   If you like photography, you will enjoy it, because the pictures are masterful. But if you are looking for a balanced photojournalistic account, stay far away.




2. this book is itself a long, sad, visual poem. it is truly one of the best photo essays ever done, by a an artist who deserves more credit as being, in some opinion, the best photographer on the planet today. although that kind of argument is ridiculous, his books are all compelling, dangerous, edgy, and most of all honest and sympathetic for often forgotten people.



3. This photographer gets close, becomes invisible to his subjects and he is able to shoot them in such a way that they forget that he is there. The portraits of people are very good. The landscapes are nothin terrific and should have been included in this book.



4. This one little book is worth more, than tons of paper waste you'll find nowdays on shelves of "Photography" section in mainstream bookshops.



5. Luc Delahaye is attempting to make a social and political statement about the suffering that he saw poor Russians enduring during the rapid industrialization after the fall of the Iron Curtain. His camera documents, in sometimes painful detail, how some people have fared under the new capitalist regime. In this he succeeds admirably. Clearly, the rising tide hasn't lifted all the boats. Much like Charles Dickens in his time and place, he is trying to tell us about the lives of those at the bottom in Russia.
   
   However, this photo essay is not a comedy. You may find yourself thanking your lucky stars you aren't living the degraded and sad lives of Delahaye's subjects, but the photos are hard to look at at times.
   
   Moreover, I think some of the other reviewers have a perfectly valid point when they state that there is a bottom end of the lowest class in every society, and the Russians depicted in these photos are no more representative of Russia as a whole than Skid Row denizens could represent all of California.
   
   Overall, this is an important, if sometimes painfully honest, work.

2 comments about Letters from Russia (New York Review Books Classics).

1. The great classic work of Imperial Russia from a French Aristocrat who ultimately finds Russian Autocracy too much to take. Wordy, opinionated, and not very in depth, an essayist after the French style, Custine's letters are nevertheless invaluable to a student of Russia history or anyone who simply wants to understand imperial Russia. His description of St. Petersburg and Moscow, his personal meeting with Tsar Nicholas I, make it well worth it. While I don't agree with the idea that the Soviet period was simply an extension of Tsarist Russia, one nevertheless gets an idea of what Russia under Nicholas was like, and how the Revolutionaries gained a hearing in this atmosphere. Most importantly, its small enough to curl up in bed with!



2. "Letters from Russia" is a remarkable travelogue by Adolphe De Custine - a somewhat haughty Frenchman - who travelled to Imperial Russia in the middle of the 19th century.
   
   De Custine himself was the descendant of aristocrats - his father and grandfather were both executed during the Terror in the aftermath of the French Revolution. De Custine was certainly convinced of the superiority of the aristocracy and Catholicism but was not taken with the Russian incarnation of these institutions.
   
   What makes this book so interesting is De Custine's incredibly perceptive comment on the Russian psyche, which so easily explains how Russia could move from the tyranny of the all-knowing, all-powerful Tsar to the totalitarianism of the Communist regime.
   
   De Custine writes in a florid, sentimental style, typical of the age, which makes this long book somewhat heavy going. However, there are plenty of zingers along the way and many beautiful descriptions of the Russian landscape to keep the reader entertained.
   
   Probably not recommended to the average reader, but for students of Russian history this is certainly a "must-read".

No comments about A Black Woman's Odyssey Through Russia and Jamaica: The Narrative of Nancy Prince.

No comments about America through Russian Eyes, 1874-1926.