Reading has its own e-mail address: Reading@SideTrack.org.
I bragged about that a year or so ago. No one used it for a long time.
Then I stopped checking. Then Barb Anderson used it. It was months
before I checked it again. (I check it more regularly now that Jana Eaton
in Pennsylvania has saved it as one of my e-mail addresses.)

quote
Well here I am, a long time reader and a first time subscriber. Thanks for the little "nudge" in the last issue. Here's what I've been reading lately:

The Blue Lantern (and other short stories) by Victor Pelevin - This is a nice collection of interesting short stories by a contemporary Russian author. Some have surprise endings, others explore issues of state control from different perspectives, and others are just delightful. My favorite is the story of a storage shed that dreams about being a bicycle.

Kolyma Tales (and other short stories) by Varlam Shalamov - This is a not very nice collection of short stories by a survivor of the Siberian prison camps under Stalin. The stories include horrific details about camp life, such as mining gold in 60 degrees below zero, and insights into human nature at its best and at its worst. For a related perspective, I recommend reading Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth Century Russia by Catherine Merridale, an English sociologist. The author explores the issue of how the people of the USSR dealt with mass death on a regular basis when public mourning for political prisoners and other persecuted people (even your own murdered family) was not allowed. It is factual but very readable. It includes excerpts from many interviews the author conducted in Russia.

Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire - These books are very entertaining tellings of the "true" stories behind the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West and Cinderella's stepsisters. Wicked is set in Oz, and includes politics, sibling rivalry, marital infidelity, a little kinky sex (can you print that in READING?) and other "hot" topics. Confessions is set in Holland, and is equally imaginative and entertaining. I've just received Lost by the same author for Christmas, but I haven't started it yet. I think it's about Scrooge and Jack the Ripper, but it's hard to tell where it might end up. The woodcut illustrations in the books are a nice touch.

Jazz by Toni Morrison - Actually, I recommend everything by this author, including the challenging and amazing Beloved, but this one is my favorite.

So many books, so little time. Happy reading!

Barb

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• The Blue Lantern from the U.S. publisher's Web site
• Time on The Blue Lantern
• History of the Magadan region around the Kolyma camps
• Salon.com essay on Night of Stone
• Review of Night of Stone by Geoffrey Hosking from the Institute of Historical Research
• Green Man Reviews reviews Maguire's Confessions... and Wicked
• A Strange Words review of Maguire's Wicked
• GregoryMaguire.com's introduction of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Wicked
• Articles about Jazz from Luminarium.org
• The Swedish Academy's press release for Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize