Witold Szabłowski

Szabłowski writes with an engaging journalistic style. The first half of the book, about the dancing bears, was interesting. There is certainly politics involved in rehoming the bears, but Szabłowski sticks to the story of the bears and those who used to own them and those who took them away to rehome at a bear sanctuary. (They can’t be released into the wild since they’ve mostly lived their entire lives in captivity.) The chapters in the second half of the book reprise the first half, but this time with people in various formerly communist/authoritarian countries. The chapter titles are the same as in the first half and open with pull-quotes from the corresponding bear chapter, and Szabłowski slyly draws parallels between the bears and the people. Unfortunately, I was severely handicapped by my ignorance of the geopolitics of the countries discussed.… (more)

Really fun book of Russian/Soviet history through the lenses of the people cooking the meals that fueled it. I enjoyed that this was mostly people's personal stories or stories of their parents/grandparents, and that the author wasn't shy to include stuff was quite likely fabrications or exaggerations (and he did note so where appropriate). I think the end of the book suffered a bit by going from longer chapters on quite dramatic events to quicker chapters without a whole lot going on, but the final couple of chapters redeemed it.… (more)