Still the best book on the topic, and unlikely ever to be surpassed.

There were times when I was reading this book that it almost brought me to tears. The chapters involving the starvation and the cannibalism were simply horrifying. The author did a very good job of telling the story from the individual's point of view. That made it hit home a bit more than if it was a view from 10,000 feet up. What gave me a hard time while reading this book was keeping track of all the different names and their associated units. While there were 3 maps included in this book, I could have used a few more. Having said that, I was still able to follow along for the most part.

I never realized the death and destruction involved in the Leningrad siege before reading this book. It seems as if most historians focus on Stalingrad or Moscow. I do wish, as another reviewer pointed out, that more time was spent on the second and third years. Perhaps there was not as much to tell since the food supply was increased and a good number of people in the city had been evacuated. ( )

A thoroughly absorbing account of the privations suffered during this momentous part of WWII. It's remarkable that the author was able to gather so many accounts from ordinary people, given that it was written in the late 1960s when Brezhnev was reversing the moves towards openness introduced under Khrushchev. The book was officially criticised in the USSR as giving insufficient coverage to the role of the Communist Party in leading the besieged citizens' struggle. The only slight point of mild criticism of this great book might be the imbalance in coverage of the 900 days: the emphasis is almost all on the first winter of the siege when so many died of starvation, with the following two years covered very scantily. ( )