March GeoCAT -- Eastern Europe and Russia

This month's GeoCAT encompasses a diverse and literarily-rich area. From places with a large and well-known literary history to places where the authors are only rarely translated into English, there is a huge quantity of books to choose from, in every genre imaginable (maybe not Amish Romance).

In order to give each country in this area some attention, I've found literature from each country, available in English (except for Macedonia, which utterly stumped me. Suggestions more than welcome). I know that it's easy to find something set in Poland or written by a Russian, but if you'd like to explore less well-known corners of the eastern half of Europe, take a look below.

Albania





The Albanian author most familiar to western readers is Ismail Kadare. Among his many novels are Broken April, Chronicle in Stone and The Siege.

Novels set in Albania include The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones and The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Ornela Vorpsi

Non-Fiction and travelogues set in Albania include The Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver, Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan

Belarus





Novels include Paranoia by Victor Martinovich, Your Mouth is Lovely by Nancy Richler and Down Among the Fishes by Natalka Babina. There is even a science fiction novel, Belarus by Lee Hogan.

Non-fiction and travelogues include The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy, The Bronski House: A Return to the Borderlands by Philip Marsden and Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship by Andrew Wilson.

Bosnia





The Bosnian author most familiar to western readers is Aleksandar Hemon, who wrote The Lazarus Project, Nowhere Man and The Question of Bruno.

Novels include People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway and How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišic

Non-Fiction and Travelogues include Safe Area Gorazde: the War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco, Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipović and My War Gone By, I Miss It So by Anthony Lloyd

Bulgaria



Bulgarian author include Miroslav Penkov (East of the West: A Country in Stories and Stork Mountain have been translated into English) and Elias Canetti (Auto-da-Fe and The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood, among many others)



Novels include Night Soldiers by Alan Furst, Solo by Rana Dasgupta, The Wildalone by Krassi Zourkova and Dobry by Monica Shannon

Non-fiction includes Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria by Kapka Kassabova and Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews by Michael Bar-Zohar

Croatia





Croatian authors translated into English include Dubravka Ugrešić (Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, The Ministry of Pain) and Miroslav Krleža (On the Edge of Reason, The Return of Philip Latinowicz)

Novels include The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna, The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic and Girl at War by Sara Nović

Non-fiction includes The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo by Clea Koff, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War by Marcus Tanner and Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic

Czech Republic





The authors western readers will be most familiar with are Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Art of Laughter and Forgetting), Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis, The Trial) and Václav Havel (The Garden Party: and Other Plays, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Huizdala)

Novels include The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hasek, Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal and Golem by David Wisniewski

Non-fiction includes The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History by Derek Sayer and Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City by John Banville

Estonia





Novels include Purge and When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen, Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson and The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross

Non-fiction includes The Haapsalu Shawl: A Knitted Lace Tradition from Estonia by Siiri Reimann, Racundra's First Cruise by Arthur Ransome and Estonia: A Ramble Through the Periphery by Alexander Theroux

Hungary





Prominent authors include Sándor Márai (Embers, Portraits of a Marriage), Magda Szabó (The Door, Katalin Street) and Imre Kertész (Fateless, Kaddish for an Unborn Child)

Novels include The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer, The Good Master by Kate Seredy and Prague: A Novel by Arthur Phillips

Non-fiction includes Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture by John Lukacs, Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor and Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution by Victor Sebestyen

Latvia





A Latvian author translated into English is Inga Abele (High Tide)

Novels include The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell and The Free World by David Bezmozgis

Non-fiction includes The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzem, A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile by Agate Nesaule and Walking Since Daybreak : A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of Our Century by Modris Eksteins

Lithuania





An author with work translated into English is Ričardas Gavelis (Vilnius Poker)

Novels include Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, A Glass of Milk, Please by Herbjørg Wassmo and Placebo by Jurga Ivanauskaitė

Non-fiction includes There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok by Yaffa Eliach, Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story by Ken Mochizuki, Hershel’s Kingdom by Dan Jacobson and From That Place and Time: A Memoir, 1938-1947 by Lucy S. Dawidowicz

Moldova





An author translated into English is Vladimir Lorchenkov (The Good Life Elsewhere)

Fiction includes Trafficked by Kim Purcell

Non-fiction includes Playing the Moldovans at Tennis by Tony Hawks, No Going Back to Moldova by Anna Robertson and Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova by Miriam Weiner

Poland





Prominent Polish authors include Jerzy Kosiński (The Painted Bird, Being There) and Tadeusz Borowski (This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen)

Novels include The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly, Poland by James A. Michener and The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

Non-fiction includes The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman, Maus : a Survivor's Tale by Art Speigelman, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies

Romania





Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature and has many works translated, including The Land of Green Plums and The Appointment

Novels include The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning, No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel and Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding

Non-fiction includes In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires by Raymond T. McNally, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times by Radu R Florescu and Transylvania and Beyond by Dervla Murphy

Russia





The width and depth of Russian literature is much too large to do more than hint at here. Don’t forget authors like Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenyev and hundreds of others as you look for an appropriate book. The following suggestions are divided into two categories - shorter books (so you can get a taste for a new author) and newer books (published within the last twenty years).

Short novels include One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

Newer novels include City of Thieves by David Benioff, Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin and The People's Act of Love: A Novel by James Meek

Non-fiction includes Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie, Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum and The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes

Serbia





Serbian authors translated into English include David Albahari (Götz and Meyer, Leeches) and Danilo Kiš (A Tomb for Boris Davidovich)

Fiction includes The Tiger's Wife: A Novel by Tea Obreht, White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell and Landscape Painted with Tea by Milorad Pavić

Non-fiction includes With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia by Åsne Seierstad, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia by Tim Judah and The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia by Brian Hall

Slovakia





A Slovakian author with work translated into English is Martin M. Simecka (Year of the Frog: A Novel)

Novels include Siren of the Waters by Michael Genelin, Katarina by Kathryn Winter, Zoli by Colum McCann and The Luck of the Weissensteiners by Christoph Fischer

Non-fiction includes A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, My Bridges of Hope by Livia Bitton-Jackson and The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg

Slovenia





Drago Jančar is a Slovenian author with works translated into English (Northern Lights, The Galley Slave)

Fiction includes Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho, How the Sun Was Brought Back to the Sky by Mirra Ginsburg and You Do Understand by Andrej Blatnik

Non-fiction includes Forbidden Bread by Erica Johnson Debeljak, The Fracture Zone: My Return to the Balkans by Simon Winchester and Pilgrim Among the Shadows by Boris Pahor

Ukraine





Mikhail Bulgakov is a Ukrainian author. He wrote The Master and Margarita and The White Guard.

Novels include Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov and Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles

Non-Fiction includes Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid, Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich and The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews by Patrick Desbois

Wow, you've done a lot of research! As you say, I know I'll have stuff on my tbr for Russia and Poland, but I'll see what else I've got available. I'll also look at what's been on my tbr longest and see what's appealing to me at the moment (and what's easily available at my library!).

>12 LibraryCin: I had a quiet afternoon alone when I was nursing a cold a few weeks ago and had some fun putting it together. It should have been a quick transfer, except all the html coding went weird, so I had to adjust bits and it took a few minutes.

Please don't specifically not read something set in Russia or Poland! I just wanted to make sure that other places were also represented.

I did just finish The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard, which would fit this challenge, being set in the Warsaw Ghetto of WWII.

I think I'm going to be doing a lot of exploring of the titles you've listed, and I have a feeling I'm going to find a number of new authors I want to dive into, so thank you for the legwork!

I have a couple of options, but I'll probably end up going with Lolita in the end. I've been meaning to read it for ages, and since it also fits the alphacat, this seems like a perfect moment... I've also got People of the Book and some works by Kundera waiting, though, so we'll see what happens...

Wow, what a great overview! Thank you!

My options are:
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russia)
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Romania)
Sandberg by Joanna Bator (Poland) (can't find the right TS)
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Sasa Stanisic (Bosnia)

I don't own any of them, but they have been on my list for quite a while. I'll see what's available from the library.

I will be reading The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival.

>14 whitewavedarling: People of the Book would also fit the DeweyCAT!

As I thought, I have a few books set in Russia, two in Poland and one in Latvia. So, depending on what's available at the library, these are my top options:

The Mascot / Mark Kurzem
The Winter Palace / Eva Stachniak
Sarah's Key / Tatiana de Rosnay
The Firebird / Susanna Kearsley
The Last Days of the Romanovs / Helen Rappaport

>13 RidgewayGirl: It turns out I do have something for Latvia, but it's still going to depend - at least partly - on what I'm feeling like reading + what's available at my library. :-)

I've set aside Russka, by Edward Rutherfurd, for this challenge. It will most assuredly take more than one month, given my previous track record with Rutherfurd's books.

I'm not officially taking part in any of the CATs, but given that this region is the one I know most about (and indeed is one of my own challenge categories) I'll be keeping an eye on this. I started Never Mind the Balkans, Here's Romania last month but I'm still reading it (I'm reading it in tandem with the Romanian translation, so it's taking a bit longer!) so it might sneak into next month too, although I'm still hoping to finish it in February.

I've got quite a few of your suggestions on Mt. TBR, and my next category for me to read something from is 'Academic', of which quite a few of my TBR's are CEE/former Soviet Union-related, so maybe I'll have something else to add. But I think this thread is going to be even more dangerous for BBs than last month's Central Asia thread was! (Just checked. I have already read 7 of your list, and 5 others of them are TBRs).

For Belarus and/or Ukraine, I've not read any of her work, but Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 - she was born in Ukraine, but her father was Belarusian and she was brought up in Belarus and (apart from around a decade in the early 2000s when she left due to persecution from the Lukashenko regime) still lives and works there.

Thanks @RidgewayGirl for the beautiful setup! I'm planning on finishing War and Peace in time for this CAT. If time permits, I may add something else, but it's a time-eater, that W&P-book.

Thank you for the beautiful photos and lists of suggestions! I see several I've read and several more that I want to read.

I'm planning to read Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca, which will hit several of these countries. If I have time, I'll also read Then by Morris Gleitzman, which is set in Poland. It's the sequel to a book I listened to and loved last year.

Nice work, Ridgeway Girl. I just recently picked up Purge so that's a possibility but I will have to study things a bit before I decide.

Wonderful setup, and I've got so many possibles on my tbr! I'm currently eyeing Der Verrückte des Zaren and The Transylvanian Trilogy, but I'll probably change my mind five times before March arrives...

>6 RidgewayGirl: You could add Miklos Vamos to your list for Hungary. The Book of Fathers is in English and it is quite something.

There was a great deal of winnowing of titles, else you would have all taken one look at the wall of books and quietly left to do something else. I am embarrassed to have omitted Svetlana Alexievich, however. Thanks, Jackie. I want to read her book about Chernobyl.

I can recommend the following from my European reading challenge:
Belarus - Defiance by Nechama Tec (NF about the Bielski partisans)
Bulgaria - Under the Yoke by Ivan Vasov (on the 1001 Books list)
Hungary - Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi
Lithuania - The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews by Michael Good (I loved this one!)
Poland/Ukraine - The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn (a rare 5-star read for me!)

I was happy to see you suggest one of my favorite YA authors - Ruta Sepetys. She has a new book just out called Salt to the Sea which is also pertinent to this area. Events lead up to the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a maritime disaster with more victims than the Titanic and the Lusitania combined.

>29 mamzel: I'm actually planning on Salt to the Sea for this CAT, but the timing will depend on when my hold arrives from the library! If I stay on schedule, I'll also finish War and Peace in March.

Beautiful job setting up this thread, >1 RidgewayGirl:!

>23 cbl_tn: I read Bury Me Standing many years ago and loved it.

>27 RidgewayGirl: I really want to read that one too.

What an outstanding list of books you have gathered together, Kay! I am going to be reading two of the ones you have listed - Girl At War by Sara Novic (Croatia) and City of Thieves by David Benioff (Russia).

I have pulled out an absolute belter for my next read, I'm really looking forward to this. Katherine Verdery's "Secrets and Truths: Ethnography in the Archive of Romania's Secret Police".

Another recommendation for people for Estonia: Everything is Wonderful by Sigrid Rausing. It's a nonfiction account of a year she spent on a collective farm that was undergoing a transformation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of Estonian independence.

Great job setting up this thread!

I've looked at my books and found a good size pile I could pick from:
The Accident by Ismail Kadare - Albania
Night Soldiers by Alan Furst - Bulgaria
City of Thieves by David Benioff - Russia
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht - Serbia
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka - Ukraine
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - Ukraine

plus I have many of the classic Russian authors to read

So, should be able to cross a few of the TBR list.

Just downloaded Under the Yoke from Amazon for $1.22 Australian. Ready for Bulgaria.

I'll be reading Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Evidently some aliens have a few picnics on Earth, leave behind some garbage that has unexpected consequences.

>35 LisaMorr: City of Thieves is one of my all-time favorites! I hope you enjoy it.

>38 jeanned: Thanks - I'll put it at the top of the pile then!

I just remembered reading a pretty cool post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel a few years back called Metro 2033, set in the Moscow subway by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky.

I am planning on reading my paperback ROOT And Quietly Flows the Don by Nobel Laureate Mikhail Sholokhov. I have several other Russian works on my Kindle but would like to get to some of the other countries.

Looking over the suggestions (which are excellent btw! Thanks so much), I saw another ROOT of mine, Purge, listed for Estonia.

I think that is it for ROOTs but I saw lots of interesting books that I could get from the library...

I have lots to choose from but it will probably be one of the following that are all on the shelf:

Ackerman: The Zookeeper’s wife (Poland)
Macintyre: A spy among friends (USSR)
Marra: A constellation of vital phenomena (Russia)
Cumming: The trinity six (Russia)
Fleming: From Russia with love (Russia)
Grossman: Life and fate (Russia)
Obreht: The Tiger’s Wife (Yugoslavia)

My possibilities are:

The Master and Margarita
Chronicle of the Russian Tsars

Both Russian, I know. But I also have Alexander at the World's End featuring the most famous Macedonian ever.

>43 Robertgreaves: The problem I found with Macedonia is that it was very easy to find books set in the Greek region of Macedonia, and impossible to find books set in the independent country of Macedonia. I look forward to finding out in which of these Alexander at the World's End is set!

Modern Macedonians lay claim to Alexander and get very upset if you call him Greek, so I think he's fair game. It's actually set in Sogdiana but features Macedonians so I may end up using it for Central Asia.

I recently read No Going Back to Moldova and found that it isn't set in the place where Moldova is now. This Moldova is a town in Romania, on the banks of the Danube overlooking Serbia , so it's at western end of Romania. It used to be in part of the Austro-Hungarian empire called Banat. The country of Moldova abuts the eastern end of Romania.

The book is set mainly in today's Czech republic and Romania.

This is a great thread for inspiration! Thanks @RidgewayGirl.

I've read a lot from Poland and the surrounding countries as I used to live there, so I'm going with Albania and Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare.

I'm planning to finish War and Peace in March. Since I feel so far behind in all the challenges, I'll leave it at that. :-)

I happened to look up at one of my shelves in my den today and saw two books that shouldn't have been there - I don't keep any fiction in my den which is also my home office (would be too distracting!!!) - and one of them was Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, which I didn't even know I had.

So, I'll take that as a message that I should definitely be including this book for the March GeoCAT!

I've started my first book for this month's challenge: Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, historical fiction set in medieval Russia. I heard very good things about it when the English translation was published last year.

Using Anne Morgan's Guide to Reading the World Map http://ideas.ted.com/your-guide-to-reading-the-world/?utm_campaign=social&ut... I found the Macedonian author Goce Smilevski; Amazon page here: http://www.amazon.com/Goce-Smilevski/e/B001JO4FSY/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Excellent, streamsong!

I went through my shelves and have found the following books for this region. Since they are all pretty short I may be able to read all of them this month.

A Scrap of Time by Ida Fink
The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo by Clea Koff
My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary by Nadja Halilbegovich
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
T-Minus: The Race to the Moon a graphic novel by Jim Ottaviani, Zander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon

Far North by Marcel Theroux is set in post-climate change Siberia. It is pretty much a Western disguised as science fiction with a wonderful sense of place.

I finished the first book on my list, A Scrap of Time. It's different from most books of its type in that the memories are incomplete, flashes, brief instances, and not filled in for the sake of completeness. It takes place in a town in Poland during World War II.

T-Minus by Jim Ottaviani, Zander Cannon, Kevin Cannon (2009) is a graphic novel which chronicles the space race between the US and USSR.

Ivan Vasov wrote Under the Yoke in Odessa, in 1894, while he was exiled from Bulgaria. It describes the 1876 uprising of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman Turks.

I just found a great book - that I'll get to as soon as my husband parts with it: A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I finished We by Russian author, Yevgeny Zamyatin, an interesting early dystopian story. I've also started The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric.

I read a juvenile nonfiction book called My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary which took place in Bosnia.

I read a verse adaptation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Demeter and Persephone: Homeric Hymn Number Two by Penelope Proddow. It was marketed as a picture book but has definite adult appeal.

I started reading Russian Nobel Laureate Mikhail Sholokhov's classic And Quiet Flows the Don today and am already captivated!

And while I was at the library the other day, I got The Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert by the Czech Nobel Laureate.

I'm so impressed with everyone's reading choices!

I finished A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and really enjoyed it. Next I think I'll start on The Master and Margarita.

I just finished Der Verrückte des Zaren, a historical novel about Livonia, now a part of Estonia. Based on real characters, written as a diary and simply wonderful.

I finished Kate Seredy's The White Stag, a retelling of the Hungarian origin myth. It won the 1938 Newbery Medal, but is really only worth reading now for the fantastic illustrations.

On the other hand, I'm getting into the meat of Laurus, which has been rather slow going. The author does this thing where he occasionally starts using archaic spellings for a paragraph or a sentence that is stylistically interesting but functions as a reading speed bump. I really wanted to get this done before Spring Break (it's my desk book at work right now), but I may have to take it home and finish there.

I finished Secrets and Truths by Katherine Verdery a couple of weeks ago. It's an ethnography of the archives of the Securitate secret police in Romania, and (unlike lots of academic books) very readable. I thought it was excellent.

Finished Lolita yesterday... full review written, adding it to the wiki now... I'm still not wholly sure how I feel about the work, but I'm glad to have read it.

I have completed City of Thieves by David Benioff. I loved this book!

I finished The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival.

This was a very compelling story of a tiger hunt in the Bikin River Valley of Far Eastern Russia after the tiger had killed two local men. Unfortunately, it was interspersed with considerable background information which detracted from the suspense of the story. The area is a sparsely-populated wilderness, home to the Amur tiger. The locals eke out a meager existence living off the land. Access to guns is expensive and tightly-controlled. The author does a very good job portraying the environment and developing the characters of the men involved, as well as that of the tiger. He concludes with an assessment of the threat to the species continued existence. all in all this was a worthwhile read.

I finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy! Finally!!! I'll start The Master and Margarita later in the month to be closer to the Group Read over at the 75 group in April. If anyone is interested in chiming in the link is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/219712

I'm also going to try and fit in Maus by Art Spiegelman

>71 luvamystery65: Coincidentally I just picked up a copy of The Master and Margarita today! Thanks for the link to the group read.

>70 LoisB: I liked this one, as well. It was read for my f2f book club, and I remember it got mixed reviews. But, of course, there are some who really aren't excited about nonfiction, or it really has to grab them, so I'm remembering that possibly being one reason why.

When I started reading Radetzky March by Joseph Roth I did not realize it would fit GeoCat, but this book describes almost all the countries featured this month. The German novel describes the decline of the Austrian-Hungarian Dynasty.

This is a political novel and tells the story of not only the Trotta family but of the Ethnic groups within the Hapsburg Republic; Moravia, Serbia, Ukrainia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia Herzegovina and the Jewish people. It heralds the changes from the 1800's to the 1900's and takes the reader to the start of the WWI. W

I've finished War and Peace as well. Not as good as I had hoped, but a good, albeit slow, read.

>71 luvamystery65:
Thanks for the link - I won't be joining (since I've read it so many times), but will be following along for sure!

I finished The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard, set in Nazi-occupied Poland. I'm still working on War and Peace and hope to finish by the end of the month.

I've started Girl at War by Sara Novic, which is set in Croatia.

I'm reading Alamut, which is set in 13th century Persia but was first published in Slovenian in 1938. It has only recently been translated into English, a kind of folksy twentieth century American English, so is a strangely schizophrenic reading experience.

>78 pamelad:, I read this awhile back and really loved it.

I have just finished Girl At War by Sara Novic.

After much slogging and a trip to from Russia to the Holy Land and back, I have finally finished and reviewed Eugene Vodolazkin's Laurus, a work of historical fiction about a healer who spends the majority of his life in penance after he fails to save his girlfriend's life in childbirth and she dies outside of the sacraments. It's one of those books where you grumble the entire time but when you reach the end you look back and realize you really enjoyed it.

I read the play, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov.

>82 mamzel: I liked that play though I think my favorite Chekov play is The Three Sisters. If you want to watch the play once you are done reading it, here is a link to a college performance on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mAxE4W26lQ

I've finished The Hunger Angel ("Atemschaukel" in German) by Herta Müller, which was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 2009. Not an easy read with its brutal topic, but very powerful and moving.

The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood / Mark Kurzem
4 stars

The author's father, Alex Kurzem, has been keeping a secret from his family forever. It's only when he is older and all his sons are grown up and long gone that he starts to confide in Mark. Mark grew up in Australia and was living in England when he father, who Mark believed grew up in Latvia, began to reveal his secrets and to ask for help to find out who is really is. He remembers only two words as clues, and remembers that when he was 5 or 6, he saw his mother and siblings shot by the Nazis. He escaped and was later found by soldiers who dressed him up like a little soldier himself, and used him to bolster spirits. The story goes on, and Mark tries to research to help Alex figure out who he really is.

Wow, what an amazing story. As Mark tried to get help, some people didn't believe the story, but Alex had photos and newspaper clippings to back up what he remembered. Alex's story coming to light even became dangerous for them all. Of course, it was also extremely difficult and emotional for Alex to relive all these memories. Some questions were answered by the end of the book, but there were still some mysteries surrounding it all. Definitely an intriguing story.

I visited Albania in the book I just finished, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. A cozy mystery, light entertainment. Learned a little about Albania.

I've read Girl at War by Sara Novic. It's been longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, or whatever they're calling the Orange Prize now. While the subject matter is fascinating, it's not especially well-written. But it is set in Croatia.

I read up on the history of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with Geschichte des Baltikums. So much there that I didn't know.

I read Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy MacLean who tells of his experiences first as a diplomat and then as a soldier once WWII starts. The book is in three parts with the first one taking place in Stalinist Russia. Then there is a shorter section on the war in North Africa with the third and longest section being about his adventures as the British representative to the Yugoslavian Partisans under Tito. This was a really good nonfiction book. MacLean is thought to be one of Fleming's inspirations for James Bond.

Starting The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

I have finished And Quiet Flows the Don.

I must say that I am having a little trouble translating the old Soviet bloc countries into the new political divisions -- Sholokhov wrote about the Don area which I have counted as Russia but I think that this area overlaps into the Ukraine. I also read some poetry by Jaroslav Seifert who is from the old Czechoslovakia -- I assume that he is now "Czech republic" not "Slovakia" but am not sure... And where do I put Ivo Andric who is from what was Yugoslavia??

>91 leslie.98: Yes, it all gets very blurry. I'm currently reading a book set in what is now Poland, but is set in 1933, when that area was part of Germany.

I have finished Wellen by Eduard von Keyserling. He was born in Kurland, which is now part of Latvia, and a member of the German aristocracy, the ruling class in the region.
This is a short novel set during a summer holiday on the Baltic shore, and the sea plays a prominent part in this, reflecting the moods of the main character, Doralice, who has left her aged husband for a young painter and is now ostracised by her peers. A very melancholy tale, which could have taken place anywhere else in Europe at this time.

I finished Ludwika: A Polish Woman's Struggle to Survive in Nazi Germany by Christoph Fischer.

I've just randomly picked out my next read, for my Autobiography/Biography category, which happens to work for the March GeoCAT too. I'm unlikely to finish it by Thursday, but for the record it is Haya Leah Molnar Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania.

Woot Woot! I finished War and Peace!

>96 streamsong: Hurray!

>96 streamsong: Well done

>97 rabbitprincess: >98 Robertgreaves: Thanks! There are several of us who read (or even reread!) it. I know high school kids do it all the time, but it feels like an accomplishment to me! ;-)

>96 streamsong: Happy dance for your completion of W&P!!!

My March reads that fit the GeoCAT were:

A Confession, Leo Tolstoy (Russia)
The Bridge of Sighs, Olen Steinhauer (Eastern Europe)
The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway (Bosnia)

I can add Wir by Evgenij Zamjatin, written by an early activist of the Communist Party who fell foul of his comrades with this depressing tale of a totalitarian regime.

I read Death in Breslau, buy Polish author Marek Krajewski. Wroclaw, which is what Breslau is called in Polish, is now in Poland, but at the time the book is set (1934) it was a German city near the border.

I'm about halfway through The Master and Margarita and finding it a good read; not quite sure I'll finish by tomorrow though...!

>104 LisaMorr: I think you can probably count it here even if it takes a few days in April!

Yes, I'm not expecting to finish The Master and Margarita today either. Maybe tomorrow or over the weekend.

Same here, I have about 100 pages left of The Master and Margarita. I'll count it anyway.

I've read a few more for this month:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia
Necroscope by Brian Lumley, parts take place in Romania
Invisible Murder by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis, partly takes place in Hungary
I'm about half way through and won't finish by the end of the month:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Russia
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, partly in Albania.

Thank you to everyone who took part this month. I've added more than a few books to my list of books to look for.

I finally got around to The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy and it was stupendous. If you have any interest in Ukraine and how it got to be the way it is, you really should pick it up.

I just finished Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys, which takes place in East Prussia during World War II. I loved this book and would definitely recommend it, especially as it focuses on lesser-known aspects of the war. Specifically, the climactic event is the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a maritime disaster that claimed more lives than the Titanic and Lusitania combined.

Me too. Salt to the Sea.

I squeezed in one more with Ali und Nino, set in Baku before the Russian Revolution

Well, my interlibrary loan of Ivo Andric's short stories finally came in yesterday but I obviously didn't get to it in time for this month's CAT :(

I finally finished The Master and Margarita a couple of days ago. I'm glad to check it off the 1001 list, but I didn't think it was all that awesome... oh well.

Late but done with Chronicle in Stone and Albania. Definitely worthwhile.