If you are re-reading all your favourite books at the dacha, we offer you eleven new good books about skeletons in the closet, female friendship, investigations in the name of Sherlock Holmes and reflections on the body and physicality, which were carefully collected by BURO book reviewer Anna Popova.
Maxim Biller, Knizhniki publishing house
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the ninth darkest circle of hell is reserved for traitors and traitors. But what if the traitor is someone close to you and you don’t even know who exactly? The book by a German writer with Russian-Jewish roots tells of a Jewish family forced to emigrate from Moscow in the 1950s due to a complaint written by one of their relatives. At the same time, the situation is ambiguous: the mystery has as many as six versions.
Ruby Namdar, book publisher
Professor of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies Andrew Cohen has it all: respect from colleagues, recognition from students, love. But, as we know, it is with the phrase “He has it all” that rapid downfalls and disasters in life often begin. Andrew’s harmonious, comprehensible and very material world suddenly collapses with the appearance of strange visions that refer to ancient rituals.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Inostranka Editorial
A small island, a quiet hotel, a dead body and a tight circle of suspects – the novel has everything we love about classic detective stories. Plus, the investigation is led by none other than Sherlock Holmes – more precisely, by a Hollywood actor who once brilliantly played him and completely mastered the famous deductive method.
Catherine Steadman, Inspiria Publishing
The fascinating thriller by the British writer and actress is built according to the classic scheme: one person impersonates another or becomes a victim of circumstances. The main character, actress Mia Eliot, meets a certain Emily at an audition. The new friend disappears and then another woman appears who says she is the same Emily.
Joseph Gies, Francis Gies, CoLibri Publishing
The concept of the “Middle Ages” has become synonymous with darkness and hopelessness for many, but in reality it was not all so terrible. Medievalists Joseph and Francis Gies debunk myths about the Middle Ages as an exceptionally dark and difficult time and, based on historical evidence, tell of life in the English village of Elton in 1300.
Viola Ardone, NoAge Publishing
The touching and heartwarming novel is based on a true story, which at one point attracted the attention of the Pope himself. The main character of the book is 15-year-old Oliva Denaro. Patriarchal relatives and everyone around the girl are sure that forced marriage is the norm, even if the groom is a cruel rapist obsessed with the bride. But the fragile girl decides to say “no” to stereotypes and traditions.
Ito Ogawa, NoAge Publishing
Following the death of her grandmother, 25-year-old Hatoko becomes a yuhitsu, a community scribe who creates calligraphic messages, from love letters to congratulations and condolences. Reviews call the book “a requiem for handwritten text,” but it is more of a eulogy, recalling the importance of handwritten letters warmed with spiritual warmth in the age of computers.
Madeleine St. John, Casa de Historias Publishing House
With poignant dresses on the cover, the novel, which has been compared to Gilbert’s The City of Women, is about female friendship and, of course, little black dresses that symbolize a large fashion department store directly connected to the lives of the heroines.
publishing house “Elena Shubina Edition”
The publishing house’s new collection is a real treat for lovers of the small genre. The best modern writers present reflections on the theme “I was given a body: what should I do with it, so unique and so mine?”: Evgeny Vodolazkin, Tatyana Tolstaya, Alexey Salnikov, Marina Stepnova, Maya Kucherskaya, Denis Dragunsky, Anna Matveeva and others.
Francine Prowse, editor of texts
Harvard graduate Simon Putnam lands his dream job at a renowned publishing house. The young man’s first task is to edit a manuscript devoted to the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, accused of sympathizing with communism and spying for the USSR. This “witch hunt” is difficult for Simon, because Ethel was a childhood friend of his mother.
works of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, Andrey Karagodin
When should I read a monograph on the tourist boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries if not in the summer? The Doctor of Historical Sciences tells how the “Russian Riviera” came into being, what population inhabited it, and how a new leisure culture of the middle class of the Russian Empire was formed.
