An uncommon first-person account of wartime Russia that deserves a clearer translation.
Grand (Always Beside, 2015) compiles his Russian grandfather’s World War II journal.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Sychev was born in Melenki, Russia, in 1923 and raised by his father and stepmother. His diary, written mostly in the present tense, opens in June 1941 with his secondary school leaving party. The teenager’s sense of foreboding (“I feel a strange uneasiness, as if something were coming”) was apt; the very next morning, he reported to the army’s recruiting office. The following day, the bombing of Kiev provoked Josef Stalin’s declaration of war. Sychev became a platoon commander and then a second lieutenant in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. His journal entries range between a paragraph and several pages; most are dated, so it’s easy for readers to track the passage of time until the 22-two-year-old Sychev finally returned home four-and-a-half years later, having survived a hand injury and time as a prisoner of war in Lithuania and Germany. At the German mining camp, he and his comrades escaped through a lavatory, but were caught the next day. At the last minute, they were spared death by firing squad, and this sequence provides the book’s dramatic highlight. The translation uses slang phrases (“Attaboy!”; “he will face the music!”) to good effect, and preserves the loveliness of Sychev’s spare observations, such as “a wonderful pine forest. Strawberries,” and “Snow, cold, endless digging of trenches, sleeping on the move, sleeping in the snow, burnt quilted jackets, charred boots.” On the way home after the war’s end in 1945, Sychev passed a concentration camp in Berlin’s suburbs—a harrowing experience that prompted one of two poems here. Three black-and-white photographs, plus two contemporary color photos of concentration camp crematoria, help to root the book in history. Unfortunately, there are numerous places where typos produce awkward or nonsensical lines, such as “Death mows people!” and “They organized us high diet.” The occasional choice of obscure vocabulary (“spaddle”; “hebetate”) likewise draws unwanted attention.
An uncommon first-person account of wartime Russia that deserves a clearer translation.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5172-0147-0
Page Count: 122
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you...
The queen of Thursday night TV delivers a sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life.
Rhimes, the brain behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is an introvert. She describes herself as a young girl, playing alone in the pantry, making up soap-opera script stories to act out with the canned goods. Speaking in public terrified her; going to events exhausted her. She was always busy, and she didn’t have enough time for her daughters. One Thanksgiving changed it all: when her sister observed that she never said “yes” to anything, Rhimes took it as a challenge. She started, among other things, accepting invitations, facing unpleasant conversations, and playing with her children whenever they asked. The result was a year of challenges and self-discovery that led to a fundamental shift in how she lives her life. Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny. We get an idea of what it’s like to be a successful TV writer and producer, to be the ruler of Shondaland, but the focus is squarely on the lessons one can learn from saying yes rather than shying away. Saying no was easy, Rhimes writes. It was comfortable, “a way to disappear.” But after her year, no matter how tempting it is, “I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary.” The book is a fast read—readers could finish it in the time it takes to watch a full lineup of her Thursday night programing—but it’s not insubstantial. Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift.
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7709-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York.
When advertising executive Schroff answered a child’s request for spare change by inviting him for lunch, she did not expect the encounter to grow into a friendship that would endure into his adulthood. The author recounts how she and Maurice, a promising boy from a drug-addicted family, learned to trust each other. Schroff acknowledges risks—including the possibility of her actions being misconstrued and the tension of crossing socio-economic divides—but does not dwell on the complexities of homelessness or the philosophical problems of altruism. She does not question whether public recognition is beneficial, or whether it is sufficient for the recipient to realize the extent of what has been done. With the assistance of People human-interest writer Tresniowski (Tiger Virtues, 2005, etc.), Schroff adheres to a personal narrative that traces her troubled relationship with her father, her meetings with Maurice and his background, all while avoiding direct parallels, noting that their childhoods differed in severity even if they shared similar emotional voids. With feel-good dramatizations, the story seldom transcends the message that reaching out makes a difference. It is framed in simple terms, from attributing the first meeting to “two people with complicated pasts and fragile dreams” that were “somehow meant to be friends” to the conclusion that love is a driving force. Admirably, Schroff notes that she did not seek a role as a “substitute parent,” and she does not judge Maurice’s mother for her lifestyle. That both main figures experience a few setbacks yet eventually survive is never in question; the story fittingly concludes with an epilogue by Maurice. For readers seeking an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4251-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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