Michael Idov
Books

A Major Breakthrough In Our War On Trees

We interrupt your blog to briefly note how damn proud we are that not one but two regular Russia! contributors, Daria Vaisman and Boris Kachka, have landed major book deals... within days of each other. Let’s dive under the jump and meet them properly.

Author: Daria Vaisman
Working title: The Field Guide to Democracy: My Journeys among the Hustlers, Hucksters, Plutocrats, Gerrymanderers, Carpetbaggers, and Oil Kings of the Former Soviet Union
What’s it about: a narrative account of the U.S. foreign policy efforts in the former Soviet republics, illustrated by graphic novelist Mickey Duzyj.
Sold to: Free Press (Simon & Schuster)
Latest Russia! contribution: Georgia’s Messy Breakup

Author: Boris Kachka
Working title: Hothouse
What’s it about: the story of famed publishers Farrar, Straus & Giroux, concentrating on the eventful life of Roger Straus.
Sold to: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Press)
Latest Russia! contribution: Review of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

In short, let this be a lesson to the rest of you: even in the most godawful economy since the Collectivization Famine of 1932-1933, publishing houses are still buying books… and they’re buying them from our contributors.


Bookmark or Share

Related Articles
Relevant Links, According to Google

Related Articles

The Great Translation Chart

From Vladimir Nabokov’s monstrously bloated Onegin to David Mamet’s extra-lean Cherry Orchard, we rifle through English translations of Russian lit classics and pick the best. You’re welcome.

Nightmare Escapism

Stalin’s Russia becomes thriller fodder: Boris Kachka on City of Thieves and Child 44

The Great Russian-American Snow Job

BOOKS: Paul Lembresky reviews Absurdistan: "Call me picky, but I think Russian-flavored American-cooked kitsch has seen better days."

Related Blog Entries

Happy Birthday, Putin…NOT

 by Julia Ioffe
It’s Vladimir Putin’s 57th birthday today! The patriarch called to congratulate the prime minister, as did Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, affectionately known as “Europe’s last dictator.” Even dissidents marked the occasion. Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a mocking ode (“I love you so tenderly and so sincerely.") wishing the prime minister would trade up titles, from “prime minister” to “God.”

Book Review: Murderers In Mausoleums

 by Alexander Nazaryan
An otherwise intriguing account of a train trip through Central Asia is marred by careless, overwrought prose.

Brodsky Monument A Big Unfunded Maybe

 by Katya Tylevich
Anathema to the Soviet government, poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky was hounded by the authorities for “parasitism,” sentenced to a stint in a remote northern village, and finally forced to leave the country in 1972. Once in the U.S., conversely, he was hounded by the adoring press, sentenced to a teaching stint in Ann Arbor, and finally forced to leave the country to pick up his Nobel Prize in 1987. Now that he’s dead, Russia, as usual, has realized its loss and wants a piece of J-Bro, too. And, soon enough, it should be getting one.
Tags
Books