Read Your Way Around the World - Russia

Read your way around the world invites you to Russia, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” (Winston Churchill)

And it is true. It is almost impossible for foreigners to understand Russians, the mysterious Russian soul, the legendary Russian melancholy, and how to pronounce long Russian names. Russian culture has a long and rich history, steeped in finest art, music, architecture, and literature.

Russia cannot be captured in one book. The country is vast and the people of Russia do nothing by halves. They vanquished Mongol invasion, Napoleon and Hitler. In one century Russia had been Tsarist, the Soviet Federative Republic, the biggest of the fifteen Soviet republics, and the Russian Federation.

I hope through the pages of these books you'll travel to Russia and understand certain parts of  Russian history.

Russka: the novel of Russia by Edward Rutherfurd

This epic historical saga starts in the year A.D. 180 spans generations, ending in the late 20th-century. You will enjoy this lengthy book. It is written in a style that results in quick and easy reading and will hold the reader's interest.


Peter the Great: his life and world by Robert K. Massie

Robert K. Massie's classic biography of Peter the Great delves into both the good and the bad qualities of Peter the Great. It also provides a riveting snapshot into the Russian way of life in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, not only for the tsar and his court but for the common people, too.  Novelist

Collected Stories by Alexander Pushkin


Aleksander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) is considered Russia's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. On his father's side, he was a descendant of an ancient noble family; his mother was a great granddaughter of Gannibal, the legendary Abyssinian, who served under Peter the Great. In both prose and verse, Pushkin was one of the world’s great storytellers: melodic and dramatic, rich, vivid, and passionate.


The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin

A suicide in the Alexander Gardens might seem to be an open-and-shut case, but detective Erast Fandorin senses something more sinister. Set against the heady intellectual currents and the glitz of the aristocracy, The Winter Queen offers a shrewd look at life in the late 19th century as well as a twisty, fast-paced mystery. Novelist


Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

American Ian Frazier, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, is a serious Russophile: he has made frequent, lengthy trips to Russia over the decades; he has studied the language; he has immersed himself in reading everything he can about the country. The lengthy Travels in Siberia distills this extended romance into a book that is part travel memoir, part eccentric history. Novelist

"When you open the door either to a Russian apartment or to the Russian soul, it is warm and friendly and prideful of their history and culture, and extremely generous," - Chris Hadfield.

The Kings of Killer Cars

I don’t know what it is about the King boys, Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, but it seems that they are car freaks. I was reminded of this while reading King’s latest novel.

Stephen King started his killer car theme early in 1983. The novel Christine features a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Don’t you just love that the brand name is “Fury”? It seems appropriate: Christine is a truly killer car. The car itself is possessed by the spirit of her previous owner, a twisted person named Roland LeBay. Christine takes the soul of not only her new owner, teenage Arnie, but anyone who gets in her way.

From a Buick 8 is the second King novel to feature supernatural cars. King states he was inspired to write the novel after he slipped and almost fell into a stream of water while filling his car at a gas station in Western Pennsylvania. The thought that he might not have been discovered until much later lead him to the plot of this story. In this novel, a 1953 Buick Roadmaster is the key to mysterious events. While it appears to be a car, it is not a car at all. It gives off “lightquakes,”, grows mysterious plants and creatures, and causes people to disappear in the vicinity of the car.

Adding Misery to this list is sort of cheating, but a car crash is the impetus for the rest of the novel. When Paul Sheldon is rescued from his car accident by Annie Wilkes, she transports him to her home. There she discovers Paul is the author of her favourite books. When she finds out that he is killing off her favourite character, Misery, she forces him to write a new ending while keeping him prisoner. In the process Annie makes Paul’s life pretty miserable. One interesting bit of trivia is that Paul’s newest manuscript is a new crime novel entitled Fast Cars.

The short story The Road Virus Heads North from Everything’s Eventual follows Richard Kinnell. a successful horror novelist, who is driving home from Boston to Derry Maine. Stopping at a yard sale, he buys a bizarre painting entitled “The Road Virus Heads North.” It is of a sinister-looking man with filed teeth driving a Grand Am. This is the only surviving painting by a tortured genius who burned all his other paintings before committing suicide. Along Kinnell’s journey, he realizes that the painting is changing. Kinnell tries to get rid it, but the painting has other ideas!

Stephen King’s latest, Mr. Mercedes, is more of a traditional mystery. Retired Detective Bill Hodges, still troubled by an unsolved crime, is determined to find the killer named Mr. Mercedes who plowed into a crowd of hundreds of people waiting outside a job fair. The killer taunts him, hoping to force him to commit suicide. This only sparks a passion to solve this crime and stop Mr. Mercedes once and for all. The novel is an insight into a serial killer’s twisted mind and the mindset that stops it in its tracks. King announced in June this novel is the first in a trilogy. The second book, Finders Keepers, will be released in 2015.

Father and son joined forces in writing a tribute to the story Duel in the anthology He is Legend, Celebrating Richard Matheson. Throttle features a faceless trucker waging war against a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in the Nevada desert. It is like a blend of Breaking Bad with Sons of Anarchy. A bit of trivia about the original story: Matheson turned Duel “into a script for a young Steven Spielberg’s first movie, starring Dennis Hopper as a salesman fleeing a killer truck driver."

Joe Hill followed in his father’s tire tracks by featuring a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith in his novel NOS4A2. Once again, how can you resist a horror novel car that is a “Wraith”? Who in the big automobile industry thinks of these names? In the novel Charles Talent Max drives his big, bad automobile around the country, and through time, kidnapping children. The final destination may have the fun name “Christmasland,” but it is far from a joyous place. In fact, it is deeply unsettling and scary as hell. The heroine of the novel, Vic McQueen, drives a pretty “wicked” machine of her own – Triumph motorcycle.

So as you go on your vacation road trip, I hope that you do not run into any of these cars.

Staff Pick - Archetype by M.D. Waters

Archetype by M.D. Waters

A strong woman. A woman who goes against all that people say is true. A rebel. A fighter.


Meet Emma Burke, a true miracle to have survived a horrible accident. Or, should I say Emma Wade.

"Emma wakes in a hospital, with no memory of what came before. Her husband, Declan, a powerful, seductive man, provides her with new memories, but her dreams contradict his stories, showing her a past life she can't believe possible: memories of war, of a camp where girls are trained to be wives, of love for another man. Something inside her tells her not to speak of this, but she does not know why. She only knows she is at war with herself. Suppressing those dreams during daylight hours, Emma lets Declan mold her into a happily married woman and begins to fall in love with him. But the day Noah stands before her, the line between her reality and dreams shatters. In a future where women are a rare commodity, Emma fights for freedom but is held captive by the love of two men - one her husband, the other her worst enemy. If only she could remember which is which..." publisher

From the very first page of Archetype my mind was searching for information, answers, the key to this wildly written puzzle of a story. Waters has dispersed the past into the present with memories and characters, and pulls you into the story even more. It is a phenomenal way of writing. There were no pauses in the story, no over explanations, not one part where I could say, “Okay, I’ll put it down for a bit”. It was all greedily read to the point to exhaustion to get to the end.

Now just think this is Waters first, yes, first novel! Even better, the next installment, Prototype is on the way.

World War I in fiction

One hundred years ago today saw the beginning of the First World War. Let's remember this war and the sacrifice of our soldiers in these novels reflecting Canadian men's and women's experiences in this world altering conflict.

The Gunner by Paul Almond

"Eric Alford's safe and romantic life on the peaceful Gaspe Coast is shattered by his decision to follow his elder brother John (the Pilgrim and The Chaplain) into the 1914-18 cataclysm of death and destruction known as the "Great War for Civilisation". By his thundering Howitzer, Gunner Alford assaults the Hun through every major Canadian battle of WWI: Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Hill 70, The Somme, and "The Hundred Days" that ended the conflict. A developing romance with a lovely Londoner is cut short by a German shell. Evacuated to a Rouen field hospital, he is surrounded by hellish wounds: blindness, amputations, and gas-inflicted horrors. Finally, back in Blighty among other shell-shock victims, he recovers and returns to his Gaspe home, bereft of his London love and changed forever." publisher

The Cartographer of No Man's Land by P.S. Duffy

"Nova Scotia, 1916. Angus MacGrath, a skilled sailor and navigator, is lost—caught between a remote wife, a disapproving father, and a son seeking guidance. An ocean away from his coastal village, missing is Ebbin Hant, Angus's adventurous brother-in-law and best friend. Ebbin's unknown fate sets angus on an uncharted course with profound consequences for those he loves and those he comes to love. In search of his own purpose and hoping against all odds to find Ebbin, Angus defies his pacifist upbringing and enlists. Assured a safe job as a military cartographer in London, he is instead assigned to the infantry and sent to the blood-soaked mud of the front-line trenches in France, where he begins his search. At home his young son, Simon Peter, once wide-eyed about the war—clipping stories and sneaking propaganda—must navigate uncertain loyalties in a village succumbing to war fever." publisher

Freddy Frieda Goes to War: a labrador native's story by Earl B. Pilgrim

"Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the great Northern Doctor, arrived in Hopedale, Labrador, in August 1915. It was his last trip before going to war as a medical doctor for the British army in a field hospital in France. While in Hopedale, he met Freddy Frieda, a young Inuit hunter who could speak the German language fluently. Grenfell recruited Freddy for the Newfoundland Regiment and had him sent to England to train as a spy. This is the story of what happened to Freddy in the First World War. It's a story that has never been told before." Discover

Passchendaele: the novel by Paul Gross



"Sergeant Michael Dunne of the 10th Canadian Infantry Battalion has survived some of the worst fighting of the Great War. Wounded on the Western Front, he returns home to Calgary, a broken man suffering from neurasthenia and facing trial as a deserter should he ever attempt a return to the battlefield. In Calgary, he finds a complicated love with Sarah Mann, a nurse dismissed from her position because of her German ancestry. Sarah is struggling to care for her chronically ill younger brother, David, and is devastated when he finds someone to lie on his medical certificate so that he can enlist in the war. Though Michael is haunted by his memories of the battlefield, out of duty and love he follows David to the Front. Neither of the two men knows what lies ahead." publisher 

The Brothers Keepers: the Great War odyssey of Sable MacInnes and his brothers by John E. (Ted) MacNintch

"The Brother Keepers" is a sweeping epic of Sable MacInnes and his brothers who bond during the escapades of youth in bucolic, Nova Scotia, each designated as his brother's keeper by their Baptist Minister father "The Old Gent." Sucked into the vortex of the Great War, sniper Sable, his stretcher-bearer/piper brother Ian and their infantryman brother, Fraser, struggle through the horrors of the major battles of human attrition, witnessing history first hand as soldiers of the Canadian Corps, one of the most elite fighting formations of shock troops of the Western Front." Discover

Taking Flight with the Wright Brothers

Birdmen: the Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the battle to control the skies
by Lawrence Goldstone

"Wilbur and Orville Wright expected much more than fame after they flew across the sands at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Having successfully flown and filed a broadly worded patent for a wing and rudder design, they expected royalties to be paid to them for every aircraft built by rivals. Believing they owned the concept of flight, they also demanded licensing fees for every barnstorming flight and a cut from the profits of every public air show. Glenn Curtiss and other proud air pioneers scoffed at the brothers' claim, arguing they had all had a hand in achieving flight. In Birdmen, historian and novelist Goldstone recounts years of legal wrangling that slowed Americans using aircraft for commerce, transportation, and defense until the start of WWI. The author also chronicles a four-year period in which 142 barnstorming pilots died and swarming spectators picked their broken bodies and aircraft for souvenirs. This period history presents ample biographical details for readers who enjoy rivalries" - Booklist

To Conquer the Air: the Wright Brothers and the great race for flight
by James Tobin

"This extraordinarily well-written and deeply nuanced work is the best of the recent spate of books celebrating the Wright Brothers and the 100-year anniversary of their invention of the airplane. Award-winning biographer Tobin (Ernie Pyle's War) provides a detailed yet truly exciting tale of the brothers' lifelong effort to stand "against the wave of popular doubt about the possibility of human flight....  The best yet of all the books celebrating the Wrights' 100-year anniversary, this should stand as the definitive account of their life and times, and will sell accordingl" Publisher Weekly

Wright Brothers' flying machine (DVD)
 NOVA/PBS

"The secrets of the Wright Brothers' innovative genius are explored in this historic episode, as NOVA marks the 100th anniversary of powered flight. Their first successful flight, on North Carolina's Outer Banks, took place in December 1903. NOVA examines a working model of the Wright Model A, first flown publicly in 1908."

Staff Pick - Gin O'Clock by The Queen

Oh my! I think this is the first book I've ever read that made me laugh, snort and/or chuckle on every single page. The Queen [of Twitter: @Queen_UK] has published her diary from a rather eventful year in her life which encompassed the Olympics, two royal weddings and her diamond jubilee.

Elizabeth Windsor ‏@Queen_UK

Mrs "Call Me Carole" Middleton on the phone. Wanting to check we're not wearing the same outfit to George's party. Would have thought not.

The Queen has been on Twitter for some time reflecting on ruling her Commonwealth one day at at at time, often one country at a time (she talks about Tonga alot - she likes Tonga and can often rule them from bed), dishes on her large family, keeps tabs on her prime minister and drinks an unconstitutionally large amount of gin in Gin O'Clock.

The star of the show has to be Camilla. Poor, confused Camilla - frequently missing, often found in a large hole or a decorative vase, sighted only by the puff from her cigarette. She is always getting the wrong end of the stick at all their fancy dress parties (and they have alot). On one memorable occasion, at a Eurovision party, she thought it was a Eurotunnel party and came dressed as a train. Awkward.

And Charles - he's given Australia to rule for a day for practice (from a cardboard throne made by Harry and William perhaps). Every Christmas he makes a speech which they record on DVD, pop into into the machine and never tell him it's not broadcast.

Apparently the DofE is planning to publish his diaries, however he's having problems getting it past the lawyers.

A lovely way to pass an afternoon and a treat to follow her on Twitter.

For more chuckles try:

Maeve's Times: selected Irish Times writings by Maeve Binchy

How About Never - Is Never Good For You: my life in cartoons by Robert Mankoff

You Might Be From Nova Scotia If ... by Michael de Adder

2014 Prometheus Award Winners

The winner of the 2014 Prometheus Award has been announced and there was a tie!

The Prometheus Award, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was established in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf. Presented annually since 1982 at the World Science Fiction Convention, the Prometheus Awards include a gold coin and plaque for the winners.For more than three decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that stress the importance of liberty as the foundation for civilization, peace, prosperity, progress and justice.

This year's winners for Best Novel are Homeland by Cory Doctorow and Nexus by Ramez Naam.


Homeland by Cory Doctorow

"In Cory Doctorow’s wildly successful Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco—an experience that led him to become a leader of the whole movement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against the tyrannical security state. A few years later, California's economy collapses, but Marcus’s hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politician who promises reform. ... Fast-moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homeland is every bit the equal of Little Brother—a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place." publisher

Nexus by Ramez Naam

" In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage - for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes. From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand - Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion." publisher

Staff Pick - The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Looking for a great read and cannot find one in the adult section, try young adult. This book could surely pass as adult fiction with its rich writing and plot structure.

Truthfully, I put this book on hold from the new items list on the Discover Catalogue. Though, if I had actually laid eyes on the cover, I would have picked it up!

Most popularly recognized for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, I fell in love with Brashares' writing through My Name is Memory. I absolutely loved the story and characters and have been keeping an eye on Brashares publishing ever since.

“Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.' This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn't come from a different country. She came from a different time -- a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they're from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she's told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth. But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves" publisher

The Here and Now, a work of science fiction, brings you into a world of rules, secrets, deceit, and lies, lies, lies. The main character, seventeen-year-old Prenna James, comes from the future filled with death and decay. Others came too and formed a 'community', and to fight for a better life and a way to help prevent this world from crumbling. Or so Prenna has been told. Along with this rule, the rule to never, ever fall in love with someone outside her community is imprinted into her way of life.

This is okay, until she meets Ethan Jarves. And little do they know, they have met before, and together, will make this world a little better...maybe.

Other titles from Ann Brashares:

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series

The Last Summer (of you and me)

My Name is Memory

Genealogy Mysteries

I have been an avid reader of the mystery genre. My favourites are cozies and historical mysteries, featuring amateur detectives in modern and historical times.

With my first experience researching customer’s family roots at the library, I felt so good in assisting to solve a genealogical "mystery". It inspired me to discover several mystery series that star professional genealogists as detectives:

Torie O’Shea Mystery series by Rett MacPherson. MacPherson is passionate about genealogy and her mystery series reflects that. In the charming cozy mysteries, genealogist Torie O'Shea always “seems to be right in the middle of it all in the goings-on in New Kassel, Missouri”.


Natasha Blake Ancestor Detective Mystery series by Fiona Mountain. This series features an intelligent and spunky genealogist who is also a sleuth in the Cotswold Hills, England.

Family Tree Mystery series by Patricia Houck Sprinkle. Katherine Murray, a bored housewife, finds excitement in an unexpected place when she investigates memorabilia belonging to families in the past.

Family History Mystery series by Brynn Bonner. Genealogist Sophreena McClure and her business partner and medium Esme Sabatier have learned that “every family has a black sheep— sometimes a whole flock of them”.

Suzie Fewings Mystery series by Fay Sampson. Suzie Loosemore Fewings, a keen family genealogist and "a married mother of two, becomes immersed in murder mysteries of past and present with devastating consequences for her family".

Lottie Albright Mystery series by Charlotte Hinger features Lottie Albright, a local historian and under sheriff in a small town in Western Kansas.

Nigel Barnes mystery series by Dan Waddell. "Scotland Yard recruits genealogist Nigel Barnes to assist in solving a grisly series of murders".

A Classic - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is one of those books I have heard so much about that I was kind of surprised to find that I had actually never read it. Given the novel's autobiographical elements and the author's unfortunate and well documented suicide around the time of its publication, it's difficult to separate Esther Greenwood from Sylvia Plath.

Esther Greenwood, an academically gifted young women, finds a summer internship at a prestigious women's magazine. She is conflicted by the glamorous lifestyle swirling about her and she is both drawn to girls like Doreen who are adventurous and devil-may-care and still has the need to be the "good" girl. Esther is somewhat unofficially engaged to Buddy, but is not invested in this relationship. She returns to her Boston home in general low spirits only to learn that she was not selected for an academic opportunity she had so counted on. She falls further into despair and finds herself in the hands of a callous psychiatrist who ineptly performs electroshock therapy and ultimately ends up in a mental hospital.

The Bell Jar can be a dark and painful read, but also has sparks of humor and wry observation. Although Esther is the psychiatric patient, you often feel that it is the people around her who are actually ill. Esther reflects, "if being neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at the same time, then I'm as neurotic as hell." Despite the fact that the book was published 50 years ago, it remain relatable to young readers still. Some things have changed - we have greater sexual freedom and the choice between career and family is not necessarily an either or situation, but it remains that a young person must still figure out what she wants from life and how much of herself is she willing to give up to conform.

Sylvia Plath, frozen in time as a brilliant and troubled young woman, has gone on to inspire many writers. She herself is the subject of And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky, Wintering: a novel of Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses, Sylvia and Ted: a novel by Emma Tennant and Nova Scotia's own Alice Walsh's Analyzing Sylvia Plath.

"English professor Isobel Harding knew she'd meet opposition when she invited her aunt, Dr. Elizabeth Wilcox, to be the keynote speaker at Evangeline University's literary conference, in Jacob's Ladder, Nova Scotia. As the best-selling author of the controversial new book 'Analyzing Sylvia Plath', Dr. Wilcox has drawn the ire of the academic and literary communities, who condemn her work - and its radical views on Sylvia Plath's life - as sensationalistic tabloid journalism. Even before the book's popularity exploded, Dr. Wilcox attracted headlines when a drug addiction very publicly ended her psychiatry career. But when someone attempts to poison Dr. Wilcox at the conference's welcoming reception, it's clear that her critics go beyond a few disgruntled professors. Now, to protect her aunt, Isobel must dig into the lives of her friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues to determine who among them could be at the center of this deadly maze of intrigue, which grows more disturbing with every twist." Discover

Staff Pick - Mysteries by Борис Акунин

Staff Pick - Mysteries by Boris Akunin

Looking to start the new year with a new mystery series? Why not consider the author who has been described as "the undisputed champion of Russian crime fiction".

Boris Akunin is best known for two mystery series: featuring Sister Pelagia and Erast Fandorin.

While his writing may be at times a little heavy, and the long Russian names can get confusing, the reader is rewarded with such finely crafted, multi-layered plots that keep readers involved until the very end.

Giles Whitell of The Times, says "Boris Akunin is a sensation. He has created a popular hero [Erast Fandorin] to equal Sherlock Holmes and James Bond in his bestselling whodunnits."

“Akunin, best known for his Erast Fandorin series, has created another memorable sleuth in Sister Pelagia, a 19th-century Russian nun whose insights into human nature and curiosity will remind many of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown” Publisher’s Weekly

Checkout his neat website for further details and fun. http://www.boris-akunin.com


Akunin sets his novels in Tsarist Russia and excels at getting the historical details just right. His characters are also very likable and noble. They are portrayed with real human strengths and weaknesses. They fumble and make mistakes, but at the end of the day, they inspire those around them.

David

Дорогие читатели, знаете ли вы, что в стенах филиалов Halifax Public Libraries находится коллекция книг и журналов на многих языках мира и, в том числе, на русском.

Посетите Halifax Public Libraries website

и вы найдете около 200 книг на русском языке. Просто введите в поиск “Russian language materials” !

В своем первом блоге на русском языке я бы хотела поделиться с вами своими впечатлениями о книгах Бориса Акунина, а именно о сериях приключений Эраста Фандорина и монахини Пелагеи.  

                                            

Для меня всегда настоящее удовольствие читать книги Бориса Акунина. Язык Акунина живой, острый, богатый. Сюжеты  книг изрядно запутанны и очень увлекательны- невозможно оторваться от чтения. Автор красочно описывает реалии российской жизни конца 19-го - начала 20-го веков.

Так, например, каждое приключение Эраста Фандорина не похоже на предыдущее: эпопея "Турецкого гамбита" сменяется "Левиафаном", где в центре внимания узкий круг подозреваемых, ироничный "Пиковый валет" соседствует с  мрачным "Декоратором", в "Коронации" царская семья Романовых под угрозой, а в "Любовнице смерти" действие происходит в мрачных кварталах Хитровки.

Вот как появился на свет Эраст Петрович Фандорин:  «Это такой герой, на которого я хотел быть похожим в детстве. Такой невозможно красивый, очень сильный, невероятно благородный, загадочный, в которого влюбляются все женщины, а он остается холодным и равнодушным. литературе внешне он, наверное, больше всего похож на Григория Александровича Печорина. По части дефектов речи (Фандорин у меня заикается), он похож на другого моего любимого персонажа, на полковника Найтурса из "Белой Гвардии", который, правда, не заикался, а картавил, но это не важно. Не обошлось там, конечно, и без князя Мышкина, и еще без нескольких подобных персонажей из русской литературы».- Борис Акунин.

Очень рекомендую книги Бориса Акунина любителям занимательного детективного и исторического чтения. Дорогие читатели, а что вы сейчас читаете?

До скорой встречи!

Julia