Generations of Winter

Over the summer vacation, I had a chance to read Vassily Aksyonov's Generations of Winter, about Russia from the 1917 Revolution until the end of World War II. It's not quite War and Peace, but it is very good, and I couldn't put it down. Aksyonov does a great job of having different characters take you through the ups and downs of modern Russian history. and has some good love stories which ring true, as well. Plus the intergenerational family dynamics are fascinating. The family's dacha is the only constant in a turbulent world, a haven of middle-class sanity and a tie to a lost past. Aksyanov's new book, Voltaire and the Voltairians was on the bestseller lists in Moscow last winter, so I'm waiting for the translation.