A wonderful chronicle of a Jewish family in Belarus beginning in the early 20 th century and culminating in its destruction in Hitlers holocaust A cast of remarkable characters illuminates this novel : The fiery Rachel and her soft spoken husband Yacov Ivanovsky,Rachels father the respected and tough Abraham Rakhlenko,the colourful Khaim Yagudin and The Ivanovsky children includin the narrator,Boris and the beautiful Dina. We grow to know and love the characters And it with a profound sense of horror and tragedy that we see their cruel destruction at the hands of the Nazis

It is however through the few survivors such as Boris Ivanovsky and his sister Lyuda and the young Olya that we find hope . I cannot help however being frustrated by the ommission of the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalin years even though it is clear that due to censorship in the Soviet Union when the book was written in the 1970's, the writer could only hint at these things

You know, I say this all the time, but I have really got to learn Russian one of these days. This time the reason I wish I knew the language is because I'd like to see if the original of Heavy Sand has the same plainspoken, conversational tone which makes the English translation so engaging. It doesn't take long to get [wrapped up] into the story of the Rakhlenko family and to fall in love with all the characters, from the noble to the scoundrels, with all shades of messy humanity in between. At times you don't even feel as if you're reading a novel but hearing a good friend masterfully tell his story and those of his parents and grandparents. This is perhaps the most unpretentious great novel I've ever read.

The small events of the novel's first half blend seamlessly into the world events of the war and the destruction of the entire village, and in both times and places you feel utterly transfixed by what is happening to the people of this family and their village. And despite its depressing setting, Heavy Sand ends on a relatively uplifting note. There is plenty of horror in the book, but also plenty of hope.

I didn't want this book to be over. Highly recommended!

This book caught me with the first paragraph and never let go. (I found it browsing in a recycled store.) This epic story of family and romantic love, community, momentous change (the Russian Revolution) and war (the Nazi invasion and genocide) is told in the simple, conversational style of a master storyteller. It has the authentic an compelling voice of a participant, or witness to the events. (I find myself wondering about Rybakov... who is he? Did he live through these times? Is this his family's story? It feels that real.) This book is about far more than the Nazi attrocities (which occupy only about the last 1/4 of the book). It is really about human nature, and the nature of relationships under all sorts of conditions. It is one of the most moving and memorable works I have read, and it is truly a loss that it is out of print. Do search it out.

As a psychologist working in the field of drug addiction I am constantly dealing with misinformation and propaganda about the dangers (both relative and absolute) of various drugs. Parents who are concerned that their teenage children might be using "dangerous drugs" rather than just getting drunk on the weekends and smoking cigarettes, etc. This book is an outstanding source for historical information about the development of our attitudes towards drugs, the role they play in our society, a straightforward, non-technical presentation of the psychological and biological actions of various drugs, and the effects of our current drug policies. Coupled with "From Chocolate to Morphine" (another must read book) a reader will have a great fund a basic information about drugs and our relationship to them. I only wish this book would be updated and reprinted - though, unfortunately, not nearly enough has changed since this book was first published.

It's amazing how many of the "facts" that we think
we know about drugs are wrong. It's even more
amazing that we continue to base drug policy on
myths that were disproven as much as a hundred
years ago. It's amazing that we continue to
pursue prohibitionist drug policies that have
never withstood the scrutiny of objective
evaluation. Read this book. You'll be astonished.

Even though this book is nearly 30 years old, everything it says about the drug problem is still relevant today.

This publication outlined a clear-cut set of recommendations that if adhered to, today's drug problems would have become a long forgotten memory.

This book is a must for the collection.

Moskva-Petushki, which is translated in English as Moscow to the End of the Line, is Venedikt Erofeev's greatest work, one drunken man's (Venichka's) journey on the Moskovskaia-Gor'skovskaia train line to visit his lover and child in the Petushki. En route, Venichka talks with other travelers in dialogue and he also speaks in monologue about various themes such as drinking, Russian literature and philosophy and the sad, poetic soul of the Russian peasant. As the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly dark, disoriented, hallucinogenic and surrealistic, in proportion to the narrator's alcohol intake.

Moscow to the End of the Line was written in 1970. During this time, Erofeev, himself, was traveling around the Soviet Union working as a telephone cable layer. Erofeev's friends have said the author made the story up in order to entertain his fellow workers as they traveled, and that many of these fellow workers were later incorporated as characters in the book.

The text of the novel began to be circulated in samizdat within the Soviet Union and then it was smuggled to the West where it was eventually translated into English. The official Russian language publication took place in Paris in 1977. With glasnost, Moscow to the End of the Line was able to be circulated freely within Russia, but, rather than stick to the original form, the novel was abridged in the government pamphlet Sobriety and Culture, ostensibly as a campaign against alcoholism. Finally, in 1995, it was officially published, together with all the formerly edited obscenities and without censorship.

Although he is an alcoholic, Venichka never comes across to the reader as despicable. Venichka is not a man who drinks because he wants to drink; he drinks to escape a reality that has gone beyond miserable and veered off into the absurd. He is not a stupid or pitiable character, but rather one who has no outlet for his considerable intelligence. That Venichka is very educated is obvious; he makes intelligent and well-read references to both literature and religion. However, in the restrictive Soviet Union of his time, there was no outlet for this kind of intelligent creativity; Venichka is forced to channel his creative instincts into bizarre drink recipes and visions of sphinxes, angels and devils.

Although many will see Moscow to the End of the Line as satire, it really is not. Instead, it is Erofeev's anguished and heartfelt cry, a cry that demanded change. Venichka is not a hopeless character, however, the situation in which he is living is a hopeless one.

A semi-autobiographical work, Moscow to the End of the Line was never meant as a denunciation of alcoholism but rather an explanation of why alcohol was so tragically necessary in the day-to-day life of citizens living under Soviet rule.

Moscow to the End of the Line is a highly entertaining book and it is a book that is very important in understanding the Russia of both yesterday and today as well. This book is really a classic of world literature and it is a shame that more people do not read Moscow to the End of the Line rather than relying on the standard "bestseller." This book deserves to be more widely read and appreciated.

This is a sublime little tale, saturated with humor and pathos. Erofeev (both author & narrator have the same name, heightening the autobiographical tone of the book) is the Dante of the Moscow commuter rail. He stumbles from bar to bar and a purgatory of the 'thirteen varieties of Soviet vodka.' Then, it's onto the train, which takes him some thirty stops from Kursk station and 'The Hammer and Sickle' to the 'end of the line' at Petushki (which I'm told means 'flowers' in Russian) where he is to meet his Beatrice.

But (unlike Dante) Erofeev never seems to arrive. As he downs more and more hooch, the story becomes progressively more blotched and incoherent. It culminates in the Passion of Erofeev, in which our poor hero is driven up against the wall of the Kremlin (though whether its the Kremlin in Moscow or Petushki is unclear) and left screwed.

This is a story about mercy. Read it. It is easily one of the best books I've read in the past year. Then pass the word along, because it deserves to be better known.

Ah, this book...a cherished one for me, pilfered from a friend who's father studied under Nabokov (but later given back). I read this under the serious spell of Knut Hamsun and this book is similiar to "Hunger" but perhaps more humorous. It's about an unemployed, alcholic cable fitter who is fired for charting diagrams of his comrades "idleness" correalated with the days they get drunk. Thrust into a serious drinking binge he is stuck on a train trying to reach Moscow and in between we have flashbacks of him trying to buy vodka before restaurants and stores have opened, giving us recipes of cocktails made out of aftershave ("Aunt Clara's Kiss) that brings on hallucinations and incredible verbal pyrotechnics full of literary ramblings and political rumblings. The whole time his hallucinations are marked by a pair of overcoated angels egging him on or chastising his behavior as he mixes up his route on the train forgetting to disembark and actually heading away from his destination. He finally does reach Moscow and the novel closes like a hand over a movie lens as abruptly as it started. It is a startling book, not only the best of the samizdat novels (works distributed like fanzines secretly during the communist regime) but by far the most dazzling comic novels ever written about desperation and alcholism. It is an incredible book and after reading it you will never have patience for another Bukowski book again.

W. Bruce Lincoln does the best job I've seen so far of covering the ENTIRE Romanov history and that of her mother Russia. From rise to fall no writer could have imagined a greater plot. It was once said "to understand the present you must look to the past". To understand modern day Russia I suggest you look to this book.

Lincoln made a really tremendous accomplishment. He examined 300 year history of Romanov Dynasty in his peculiar way. Descriptions of military campaigns and court intrigues were very nice. But the most attractive part was one about Russian literature. He explained novels of great Russian writers and their relationships with Romanov Dynasty in such details that I could not help reading some of the novels.

When Peter the Great moved to St. Petersburg and forcefully imported Western European culture and europeanized his subject noblemen, a deep cleavage was made between aristocrats and peasant masses. That cleavage eventually led to the Revolution in 1917 under the weak personality of Nicholas II.

Lincoln excelled other historians in that he cast a new light upon Rasputin. In the fact that Rasputin recommended candidates for cabinet ministers to Aleksandra and she pressed her choices upon Nicholas, we should not forget the fact that Russian religious peasants prayed to Maria and Maria pressed the peasants' wishes to Jesus Christ or so did they believe. It seems to me that the whole Rasputin affair was politically arranged by extreme reactionaries with Nicholas' approval, though they miscalculated very much. This tragedy seems to have derived from the fact that the Tsar and aristocrats suspected each other. Lincoln provided many circumstantial evidences about this and just let readers judge it.

It would be very interesting to imagine what would have happened in Russia if Russian military machine had worked better and the Revolution had not happened. Protopopov must have become dead Rasputin's spokesman and a surge of religion would have dominated Russia and Balkan slavic countries.

Mr. Lincolm, unlike Robert Massie who wrote "Peter the Great," left me with the clear impression that he understood the source material he had at hand, and was able to verify through corroboration every thing he said. Some of the more incredible stories, or speculative rumors are left out. This does not make his work any less enjoyable, but it does lend Mr. Lincoln's work a feeling of solid thoroughness in its research--something that is lacking in Massie's book. If a story was left out, I felt quite confident that Mr. Lincoln knew of the story, but could not corroborate it to his satisfaction.

This book is very thorough and incredible in its vast sweep. But it is broken apart into major periods. Each period is further broken down into topics, such as political history, economic history, social history, and so on. This format makes the book quite useful as a reference as well as enjoyable to read. This is the best book on the story of the Romanov family in the English language to date. And I can see this book firmly establishing itself as a timeless classic, alongside Shelby Foote's "Civil War," or Gibbons, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

The book Dear Ellen Bee by Mary E Lyons and Muriel M Branch is a great book. You can't leave the fifth grade wihout reading this book. Dear Ellen Bee is a book about two union spies named Miss Bet and Liza.Liza is a freed slave and wants to be an artist,but Miss Bet wants Liza to be a teacher so therefore Liza and Miss Bet argue alot. If you like the civil war you'll really like this book. I hope you'll read it!

Hi I am in the fifth grade and I read Dear Ellen Bee. It is a civil war scrapbook and there is a girl named Liza. She is black and her teacher is white her name is Miss Bet. Their two Union spies and they are the main characters in this story. Miss Bet wants Liza to be a teacher, but Liza wants to be an artist, Liza goes to college for a teacher. Well that's all I can tell you or it will spoil the book for you. I hope you read it.HAVE FUN!!!

Hi I am a 5th grade student. I am going to tell you about the book that I read called Dear Ellen Bee. I liked the book because it is about a little girl named Liza and a teacher named Miss Bet. In the book it talks about two union spies. If you read this book you wuold think it is worth 5 stars. Well I think it is worth 5 stars. I think you would like to read this book. Me and my group made a poster and gave it 5 stars. It was realy FUN to read this book!!!

The size of the book overwhelmed me at first, but once I managed to pick it up and start reading, I couldn't put it down again! Each page is full of vivid detail and the reader soon becomes a part of the story, living each moment with the main characters. This book is a definite must! The only thing I regret is taking so long to getting around to read it!

This is a tale of historical content, rape, war, death, the occult fringes, prostitution, loss, gain,hopeless times; and this is mostly a story about the many places in the heart, mind, body, and soul where love finds a way in. It is not a story for the weak or childish, nor to the prejudiced. I, however,highly recommend it to those with an open mind and an open soul.The story is long, yet the reader flies through this spellbinding story. Read it!

A fantastic book indeed!!! I really enjoyed it! The way it was written, the format, and the story itself was & is just wonderfully written. I am a very picky reader when it comes to books, & when I started to read this, WOW!!! I am still reading it, almost done,. but I just wanted to praise this book & tell ya'll out there that this is a bok that will definitely get your' interest!!!!!

Soldier X by Don Wulffson is a suspenseful book about World War II and the different countries involved in the war. Erik Brandt, the main character, is also called X. Wulffson writes a great story about courage and bravery when Brandt is forced into the Nazi army and is later put into Russian hands.
When Russians invade the German camp, Brandt becomes stuck under a tank with a dead Russian soldier. Brandt speaks Russian fluently, because of his family background, and soon becomes this Russian soldier so no one recognizes him as the enemy. In the hospital Brandt is being taken cared of, he receives his nickname, X, from a man in the bed next to him. Over the weeks X meets new people and really becomes a Russian. When the hospital is bombed, both X and Tamara, a lovely nurse X is in love with, must flee for their lives.
Wulffson does an excellent job explaining the hardships they go through together. By reading this book, not only do you learn about things you might not have known about World War II, but you also learn some of the German and Russian languages. I believe this book may be a little too depressing or descriptive for some, but otherwise I found it to be a very interesting book, full of new facts and trivia.
I think this book is directed towards a more mature audience because of the topics discussed. This was another superb book by Don Wulffson who has already won the Distinguished Achievement Award for his educational writing. Soldier X is a historical fiction book that parallels many German soldiers during World War II on the Eastern Front.
In this serious but suspenseful and even entertaining novel we can learn more about the hardships of World War II.

Soldier X is a bone-chilling tale about one young, brave, German soldier known only as X fighting in the front lines of World War II. While on his first post, the Russian army launches a full scale attack on the German front, yielding deadly success. He fires everything he has at the millions of Russian soldiers and tanks, but is not successful. Suffering major concussions, X opens his eyes to find himself in a very shallow ditch covered with a ten ton disabled Russian battle tank. Having a Russian background, he hears a enemy general barking orders at the mechanics to get the tank operational again. Frantic, he quickly surveys the ditch, noticing a dead Russian soldier only a few yards away. With much difficulty, he strips himself of his German uniform and quickly puts on Russian's uniform. The tank becomes operational, and the wounded German soldier is spotted. He is taken to a local hospital, and is now deep behind enemy lines. After a few days, the hospital is bombed which forces him and the nurse he is in love with, Tamara to flee in panic. For the next few months, they traveled through forest after forest, field after field, not knowing where they were going or how they would get there. The journey was not easy, but after being thought of as spies and teetering on the edge of death, the finally made it back to Germany. Two years later on X's 18th birthday, he would marry Tamara.

This is another good book which I read recently. It is stated as a children's book for those aged 9-12. Indeed, the book was written in such a way which is easily comprehensible. However, I do not think that a 9 or 12 year old kid would understand the horror of war itself or the feelings of losing their friends and parents during a war unless they are very smart or they live in war-torn countries like Afghanistan. Their great grandparents would definitely do. The book also contains some passages which are very bloody and brutal for kids to read.
I strongly believe that the book should not be treated as a kid's book. If the author is right in his claim that "the story is not only true, but also loosely parallels the experience of an estimated thirty thousand German soldiers during World War II on the Eastern Front", which I have no reason to believe otherwise, this book should be treated as a war memoir of a former Hitler Youth member whose name is "Soldier X" and not as a mere fiction.

This is a tight and powerful novel. It is more or less unique in Russian literature in that it is the story of a "typical" (i.e. non-socialist) family affected by the Revolution and Civil War. Bulgakov grew up in Kiev and his love for the city comes through very strongly. When I read this book I knew very little about the historical events it describes but this didn't prove much of a problem in the long run.

I am also astounded that only three people reviewed this book. The novel centers on the Turbin family living in Kiev, Ukraine during the Civil War (1918 - 1921) that followed World War I and the Russian Revolution. After the Russian empire fell apart in 1917, the Ukraine declared an independent state in early 1918 led by a parliamentary leader called a Hetman. The Hetman Skoropadsky in The White Guard is the second such leader. Skoropadsky assumed power with German support and intervention. Having just lost World War I and being not all that interested in the Ukraine anyway, the Germans could not support Skoropadsky enough to quell the inevitable power struggle. In the Ukraine, there arose armies of Tsarists (led by Deniken, mentioned briefly in the book), Bolsheviks (who, of course, ultimately win but are not major players in the book), and Socialist nationalists led by Simon Petlyura. The Turbins enlist in a local guard unit supporting the Hetman against Petlyura's much larger army. It soon becomes clear that their loyalty to the Hetman is misplaced, but the Turbins' loyalty to each other, their city, their friends and neighbors, and their commanding officers is heart-warming. Besides "heart-warming" there are also running gun battles, sabre decapitations, machine gun ambushes, and enough action to please all but the most hard core testosterone addicts. Petlyura is regarded by many Ukrainians as a great general (no opinion from me), but many readers will enjoy despising Petlyura for the pogroms he instituted that killed 100,000 Ukrainian Jews. Petlyura is called a "dirty Yid" at a point in the book that might give insight into Bulgakov's view on these pogroms. This book is both a taut thriller and a beautiful story of loyalty and love. Brian says "Check it out" (Sorry, Joe Bob).

While we are, as Americans, familiar with the story of the Stalinist purges and know something of post-Revolutionary Russian history, the Russian Civil War between the White and the Red is not as well-known.

But this is the crux of the struggle that subsequently determined Russian history. Many authors tried to give a view of that turbulent period; Pasternak in "Doctor Zhivago", Solzhenitzen marginally in "Ivan Denisovitch" (Denisovitch was in a gulag because he was a returnee from the German front and thus viewed as a political traitor) and Ayn Rand "We the Living." Bulgakov's novel is one of the richest, most touching and well-written I have read on this historical time.

He takes the story from the personal standpoint of a single family affected by the German betrayal of Russia to the incomprehensible brutality of the Civil War. The use of "white" and "red" as symbols in describing everyday objects and landscape is novelistic, the action is pure stage drama as you'd find in a play or film.

This is a far better novel than "Doctor Zhivago", which dealt with essentially the same subject (families torn apart by the Civil War and their way of life forever altered.) If you are at all interested in Russian history, I can't recommend "The White Guard" enough to you. I just loved it.

I'm a Russian Language and Literature major in Yonsei Univ. in Korea. Having lived in Moscow for around 3 years, I'd heard there a lot about Pushkin and read many of his famous works. The most prestigious of his, however, must be "Onegin." It's a great mixture of verse and prose in its form. If possible, try to read this in Russian, as well. This long poetical prose was written for 8 years and the ending rhyme perfectly matches for the entire line until the very end. Compared to others, it is definitely a conspicuous and brilliant one. "Onegin" can be the author himself or yourself. The love between Onegin and TaTyana is neither the cheap kind of love that often appears in any books nor the tragic one that is intended to squeze your tears. As a literature, this book covers not only love between passionate youth, but also a large range of literary works in it, which can tell us about the contemporary literature current and its atmosphere. Calling Onegin "My friend", Pushkin, the author, shows the probability and likelihood of the work. Finally, I'm just sorry that the title has been changed into English. The original name must be "Yevgeni Onegin(¬¦¬Ó¬Ô¬Ö¬ß¬Ú¬Û ¬°¬ß¬Ö¬Ô¬Ú¬ß)." If you are a literature major or intersted in it, I'd like to recommand you read this. You can't help but loving the two lovers and may reread it, especially the two correspondences through a long period of time. Only with readng this book, you'll also learn a huge area of the contemporary literature of the 19th century from the books mentioned in "Onegin" that take part as its subtext. Enjoy yourself!

I think this book/poem should be made manditory in every institution worldwide. I told everyone who was willing to listen and the rest that this was fantastic. I rang people while reading it to quote lines. It made me laugh and cry and was continuously brilliant. My every praise goes out to the translator.
When i had finished (by the way i read the whole thing in two sittings)i started flipping to random pages and found myself practically reading the whole thing all over again.
I do not speak Russian but have read many Russian books and this really does stand out as being amazing.

If you are thinking of reading this book you needn't think twice about it.

I have read four translations of this novel and James Falen's is my favorite one. He has translated Pushkin's classic in a fun, witty way which doesn't take too much away from the original Russian version (which I have also read). Granted, something is always lost in a translation, but it certainly doesn't take away from the humor and wit of this translation. If you are interested in a literal, as-close-to-the-original-as-possible translation, then I highly suggest Nabokov's translation, which (in my opinion) is somewhat dry and boring, but extremely accurate. It is all a matter of taste...what the reader wants. If you want accuracy, you will have to sacrifice some of the fun. If you want the fun, you will have to sacrifice some of the accuracy. I prefer the fun, therefore I preferred this version of Onegin.

I happen to have known the author very well for several years. She is audacious in nature, and her spirituallity is mixed with great ambition. A careful look at her personal past, her three marriages, and intense desire for spiritual recognition all suggest care should be taken.

Essentially a powerfully moving love story of two aging individuals, Love Is Stronger Than Death: The Mystical Union Of Two Souls by resident teacher for the Contemplative Society and spiritual retreat authority Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, is drawn from the life and experiences of Brother Raphael (Rafe) Robin, an Episcopalian priest, author and a Trappist hermit. The ability of human and spiritual love to transcend death and open the way to joyous bliss is superbly presented in this highly recommended and heartwarming tale of building an emotional, personal, and loving relationship for the future that transcends all earthly limitations.

There are few books to compare with this one. The nature of death and the power of love are explored from so many directions that, in the end, we are given a spiritual guide through life and beyond. Ms. Bourgeault shows us that we do not need to be limited by the generally accepted truths of the major spiritual traditions, nor by those of various esoteric teachings. Her personal experience speaks in every word so that, instead of an abstract treatise on inner work, we are shown a road map marked out by someone who has been there. This is the perfect book for anyone who has recently lost a life partner. It is also the perfect book for anyone who has just found a life partner.