This is an extraordinary account of her own life by a woman who is not only a world-famous opera singer and wife of a great man, but also a person who has lived through the Stalin era in Russia, (barely) survived the 900-day blockade and famine of Leningrad, beat tuberculosis (then a fatal diagnosis in Russia) to become the Bolshoy Theatre's star singer, and even then, most of life's trials and tribulations were still ahead of her. Galina Vishnevskaya does not mince words in life or in her book. She describes not only the life of great artists in post-war Soviet Russia but also the life of ordinary people, the cunning and resourcefulness it took every day to accomplish everything - from buying toiler paper to avoiding KGB recruitment. Unlike many other artists who wrote their autobiographies - such as Maya Plisetskaya - Galina does breathe life into her own past and that of her country. Apart from being a great read, the book is written with a great sense of humour, and sometimes, sarcasm. A thoroughly enjoyable and edifying read.

Aleksandr Kuprin was one of the most important Russian classics. He did not limit himself to the rewarding field of entertaining the rich, he wrote for regular people and he wrote about the regular people. He was deep, powerful and true.

This is the book from which President Clinton read in his famous "Prayer Breakfast Apology" for the Lewinsky affair, as follows:

"Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. It means breaking old habits. It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy. It means losing face. It means starting all over again. And this is always painful. It means saying I am sorry. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. These things are terribly hard to do.

"But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday's ways. Lord help us to turn, from callousness to sensitivity, from hostility to love, from pettiness to purpose, from envy to contentment, from carelessness to discipline, from fear to faith. Turn us around, O Lord, and bring us back toward you. Revive our lives as at the beginning, and turn us toward each other, Lord, for in isolation there is no life."

This is a great collection of stories of the Polish refugees, first deported from their homeland into the depths of the Soviet Union in 1940-1941 to forced labor in the harshest conditions, then their odyssey out of soviet Russia into wartime refuge camps and ultimately to their new Australian homes.

Though now out of print, the book has been posted electronically on the internet at [website]

Here is an excerpt from the Foreword:

"Australia's history has always been an interesting one. But the arrival of over 5.5 million people from so many different lands in the years since 1945 has added immeasurably to its fascination. The fascination derives in part from the past experiences of settlers, which flow on by oral and other tradition to current and succeeding generations. These earlier experiences become part of individual and collective group consciousness in a diverse and varied society.

The General Langfitt Story combines excellently the extraordinary background account of a group of displaced persons, mainly women and children, from Poland who arrived in Australia in 1950, and their subsequent experience in Australia.

The harshness of the life of some immigrants, such as the General Langfitt Group, before arriving in Australia, is not fully realised or adequately documented. The stories of survival of those in the group who were deported from Poland to work in remote labour camps in the Soviet Union, are nothing short of remarkable. And it is important for Australian history, and the broader record of human endeavour and endurance, that these stories be told.

Maryon Allbrook and Helen Cattalini have very sensitively collected the stories of some of those who were part of what they call the 'terrible history' of the General Langfitt Group. Their account makes riveting reading, and serves as a lasting testimony to the bravery of those who underwent these cataclysmic events."

ALEXANDER PUMPIANSKI, Editor in Chief, THE NEW TIMES, MOSCOW: Literature is always humanitarianism, brotherhood, an all-human odyssey, a reincarnation in other people's lives. In this case the author tries to reconstruct what a private life could have been, had it taken a slightly different course. The instructive device of split personality is, in fact, used to present a united personality, torn in two by the century of the greates schism; they are put into extremely different social positions, and pushed through numerous battles and dramas, apart or together. The Russian American is an idealist, dreamer, fighter - an eternally restless heart.

YEVGENIA NIKOLAEVNA MAYOROVA, Herzen Pedagogical Institute, ST. PETERSBURG

Your book makes one think of a huge documentary photograph taken with a long exposure for many years, almost two human lifetimes. It is not a family chronicle or a history of a single part of a family's life; it is simply a story, a story that appears through two human souls, a story that is reflected in letters, where letters are mixed with tears, words with pain, facts with tragedy, where people are not considered as representatives of two different political systems, where the search for similarities is more important than the search for differences, because the main characters of this story are brothers.

SVETLANA ROZOVSKY, Professor of Russian Studies, University of Hartford:

Thank you very much for the wonderful book. I enjoyed it a lot! The genre of the book is perfect and very up-to-date. Every line sounds so realistic to me. It is impossible to express myself and all my feelings the book aroused in me. I would be very happy to invite you to speak to my Russian Studies class.......

BRIAN JOHNSON, Asst. Prof. Doctoral Candidate Russian Studies, Boston College:

I finally had a chance to read your manuscript The Genes of Gregoria. This is not meant to flatter you, but the work is brilliant. It covers so much ground, yet it claims it's humanity and stimulates the intellect at the same time. When I picked it up I figured that I would read two letters and finish the book over the next couple of days, however, I was hooked after the first twenty pages. The book would be of immense value as a teaching aid in a variety of uses on the college level.

Bunin is one of the most brilliant Russian writers of the early 20th century. His short stories express more in a couple of pages than most novels do in hundreds. It is poetry in prose.

Written by Lena Jedwab Rozenberg and translated into English by Solon Beinfeld, Girl With Two Landscapes: The Wartime Diary Of Lena Jedwab, 1941-1945 is the journaled account of a sixteen-year-old girl who in June 1941 bade farewell to her family for what was to have been a summer-long vacation camp. Lena Jedwab left her home in Bialystok, Poland and arrived in Russia just as Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Lena was stranded in a Russian children's home while her family was murdered by the Nazis at the Treblinka concentration camp for the crime of having been born Jewish. In her diary, Lena wrote in Yiddish as she agonized over the unknown fate of her family and the uncertainties of her future. Expressed are her conflicted emotions over what the war had done to her youth and the gratitude felt for being alive, nourished and in school will so many others were displaced, starving, and dying. Not since The Diary of Anne Frank, has there been such a personalized account by an adolescent girl caught up in the turmoil and terror of World War II. Girl With Two Landscapes is an incredibly important and highly prized addition to Judaic Studies and Holocaust Studies collections.

This book is a review of European history from Ancient Greeceto the 1990s. It can also be used to review for AP European History....

There are lots of lengthy academic tomes about Gorbachev and his time as Soviet leader, just as there are a fair number of readable but lightweight biographies. It is very refreshing to find a book which manages to be comprehensive and intelligent, but also accessible and even a pleasure to read. Short and sweet!

This is the only comprehensive analysis of Gorbachev's reform policies. The approach is historical. There is no faddish jargon. The writing is clear and elegant. The author explains very convincingly how Gorbachev struggled with elements of the Communist Party apparatus to institute his reforms. Highly recommended for courses in contemporary Russian history and on the Cold War era.