By David Benioff, 258 pgs.

OverReview: Excellent–at 250 pages, a quick and easy read. Simple story that has a sense of retelling a real incident. The introduction of the author’s grandparents as telling the story to him is an excellent way to tie the history of this awful time and event to a description by someone who was actually there. Reminded me of all the Russian literature I studied at university, this book actually describing that time in that country’s history when writers disappeared for what they wrote. (Fortunately, the result of that oppression and censorship delivered some of the best literature the world has ever known.) This is more than a coming of age novel, but rather a life defining experience for a young Russian who up till now had led a pretty dull existence. It is hard to believe human beings can treat each other so badly and that the beauty and peacefulness of winter can be so spoiled by the worst in us.

Plot: Young Russian is arrested for looting during siege of Leningrad and paired with a Russian soldier/deserter on a quest to find a dozen eggs for a colonel’s daughter’s wedding–an almost impossible feat in a winter city without food and its residents resulting to cannibalism–to avoid execution, the penalty for both crimes.

Best line in the book: I tried to think of a song to sing, a poem to recite, but all the words were stuck inside my head like salt in a caked shaker.