Michael Idov

A Major Breakthrough In Our War On Trees

We interrupt your blog to briefly note how damn proud we are that not one but two regular Russia! contributors, Daria Vaisman and Boris Kachka, have landed major book deals... within days of each other. Let’s dive under the jump and meet them properly.

Author: Daria Vaisman
Working title: The Field Guide to Democracy: My Journeys among the Hustlers, Hucksters, Plutocrats, Gerrymanderers, Carpetbaggers, and Oil Kings of the Former Soviet Union
What’s it about: a narrative account of the U.S. foreign policy efforts in the former Soviet republics, illustrated by graphic novelist Mickey Duzyj.
Sold to: Free Press (Simon & Schuster)
Latest Russia! contribution: Georgia’s Messy Breakup

Author: Boris Kachka
Working title: Hothouse
What’s it about: the story of famed publishers Farrar, Straus & Giroux, concentrating on the eventful life of Roger Straus.
Sold to: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Press)
Latest Russia! contribution: Review of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

In short, let this be a lesson to the rest of you: even in the most godawful economy since the Collectivization Famine of 1932-1933, publishing houses are still buying books… and they’re buying them from our contributors.


Bookmark or Share

Related Articles
Relevant Links, According to Google

Related Articles

Nightmare Escapism

Stalin’s Russia becomes thriller fodder: Boris Kachka on City of Thieves and Child 44

A Cup of Sorrow

"There they were again – those same red circles on the skin. I had already seen them on two other orphans within a month, at the Doctors of the World clinic in St. Petersburg. "

The Great Translation Chart

From Vladimir Nabokov’s monstrously bloated Onegin to David Mamet’s extra-lean Cherry Orchard, we rifle through English translations of Russian lit classics and pick the best. You’re welcome.

Related Blog Entries

Book Review: The Great Gamble

 by Alexander Nazaryan
A sober, extensive and resonant account of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Brodsky Monument A Big Unfunded Maybe

 by Katya Tylevich
Anathema to the Soviet government, poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky was hounded by the authorities for “parasitism,” sentenced to a stint in a remote northern village, and finally forced to leave the country in 1972. Once in the U.S., conversely, he was hounded by the adoring press, sentenced to a teaching stint in Ann Arbor, and finally forced to leave the country to pick up his Nobel Prize in 1987. Now that he’s dead, Russia, as usual, has realized its loss and wants a piece of J-Bro, too. And, soon enough, it should be getting one.

Pushkin Pays For Bleeding All Over Sofa

 by Katya Tylevich
Remember our man, Alexander Pushkin? Russia’s greatest quill, Pushkin was publishing epic poems by age 15, authored what is arguably the world's finest novel in verse (Eugene Onegin), but famously managed to die like an idiot at 37, after challenging his wife’s alleged lover, Georges d'Anthès, to a duel. Here’s the silver lining to that story. The bloody sofa he died on was never sold on eBay — or, for that matter, cleaned. Now, some CSI: St. Petersburg types are looking at swabs and blood samples taken from the sofa in order to more precisely evaluate Pushkin’s demise. No, dying in peace is not an option.
Tags