The central plot idea for this book is terrific. I won’t be giving much away as this appears in the first few pages. A CIA analyst specialising in tracking down Russian sleeper agents in the…

I first learned of this book because Ethel Snowden was one of the European socialist and labour leaders who visited independent Georgia in 1920. Georgia was at that time ruled by the Mensheviks, democratic socialists…

I bought this book when it first came out and when I began reading it, for some reason it didn’t grab me and I put it aside. Having just read it now, years later, I…

This book has been so hyped, so much written about it, that there are probably few surprises in it for the reader. However, there’s quite a difference between spending five minutes reading the highlights and…

Imagine a world in which one gender has all the power, controlling the economy, society, politics, and so on. A world in which members of one gender can exploit and abuse members of the other…

Andy Weir’s first book, The Martian, was nearly perfect. As I read it, I remember thinking: This is why I used to love reading science fiction. The film version starring Matt Damon, while passable, didn’t…

This is the first major biography of the Soviet leader to appear in two decades, and comes as the world marks the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. It is a tremendous achievement. Sebestyen has…

If the Bolsheviks had never seized power a century ago this month, probably the most famous Georgian of the twentieth century would have been Irakli Tsereteli. Tsereteli was one of the leading figures in the…

History doesn’t get better than this. Nicolaevsky was one of the great socialist historians, author of a terrific biography of Karl Marx, and participant in the 1917 revolution in Russia. In this book, written some…

To anyone who has seen the recent film on the death of Stalin, the character of Lavrenty Beria, played by Simon Russell Beale, may now be familiar. Though the film was a comedy (of sorts),…