Clarence Brown (1) (1929–2015)

Pretty good selection of twentieth-century literature. Per usual, the most compelling reads were the giants--Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn. But I also discovered some excellent Russian writers with whom I was not familiar. Particularly compelling was the excerpt of Georgi Vladimov's Faithful Ruslan and Nadezhda Mandelstam's extracts about the night her husband Osip was informed on by a friend. Shalamov's Lend-Lease was incredible and I have Kolyma Tales now on my to-read list. And finally, found Evgeni Zamyatin's allegory The Cave stunningly relevant even today--particularly today, as global warming threatens our existence as we know it. There were, however, some snoozers (in my opinion), mostly the authors that the editor openly said were "un-excerptable."… (meer)