Description
Book Synopsis''One of the finest books about contemporary Russia'' Observer
This is the account of Thubron''s 15,000-mile journey through an astonishing country - one twelfth of the land surface of the whole earth. He journeyed by train, river and truck among the people most damaged by the breakup of the Soviet Union, traveling among Buddhists and animists, radical Christian sects, reactionary Communists and the remnants of a so-call Jewish state; from the site of the last Czar''s murder and Rasputin''s village, to the ice-bound graves of ancient Sythians, to Baikal, deepest and oldest of the world''s lakes.
It is the story of a people moving through the ruins of Communism into more private, diverse and often stranger worlds.
''If there were a Nobel Prize for travel writing, Thubron should win it'' Daily Mail
Trade ReviewI have never made it as far as Siberia, but reading this book makes me feel as if I have actually been there. Thubron weaves his own observations beautifully with the history of this part of the world -- Lorraine Kelly * Sunday Express *
Colin Thubron is in a class of his own in [having] a literary talent for reportage which is both crisp and lyrical * Scotsman *
Captivating: a passionately engaged portrait of one of the earth's most mysterious regions...confirms Thubron's place in the pantheon of the writing greats * Sunday Times *
There are currently few writers and fewer books capable of transporting a reader to another place as beautifully as Thubron does in this work. It is simply superb * Observer *
A profound meditation on how some of the great upheavals of this century touched ordinary lives -- Kazuo Ishiguro * Observer, Books of the Year *
