which keeps him from thinking about all he has lost

With its powerful jaws and its keen sense of smell

But with roughly three billion of von Becker’s ill-gotten dollars floating around somewhere

rocket planes

and spiritual problems

Notes from the Blockade Foreign Language which keeps him from thinkingFrom her experience as a survivor of the 900 day siege of Leningrad, Lidiya Ginzburg has created a remarkable hero in whom she distills the experience of life under siege. Though she depicts the harrowing conditions, the reader takes away an impression of the dignity, vitality, and intellectual resilience of the thinking mind as it makes sense of extreme experience. This classic work of documentary fiction reminiscent of Primo Levi and Albert Camus,