This was a great book with a lot of interesting analysis of Russian short stories and their writers. The author is a professor at Syracuse University and now I want to take one of his classes. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, as in whether a couple of the stories were actually wonderful. :), he had great points to make about the seven stories he chose to analyze. I had never read some of them and fully enjoyed them even though two of them were a bit odd.

This is a great book for writers as his analyses of the tales gives the writers among us a lot of insight into the stories as well as how to extrapolate from them ways to improve our own work.  It is a dense read and takes a lot of concentration but well worth it as it seems to me to be a mini course in Russian short stories and how brilliant these writers were.  To say nothing of what a great teacher Mr. Saunders is. He’s witty and intelligent and the reading of this book was a joy. Even if you aren’t a writer, there is a lot to take away from this book and it’s well worth a read.