Summer Reading Project, BookLikes Satellite

One of the reasons I read fiction is to learn history. Oh, I read historical non-fiction and took too many history classes in college and all that jazz, but sometimes novels make history really in a way that most non-fiction writers can’t. I’ve been reading about Ludmila Ulitskaya’s The Big Green Tent in book reviews all year long. Each review made a point of saying something to the effect of this book helping readers understand the life of dissidents during between Stalin’s death and the early 1980s. Ulitsakaya’s massive novel follows not only three main characters, but also provides tangents long and short about their wives, relatives, friends, and even friends of friends. I would call this book Dickensian because it seeks to provide an entire slice of life—but it’s not funny. I suppose I’ll have to call it Tolstoyan...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.