Book cover of Conversations with Stalin

Book description

A mesmerising, chilling close-up portrayal of Stalin from Milovan Djilas, a Communist insider - with an introduction from Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain

This extraordinarily vivid and unnerving book three meetings held with Stalin during and after the Second World War. Djilas brilliantly describes the dictator in…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Conversations with Stalin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book was written by one of the most interesting figures in the history of communist Yugoslavia, Milovan Đilas. He had been a high-level official and a close collaborator of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslav partisans (who would become marshal and president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), before he became best known Yugoslav dissident. 

In this book Đilas gives a first-hand testimony of his meetings with Joseph Stalin, as a member of Yugoslav delegations sent to Moscow. Beautifully written, the book provides a rich insight into the political situation in the Balkans and in Stalin’s Soviet…

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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