Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This book is first in a trilogy set in a world that seems to have Russian roots. Alina, an indifferent mapmaker, and Mal, an excellent tracker, have been friends ever since they grew up in the same orphanage. But in a moment of danger, Alina discovers she has great powers--a magic that no one else has--and is taken away to learn to use them. But Alina discovers that she may not have the whole story and that those teaching her have been lying to her. The magic system in this story strikes me as original, but it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out. I enjoyed this book.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

In this book James Bond seems more familiar, as he teams up with Felix Leiter of the CIA again to take on SMERSH agent Mr. Big, who has apparently discovered a pirate's hoard of gold and is smuggling it into the United States and using the profits to fund communist activities. This book is clearly of its time: the way that it uses dialect and talks about race sound off-putting. But, it's more the words than the content that's offensive, and the spy story is good. The pacing is improved since Casino Royale.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

This book introduces James Bond, agent 007 of the MI-6. I was a little thrown by the plot: Bond's mission (which involves a complicated gambling scheme to financially ruin a Russian agent in France), seems to wrap up well before the story's over. It's also not the Bond I expected from the movies: he seemed more apt to fall in love and less sure of himself. In many ways, the book explains the way that Bond became the way he did. An easy, quick, and enjoyable read.

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

In this book Hannah Arendt looks at the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th Century as embodied by the two most prominent instances of it: Nazi Germany and the USSR under Stalin. Arendt traces this rise first through anti-Semitism, which began in the 19th Century, and then through imperialism to totalitarianism itself. This book is dense, comprehensive, and well argued. In addition to a lot of historical evidence, Arendt demonstrates why totalitarianism is so dangerous, and how the Nazis and Stalinist Russia used prison camps, secret police, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to dehumanize their populations.

Narrative and Freedom: the Shadows of Time by Gary Saul Morson

This book investigates the question of whether time is closed (and our fates are fixed) or whether it is open. Instead of looking at the question simply philosophically, Morson uses literature (and particularly the realist fiction of nineteenth century Russia, as practiced by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky). Even though fiction seems to imply closed time (both through devices such as a foreshadowing and backshadowing and through its ability to place the reader outside of the time of the narrative, which is always already fixed), Morson suggests that there are ways to read the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky that work against this fated view of history--namely sideshadowing. Sideshadowing is a technique by which a work of fiction opens up parallel histories so that the reader cannot determine which of these histories is actually "true." I found this book very convincing and provocative.

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

In this book we explore Moscow in the early years of the new millennium with a British expatriate working for a financial company. He gets drawn into a relationship with a Russian girl, and with helping her and her aunt with a real estate deal. We watch him ignore his intuition as the deal turns shadier and shadier. I found it to be a fascinating character study.