This has been on our shelf, next to LONDON and SARUM, both of which I'd read and enjoyed, being an Anglophile of long standing. But RUSSKA. . .well, having struggled in the past through Russian novels that required me to keep a running list of the various names, nicknames, and patronymics, somehow, I just continued to ignore this doorstopper (almost a thousand pages) of a book.
Until I didn't. And I really enjoyed it and learned so much about Russian history, from the earliest beginnings to the era of Stalin and a bit beyond. My favorite way to learn history.Rutherfurd traces two families-one landowners, the other serfs--down through the years, (complete with a handy chart of family tree) showing the ups and downs of each while giving an overview of Russian politics, sociology, religion, and economics. This vast, sprawling country couldn't be contained in a smaller book.I took it fairly slow and interspersed it with a bit of lighter reading, actually, re-reading--Sharyn McCrumb's earlier Elizabeth MacPherson novels. At the same time, I was toggling between two audiobooks--SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (nowhere near as good as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, though it has its moments) and a continuing re-listen to O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin wonderful series, read by the perfect reader, Parick Tull.What a delight to leap from a Russian village on the edge of the steppes to a tourist's eye view of modern Scotland to prim and proper Regency England to battles at sea and intrigue in Malta during the Napoleonic era and back to aristocratic life in old St Petersburg! Books are such a great way to travel.