To all who celebrate, Shana tovah. May the coming year be better, sweeter, and more peaceful than this one. Admittedly, the bar's set very low, but hope dies last.

The left one is a preorder picked up today; another preorder will arrive shortly; the right one was recommended on the other site a while back. The end of my gift certificate and the beginning of the academic year, when I will have loads of free time to read.

Think about where you buy books, & how quickly you think the corporate giants pull an "undesirable" book from their "shelves." Support your local indie bookstore & defend your library. Because if you "Give a Mouse a Kimmel," well, I think you know the story. #freadom @americanbookseller.bsky.social

An essay by @kristinaten.bsky.social, whose short story collection, Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine, is out later this year. @olgaz.bsky.social

Wrote a photo essay for @puncturedlines.bsky.social about nostalgia, Soviet-era children’s books, speculative fiction, and a recent trip to the country of Georgia. Come for the picture of baby-me talking into a mall phone. Stay for Svetlana Boym 💗 ➡️ puncturedlines.com/2025/09/16/

On nostalgia and more by @kristinaten.bsky.social "The acquisition of the hundred-plus children’s books from my mom’s basement wasn’t exactly in keeping with this plan. So naturally I loaded them up [...] and set them up that day." puncturedlines.com/2025/09/16/w... @olgaz.bsky.social

My book came out 6 years ago -- thank you WTAW Press for taking a chance on this collection. It made my world so much bigger and helped me meet so many wonderful people and find community. Huge hugs to all my readers -- forever grateful.

@yelenafurman.bsky.social I hope you don't miss this massive Alla Pugacheva interview. It exploded my Russian-language socials. I'm just starting it myself, but people say it's amazing. youtu.be/D6rFxVPz7UI?...

CfP: Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) “Diasporas: Building Bridges Across Nations" May 28–31, 2026 aabs-balticstudies.org/aabs-2026-at...

Right now, you can enjoy 10% off our Salt Monthly Sale items – and of course, throughout September there is FREE SHIPPING on all books. www.saltpublishing.com Salt | Beautiful books you won’t forget.

The collusion seems to include providing the Russian authorities with materials (from their confidential asylum applications!) used to send forcibly repatriated dissidents to prison. The depth of betrayal here is beyond words.

Shameful and despicable.

Dear readers, we urgently need your help. Without at least 15,000 regular supporters, Meduza as you know it will cease to exist. But if you come through, you know we’ll keep working for you. Please, read our full statement here: meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Huge thank you to Susanna Baird and the team at Five Minutes. The journal's premise is to describe 5 minutes of your life in 100 words, and the piece was inspired by the event described in the first sentence that happened recently, yet again. I have more such stories, but they exceed 100 words.

This time, someone emails to subpoena records of my supposed coworker. —"The Double" by @yelenafurman.bsky.social https://www.fiveminutelit.com/the-double

Lydia’s home is out of date and ill-fitting with the topography of Moscow as imagined in the story, which aligns with the way queer spaces are theorized. #BookSky puncturedlines.com/2025/09/01/q...

Lydia’s home is out of date and ill-fitting with the topography of Moscow as imagined in the story, which aligns with the way queer spaces are theorized. #BookSky puncturedlines.com/2025/09/01/q...

ICYMI: An excerpt from Karolina Krasuska's Soviet-Born, the first academic monograph on Soviet-Born contemporary immigrant writers in North America. Thank you, as always, @olgaz.bsky.social for editing collaboration.

ICYMI: "Until more recently, Soviet-born Jewish writing in English has not featured many queer presences. At the same time, queerness has [...] become a defining [...] characteristic of [...] writerly and activist groups within the post-Soviet diaspora." puncturedlines.com/2025/09/01/q...

“We did not know anything and they know too much,” is Lara Vapnyar’s quick comparison of sex ed in the late Soviet Union and in the contemporary United States. An excerpt from @karolinakrasuska.bsky.social's SOVIET-BORN on @puncturedlines.bsky.social. #sovietsex #ussr #queer #womenintranslation

The Guardian is paywall-free but I give a small monthly amount, more than worth it, for their coverage of US news but also as a window on the wider world in articles like this. If I’m honest, I get 90%of my news from them, as national US newspapers have largely lost my trust

Big thanks to the amazing @bulbculture.bsky.social editors L.M. Cole @scoops.bsky.social & Jared Povanda for including my story "High Heat" in the BLAZING🔥issue of Chandelier My story was 1st published in U. of Kansas' Summer 2021 LandLocked. So happy it's available again & in such a wonderful zine

Today, an excerpt from Soviet-Born by @karolinakrasuska.bsky.social "Vapnyar moves beyond the [...] Soviet era socialist gender templates based on productivity, according to which working mothers are dutifully bound to serve their men." Thank you as always @olgaz.bsky.social for editing support.

"The fact that this debate exists [...] testifies to the richness and diversity of this body of work that, like immigrants themselves, resists easy categorizations." Today on the blog, an excerpt from @karolinakrasuska.bsky.social Soviet-Born: puncturedlines.com/2025/09/01/q...

Continuations did not come for Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships and National Resource Center grants to universities (for all programs, as far as I can tell). Reach out to any students in your network, and please offer you support to these programs. Ideas below:

Join us on September 4th for a wonderful evening with @SashaVasilyuk for a reading and discussion of her book, Your Presence is Mandatory. Copies will be available for purchase. www.eventbrite.com/e/1633011494...

“Of course, Vronsky’s mother doesn’t miss an opportunity to criticize her for hiring a nanny and working outside the home, but Anna just keeps sending her journal articles on the woman question” 💕😻

"The court proceeded to question the victims. They were both of average height and muscular. Studying them, I wondered how the puny Khanukovich had managed to overpower these strong fellas."

ICYMI: An excerpt from Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine by Mikhail Goldis, trans. by his grandson, Marat Grinberg. @olgaz.bsky.social puncturedlines.com/2025/08/20/r...

For true crime fans: "An inebriated young man had assaulted patrons in a restaurant without any reason. The evidence was rock solid..."

On the Ramblings today - catching up with classic crime from @blpublishing.bsky.social and @galileobooks.bsky.social - more here! kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/08/20/c...

Happy to feature this excerpt, w/ thanks to @olgaz.bsky.social for editing support. "I turned again to the man’s biography [...] twenty-one years old, a student at a construction community college and, as printed on the infamous fifth line in his passport—a Jew." puncturedlines.com/2025/08/20/r...

Today we have an excerpt from Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine by Mikhail Goldis, trans. by Marat Grinberg, his grandson. This book will appeal to those interested in the history of Jews in Soviet Ukraine, as well as fans of true crime. puncturedlines.com/2025/08/20/r...

Today in 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Poland, Bulgaria, & Hungary . The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms. coldwarconversations.com/the-prague-s...

If you’re thinking of buying some books online this weekend, here’s a great opportunity to win a £250 gift card with @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social! EVERY purchase supports indie bookshops across the UK, and there’s FREE DELIVERY on orders >£25. #BookSky 💙📚

Here's the link to Tolstoy 2.0 from @yelenafurman.bsky.social . I love this piece so much! roifaineantarchive.wixsite.com/rf-arc-hive/...

More postcards for Barbara Drummond for Mayor in Mobile, Alabama!!! Write with us! PostcardsToVoters.org Or returning writers Abby.PostcardsToVoters.org

Today's recommendation: Life After Kafka by Magdaléna Platzová, transl from Czech by Alex Zucker. Platzová combines fact and fiction in her account of the life of Felice Bauer, Kafka's fianceé of five years. Highly imaginative and engaging! #womenintranslationmonth www.blpress.org/books/life-a...

No matter the age of their readers, these writers and artists choose to address personal and historical trauma through the medium of art - puncturedlines.com/2025/08/05/g...

Early Bird Registration Ends FRIDAY, August 15 Register Today for the ASEEES Annual Convention to receive the lowest rates. buff.ly/jSkHPMm #ASEEES25 See you in DC!

Honored to have the opening poem from I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated featured at @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social today! www.onlypoemsdaily.com/p/into-obliv...

Today on the blog: A list of graphic memoirs and novels of Soviet trauma, written by women with personal or familial connections to the former USSR. Y Nayberg, Lena Wolf, @rutasepetys.bsky.social, @verabrosgol.bsky.social, J Aleskeyeva, A Ulinich, H Moisseinen puncturedlines.com/2025/08/05/g...

If you are looking for graphic novels by women writers with connections to the former Soviet sphere, @olgaz.bsky.social has some suggestions on @puncturedlines.bsky.social

Huge thanks to Rachel South from Pushkin House London for help gathering material for this post, and to @yelenafurman.bsky.social for the same, and for editing!

Having three other books to read for various deadlines, I obviously started this one. Detective fiction and London - what could be better. As always, pretty sure (?) thanks go to @kaggsy59.bsky.social for the suggestion of this title.

After the news of Derk Sauer’s death was announced, tributes from independent Russian media and other journalists began pouring in, recounting the impact Sauer had on their careers and on Russian media as a whole.

August reader @shana-aisenberg.bsky.social is an acoustic musician, music teacher, composer, and writer. She often writes about her lived experience of being trans, non-binary. Get micros in to Shana and the rest of the August team! www.fiveminutelit.com/submissions

More murderous poolside reading, based on Jack the Ripper. In England last December, revisited the London Dungeon and stayed in Whitechapel, where there was a fish and chips shop named Jack the Chipper. Didn't go in, but there's always next time.

My grandmother wrapped my thumb with a piece of thread, the tip of my finger growing redder with each turn of the fiber. —"Remedy" by Sua Im https://www.fiveminutelit.com/remedy

On the blog today, my final read for #parisinjuly2025, a hypnotic book by Paul Morand - more here: kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/i...