In a radio broadcast on October 1st, 1939, Winston Churchill referred to Russia as, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." During my tenure as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Russian Far East, I found Churchill's words to be accurate, as my limited knowledge about Russia stemmed from Dostoevsky and Pushkin novels. From the summer of 1994 until late 1995, I lived and worked in the Russian Far East as a Peace Corps Volunteer managing a small business center; only a few miles from both the Chinese and North Korean borders. I experienced firsthand the thrilling and often confusing environment as the Russian people established a foothold in a more open society marked by their initial forays into capitalism. My experiences living with a Russian family, managing a business center catering to Russian entrepreneurs and running with and from the Mafia during this tumultuous period allowed me insight into the Russian soul and allowed me to examine my own. Fluctuating between enjoying local celebrity status to being a suspected American spy, I had the opportunity to socialize with Russian and American politicians, various mafia organizations and Russians from all walks of life. The book takes a humorous and insightful look at the cultural differences between America and Russia as well as providing a peek at how my Russian friends and colleagues dealt with the flux of change within every aspect of their lives. Although this book is based on real events, I have changed the names of some of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and the Peace Corps staff for reasons of discretion.

"Russia had fascinated outsiders for centuries, and according to Alicia Chudo, it is high time this borscht stopped. In And Quiet Flows the Vodka, Chudo takes no prisoners as she examines Russia's great tradition of unreadable writers, revolutionaries who can't hit the broadside of a tsar, and Soviets who like their vodka but love their tractors." --Book Jacket.

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palace intrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance. Beyond vivid anecdotes, Schrad scours original documents and archival evidence to answer provocative historical questions. How have Russia's rulers used alcohol to solidify their autocratic rule? What role did alcohol play in tsarist coups? Was Nicholas II's ill-fated prohibition a catalyst for the Bolshevik Revolution? Could the Soviet Union have become a world power without liquor? How did vodka politics contribute to the collapse of both communism and public health in the 1990s? How can the Kremlin overcome vodka's hurdles to produce greater social well-being, prosperity, and democracy into the future? Viewing Russian history through the bottom of the vodka bottle helps us to understand why the "liquor question" remains important to Russian high politics even today-almost a century after the issue had been put to bed in most every other modern state. Indeed, recognizing and confronting vodka's devastating political legacies may be the greatest political challenge for this generation of Russia's leadership, as well as the next.

Here is the beloved, bestselling compendium of Kingsley Amis's wisdom on the cherished subject of drinking. Along with a series of well-tested recipes (including a cocktail called the Lucky Jim) the book includes Amis's musings on The Hangover, The Boozing Man's Diet, The Mean Sod's Guide, and (presumably as a matter of speculation) How Not to Get Drunk-all leavened with fun quizzes on the making and drinking of alcohol all over the world. Mixing practical know-how and hilarious opinionation, this is a delightful cocktail of wry humor and distilled knowledge, served by one of our great gimlet wits.

Set in the courtrooms of our nation's Capitol, D.A. Diaries explores the explosive combat zone of urban trial law through the eyes of Clay Franklin, an experienced homicide prosecutor.This story begins with the shooting of a popular and legendary Washington, D.C., teacher. The high-profile trial is assigned to Clay, who is equally dedicated to chasing women as bringing murderers to justice. As Clay confronts his new assignment, he reconnects with the woman of his dreams and struggles unsuccessfully to keep his demons at bay.The euphoria of Clay's relationship is overwhelmed by a progression of devastating events as witnesses go silent and a corrupt clan of police officers seeks to protect the prime suspect. Clay's indiscretion with a witness at trial threatens both his personal life and his career, sending the superstar of the homicide unit into an abyss.Clay is a passionate individual who is revealed through his observations and conversations with his cynical pals at the D.A.'s Office, crooked cops, drug-addled witnesses, and his burned-out psychiatrist. He sees the legal system, his dysfunctional family, and our nation's Capitol with a unique wit that is at once comedic, troubling, and honest.The author has worked as a prosecutor and defense attorney for the past 30 years. Of course, D.A. Diaries is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although some real D.C. and Prince George's County institutions are mentioned, all are used fictitiously.

Isadora Tattlin is the American wife of a European energy consultant posted to Havana in the 1990s. Wisely, the witty Mrs. Tattlin began a diary the day her husband informed her of their new assignment. One of the first entries is her shopping list of things to take, including six gallons of shampoo. For although the Tattlins were provided with a wonderful, big house in Havana, complete with a staff of seven, there wasn't much else money could buy in a country whose shelves are nearly bare. The record of her daily life in Cuba raising her two small children, entertaining her husband's clients (among them Fidel Castro and his ministers and minions), and contending with chronic shortages of, well . . . everything (on the street, tourists are hounded not for money but for soap), is literally stunning. Adventurous and intuitive, Tattlin squeezed every drop of juice--both tasty and repellent--from her experience. She traveled wherever she could (it's not easy--there are few road signs or appealing places to stay or eat). She befriended artists, attended concerts and plays. She gave dozens of parties, attended dozens more. Cuba Diaries--vividly explicit, empathetic, often hilarious--takes the reader deep inside this island country only ninety miles from the U.S., where the average doctor's salary is eleven dollars a month. The reader comes away appalled by the deprivation and drawn by the romance of a weirdly nostalgic Cuba frozen in the 1950s.

Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbor, Mr. Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed.

People have simple needs. Food, water, light, space. Maybe a small measure of dignity. What happens when someone takes all that away? This pulse-pounding, award-winning novel explores what happens when your worst nightmare comes true.

What do we stand to lose in a world without ice? A decade ago, novelist and short story writer Jean McNeil spent a year as writer in residence with the British Antarctic Survey, and four months on the world's most enigmatic continent, Antarctica. Access to the Antarctic remains largely reserved for scientists, and it is the only piece of earth which is nobody's country. Ice Diaries is the story of McNeil's years spent in ice, not only in the Antarctic but her subsequent travels in Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard, culminating in a strange event in Cape Town, South Africa, where she journeyed to make what was to be her final trip to the southernmost continent. In the spirit of the diaries of Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, McNeil mixes travelogue, popular science and memoir to examine the history of our fascination with ice. In entering this world, McNeil unexpectedly finds herself confronting her own upbringing in the Maritimes, the lifelong effects of growing up in a cold place, and how the climates of childhood frame our emotional thermodynamics for life. Ice Diaries is a haunting story of the relationship between beauty and terror, loss and abandonment, transformation and triumph.

This little notepad is going to be my paper-based blog for now . . . for all of the tech savvies out there one day, all of these thoughts will come in a digital format as well. But you may understand that when the thought comes I just can't wait for windows to boot especially when I only have 7 minutes before I reach my destination. Fountain pen and paper will still be the preferred writing mode. Who knows maybe in a couple of years we'll be able to just think and transfer thoughts on a microchip implanted in our left temple. Ok I admit I am being slightly far fetched here . . . Just so that you know moleskine version and word version may be slightly different but this is because I can't just stop my head adding thoughts to the original. Beware this blog is unfiltered. Today (25/09/2010) the town hall here in Hamburg is open to the public. I went it but it was all too baroque for my taste so I came out and started staining my brand new notepad with blue ink. There's nothing better than a carefully chosen fountain pen to write, fountain pens just write, ball pens force your hand to stop and reflect and that's what I don't want. Being the end of September in the northern hemisphere, the weather is slightly crap but nevertheless interesting and pleasant is some weird sort of way. Since I moved to the free and hanseatic city of Hamburg, I've observed the people, the landscapes, the cityscapes and the culture. I thought I'd start writing about Hamburg and my life here because one day maybe I won't be able to remember any longer or I won't care, or maybe I will just want to read my thoughts again who knows. The other reason is that I was supposed to stay here for a short time but here I am 3 years later in the same city and just as I start to be a "Hamburger", I've been told I may need to move again at the end of next year. It's funny how the minute I found out I may need to leave again, I had the feeling I was already too attached to the place. Many of the streets I walked on have a story, sometimes a funny one, sometimes a neutral one and sometimes a sad one. I've even noticed that I do tend to avoid the "sad streets" or the "lunch break streets" but I love to get lost into new street and find my way in a street that I know. I guess sometimes I have to walk the "sad streets" again and just like Marcel Proust described how he could remember things from the freshly baked scent of the little madeleines, I can remember some of the details of a street that I walked on with a particular feeling inside of me. I'd like to point out that the city of Hamburg just happens to find itself on the map of Germany, but this was quite possibly due to a few twisted historical events. Hamburg has its own life and character sometimes rude and gentle at the same time. Hamburg will remain a little hanseatic island of . . . "Hamburgers" . . . Today I feel like looking back and give you my own "written painting" of this city. I'm curious to know if you also see it this way and if not how do you see it but of course I can't just stop people and ask. Or can I? Seems like yesterday when I first landed here and took the S-Bahn (fast public transportation train) for the first time to go to Harburg Rathaus (town hall). Back then I was staring at the golden tree leaves fluttering in the wind and now here I am, my own golden hair fluttering in the wind as I look at the clouds. I hope I won't keep being this cheesy in the remaining chapters but again there is no guarantee. Stopping thoughts is something that I have already done too many times and now it's time to stop it and let them flow in a sort of Virginia Woolf sort of way.