Anyone who wants to feel proud of being human must read this account by a noble and corageous woman, the worthy child of a noble and corageous father.

It was incedible to live through, in impeccable detail, the life of one who survived the camps of Joseph Stalin. Despite the murder of her husband and the seperation from her children because she was a supporter of Trotsky she maintained her dignity and her faith in humanity. Many have suffered less and surrendered more of their soul to their persecutors. Her recollections of the events are told as if they happened last week. If there is to be evidence that there is hope for human progress and a brighter socialist future for mankind out of the ashes of the suffering and intolerance of this past century, this woman is the human embodiment, the evidence, upon which such hope rests.

"Dear Yuri, thank you for the gift of your heart. Your stories spoke to the child in me and moved me deeply. They spoke to me as an adult and moved me even more. The purity, the moral and universal values to which you gave such eloquent expression with such beautiful simplicity should be an example for others how stories for children should be written, if we are to raise a generation capable of preserving our species on this planet."

"Thank you for the gift of your heart. Your stories spoke to the child in me and moved me deeply. They spoke to me as an adult and moved me even more. The purity, the moral and universal values to which you gave such eloquent expression with such beautiful simplicity should be an example for others how stories for children should be written, if we are to raise a generation capable of preserving our species on this planet."

I read this astonishing book awhile back, but it stands out in my mind as a lucid, insightful account of the destruction of an entire generation of intellectual life and how this stunts the psyche of the following generation. If I achieve even a small measure of the insight in my old age that Nadezdha Mandelstam displays in hers I will feel blessed. You won't take your intellectual freedoms for granted after reading this one. If you are a devotee of the poetry of Anna Akhmatova you will like this book. Her life and Ms. Mandelstam's were intertwined.

Highly recommended reading. This is a detailed but very readable account of the years following the revolution as recalled by the wife of one of Russia's leading poets. It is a witty, frank, and intelligent analysis of conditions that contrast so starkly with the premise of the revolution - freedom and equality for all people.

This is one of the most wonderful books i have ever read and a sensational portrait of the russian poet Ossip Mandelstam. The book focus on mandelstam's last years when he was under the pressure and prosecution of Stalin. The prose is beautiful, full of musings on the condition of Art. She also draw a very clear portrait of what Stalinism meant for artists and people in general in Russia. But for me the most important part of the book is to see the way Ossip dealt with horror and Death. For me, this book is one of the best studies about the condition of human beings. A must.

Presents an image of Russia as profound and gripping as Dostoevsky (only it's a memoir, not fiction). Fascinating portrait of one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. One of the 10 books which have meant the most to me since I began reading 40 years ago.

I really enjoyed The Boarding-School Girl! I will be going to a boarding school this year, and this book really helped me prepare for school. I liked this book more than the other books I have read to prepare me for school, because this one had a story to it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who plans on going to a boarding school, or collage.

Very few of the historical women who disguised themselves as men to become soldiers have told their adventures in their own words. Nadezhda Durova was a minor noblewoman who spent seven years in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic wars and earned the distinguished cross of St. George. Years later a chance meeting introduced her to Pushkin, who read her service journals and encouraged her to publish with the praise, "Charming! Vivid, original, beautiful style."

A key moment in Durova's life happens during infancy. Her father, an army officer, brings his family to camp. Shocked to see his wife abusing the baby girl, he keeps Nadezhda with the regiment and orders his soldiers to raise her. Soon her favorite toy is an unloaded gun.

After her father's retirement, when Napoleon's ambitions turn to Eastern Europe, Durova needs little excuse to run away on her horse and join the army. She reaches the front just in time for the disastrous Prussian campaign. Her worried family asks friends to seek her whereabouts. Soon rumors of an amazon reach the tsar.

Durova has little praise for her own performance at the front. In a fit of exhaustion she even sleeps through a town's evacuation. Her superiors give better reports that result in a decoration from the tsar for saving the life of an officer during battle. During a direct interview Alexander I allows her to remain in the army using his name as a pseudonym. He then places her in an elite unit.

Life in the hussars is less than ideal. Unable to grow the Russian officer's expected mustache, Durova gets passed over for promotion by superiors who think she is a boy. Not everyone considers this a disadvantage-particularly the colonel's infatuated daughter. Durova's talent for amusing anecdotes shines as she describes how she extracts herself from this predicament.

Durova sees action again during the 1812 campaign. Wounded in the battle of Borodino outside Moscow, she has the good fortune to go home before Napoleon's death march retreat.

This narrative has both the freshness and the failings of journal writing. Pushkin appears to have lent some editorial assistance. Individual episodes shine but frequent interruptions disturb the flow. Readers are advised to consider that Durova is a creature of her era, occasionally exhibiting prejudices not accepted in the present age.

Although famous in her native Russia, Durova is little known to the English speaking world. Mary Fleming Zirin's translation brings an original story to a new audience. This volume reproduces the entire memoir with additional documentary evidence of Durova's military career and a well-researched introduction.

The true story of Peter Tchaikowsky and Nadejda von Meck has never been told until now.

That the wife of a nobleman, a woman who was beautiful, popular, fabulously wealthy -- the mother of eleven children -- for years lavished her attention and practically devoted her entire waking and dreaming existence to a composer whom she never met is, of course, well known.

But why she did this -- why during the thirteen years of their friendship they book took extreme measures never to meet -- why she permitted Tchaikowsky to marry another woman -- why she later gave him money to get a divorce -- why Tchaikowsky alternated between the heights of exaltation in his friendship and the deoths of self-abasement and despair -- is an enigma that has never been satisfactorily explained until now.

The letters upon which this biography is based were hidden for years in Mme. von Meck's household. At the outbreak of the Revolution in Russia they were seized by the Bolsheviki; the originals are now in the possession of the Soviet Government, which has refused to release them.

But fortunately for the musical world, translations of these letters were made by Barbara von Meck, the granddaughter of Nadejda; and Catherine Drinker Bowen, author of FREE ARTIST, has reconstructed the whole story.

It is a strangely moving story, the recounting of a romance that never came to full fruition, but which found its expression in music which has delighted the world with its tragic beauty and its lilting airs.