Finding books on Russia that aren't dry and boring isn't that easy but "The Apartment: A Century of Russian History" takes an entirely different approach to most non-fiction books that is so brilliant and ground-breaking I would dearly like to see it become 'the norm' for a lot of non-fiction subjects.
Inside the apartment, the lives of several families are chronicled over the space of an entire century, from the revolutionary Russia of the early 20th Century, right through to the present day.
As the apartment changes and evolves to meet the needs of each new set of tenants, we find out a little bit more about Russia in each decade, through the first and second world war, and through to the eventual fall of the Iron Curtain, and a relaxation and more ready acceptance of some of the western influences that have worked their way into Russian culture in later years.
Alexandra and Anna have done an amazing job here, packing in so much detail and so much anecdotal history that there's something new to discover every time you read this book.
We also absolutely loved the format of this. It's a huge hardback tome, the sort of book we describe in our reviews as being made for sprawling out on the floor with and we learned so much from it, from what Russian people ate and what they did during harsher times, through to their subversive counter-cultural reactions to some quite often harsh laws.
Like most of our keepers, this is something that is read again and again on a regular basis, and there's no surprise it was a book of the week and indeed one of our picture books of the year last year.
Original Review Links:
ReadItDaddy's Second Book of the Week: Week Ending 1st November 2019 - "The Apartment: A Century of Russian History" by Alexandra Litvina and Anna Desnitskaya, translated by Antonina Bouis (Abrams Books)
Our Picture Book, Chapter Book and Comic / Graphic Novel of the year winners for 2019