Looking for communism-related books recommendations

[skYlancer]

First of all, I'm new to here. It's enough to just take a glimpse in order to realize how much quality this forum has.

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I'm looking for a book related to the Communism/East Germany era, in which the emphasize on the reign itself is kinda just the background (mild) as opposed to the center narrative (main). The movie 'Goodbye Lenin' is a great example of what book I'm aiming to achieve.

 

TIA!

[pickle]

I remember reading Children of the Arbat when I was doing my A level on the Russian Revolution but this was about a million years ago.

 

synopsis: It deals with the teenage and young adult lives of a group of children who grow up in Moscow's Arbat district, beginning in 1934, when Stalin's paranoia was beginning to ripen into political terror.

 

The novel explores the lives of those exiled by the secret police, and those who reach varying levels of accommodation by a regime which is tightening its grip on Russian society. Among the characters are Stalin himself, and such senior pre-WW2 Soviet figures as Kirov. The portrait of Stalin is remarkably consistent with that in Simon Sebag Montefiore's nonfiction work "The Court of the Red Tsar".

 

 

 

[SueK]

I read quite a lot of this sort of literature and there are some great books out there. Depending on how "full on" you want your communism to be, I would definitely suggest Child 44 by Tom Robb Smith - about a secret security officer bang in the middle of 50's Russia and how he manages to play/buck the system. I am hoping to read the sequel (The Secret Speech) shortly.

 

If you want to go back a bit I would recommend Sashenka by Simon Montefiore which takes place over a period just before the Revolution up to the fall of Communism, a great saga and quite harrowing at times - especially Stalin's Great Terror period.

 

I'm reading a non-fiction account of the period called the Dvina Remains by a woman (Eugenie Fraser) who was half Russian/half Scottish and her memoirs of her trip back to Russian before the fall of Communism. Well worth reading but it might be good to read her first book "The House by the Dvina", first. There are also the Martin Cruz books (Gorky Park, Polar Star) that give a stark account of the period. And there is always Dr Zhivago which takes you through the Revolution - one of my favourite alltime books.

 

Can't help with the East German bit I'm afraid - although Alone in Berlin is worth reading but that is more about the WWII rather than communism.

 

There are plenty more out there and I will try to think up some more good ones.

 

I don't know "Goodbye Lenin" but I'll have a look at that on Amazon. Thanks.

Edited July 29, 2010 by SueK

[Roland Butter]

If it's fiction you're after I can't really help, but a few years ago I read "Stasiland" by Anna Funder, which is a good account of what life was like on the "wrong" side of the Berlin Wall. Intriguingly, it helped explain why so many "Ossis" yearn for the return of the old days ...

 

Well worth a read, even if you're not into non-fiction.