Travels in Siberia

This one was the other book bought with the Barnes and Noble gift card. I'd wanted this one for awhile. The author has written a couple of other "travel-ogue" type books, and they've all been done well. For this one, he spent about 10-15 years learning Russian, and studying up on Siberia. Then, about 2/3 of the book covers the various trips he took through Siberia. About half the book chronicles the "main" trip, when he went from St. Petersburg in the West, to the far tip of Siberia in the East.

Having served an LDS mission in western Russia, and minored in Russian Studies in college, I was excited to read this one. The first few chapters go pretty slow - he's talking alot about the history of Siberia, without much detail about his own trips. However, once he started talking about the trips he took - it got much more interesting and fun to read. He spent time talking about the history of the different places he stopped, and telling stories of some of the old Soviet people who had been exiled to the place.

He had a couple of companions for the main trips he took - and the descriptions of those companions are classic Russia. The way he describes the two men - it's almost like you're there with them, and I remembered exactly what sorts of things he was talking about. At one point he was finally able to stop and explore an old exile camp, still fenced and in reasonably good condition. That was a really good moment in the book, as he described the sorts of things that historically would've happened, and one of his companions reacts to the same scene.

I strongly recommend this book to just about anyone interested in learning more about Siberia. It was a fun, nostalgic read for me!