For you book post sticklers, you'll remember we are jumping ahead or jumbling around... my last book post was #13 Michael J Fox's memoir Always Looking Up... but eons ago I already took care of my little write-up about #14 Dead Until Dark to coincide(-ish) with the Season 2 premiere of HBO's True Blood (which really deserves a blog entry of its own)... so that means it's onto Book #15 for 2009...
... David Benioff's City of Thieves. There seem to be a fairly limited number of ways I "find" books (again, probably worthy of a blog post of its own) and this one falls under... books impossible to avoid when you walk into pretty much any bookstore. Since Benioff isn't one of those blockbuster authors, typically it seems like it is one of those books that gets good word-of-mouth (or a good PR book publishing work) that eventually landed the book a consistent spot on the bestseller list. This phenomenon tends to pique my curiosity and, more often than not, there seems to be a good reason for the book's success.
On paper, this book is probably a bit of a tough sell... unless you are a history buff and are interested in the Siege on Leningrad during WWII... but alas this is a lot more than a war novel, but also a coming of age story and often, quite funny... though more in an "war is absurd" kind of way. Doing a Hollywood pitch meeting on this one, I would say I could envision this being Quentin Tarantino picture (though he already has a WWII flick coming out shortly), but a very healthy sampling of war violence, but at times so macabre that there is a dark humor about it, though from all accounts I read what occurred in this piece of fiction is horrifyingly accurate.
But there is plenty of things to balance this out, led by a very interesting protagonist, 17-year old orphan (his mother and sister fled before the siege) of Jewish ancestry named Lev Benoiv... and if you think that's similar to the author's name you are correct in a neat little twist to the story (it pretty much occurs right up-front in the novel, but I'll leave it alone/spoiler-free. Lev gets himself in trouble but ends up being paired up on a life-saving errand with Koyla, a Russian soldier accused of defecting from the army. It is this odd couple that we follow for about a week's time and again see the very worst and the very best that the human race is capable of.
At about 260 pages, it is more like a novella and quick reading. My only criticism was a slight interest drag in the middle and some suspension of belief as the lead characters get themselves out some pretty tight situations (and multiple times). But the book is still a fascinating story, plus an education for you non-WWII buffs.
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