Further to my recent post ‘Publish or Perish,” my wife’s latest book has just been put up on amazon.com and will be available in a day or two from all their national websites as well as on all leading online book retailers. Larisa Zalesova, “Dacha Tales: Life in the Russian Hinterland.” Enter the author and title in the Amazon search box to arrive at the book’s web page
This book in the travel genre follows the tradition of Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence.” The territory to the south of St Petersburg may not have vineyards or haute cuisine village restaurants, but the local folks are as eccentric and charming as any of Mayle’s neighbors, and on a hot summer’s day the mood and the dress of those making their way to the lake at the edge of town is straight out of a Chekhov play.
Hard bound and e-book formats to be offered shortly.
Also today, a Russian language edition entitled Долгая дорога на дачу has been put on sale by amazon.
This is in paperback only for the moment. In a couple of weeks the e-book version will be posted on the sites of many online retailers (though not amazon, for technical reasons). That will have the especially attractive price of $3.99 and is directed to the audience in the Russian Federation.
Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write.
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975).
After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.
From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.
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Gilbert Doctorow 