Debra Dean

It was wonderful to read this book again. I read it a long time ago, and enjoyed it more this time around. This is a story of The Siege of Leningrad. Years ago, in undergrad college, I read Harrison Salisbury's book which focused on the 900 day take over by Germany during WWII. This book focuses not only on the take over of Leningrad by the Germans in World War II, but also on the way in which it impacted on the art work kept in the exquisite collection previously housed in the Russian Hermitage.

The writing is stellar, and the reader can almost feel the icy climate and the bitter cold as the heat is non existent, and the paintings are gone. Wisely taken off the walls and stored elsewhere for security purposes, the author does an excellent job of portraying room after room without paintings, but keeping the frames on the walls in the hope that the beautiful art will one day be returned to where they belong.

The main character is a young woman, now old and suffering from severe loss of memory. Marina keeps a visual memory of each painting in the hope that they all will be returned in the quality they were when they were stashed away.

I highly recommend this book, and the one written by Harrison Salisbury titled The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad… (plus d'informations)