Review of "High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland" by Tom Parfitt

I was expecting a sort of "Between the Wood and The Water" set in the Caucasus, but it turned out to be not so much of a posh-boy jaunt with heartwarming characters, and much more gruelling. Lots more fear (bears and wild boar, and the constant scanning for Islamist fighters), lots more unpleasantness - the food is shit much of the time, the accommodation terrible, the police and bureaucrats corrupt and menacing. From time to time he appreciates the beauty of his surroundings, but he also details the physical discomfort of lots of walking - feet, legs, hips...

And in the background there's his PTSD from his experiences in actual terrorist episodes in Beslan and elsewhere. 

So not an easy read, or a good one for night-time, but worth the time.

Review of American Fiction

Surprisingly thoughtful and interesting film, about the world of books and authors, but also about race and class in contemporary America. The central character is a Black professor who writes high-culture novels that don't sell very well, overshadowed by other writers who do "ghetto" novels even though they are no more out of the ghetto than he is. As a prank he writes a ghetto novel, and then...well, I don't have to spell it all out.

Definitely worth watching. We watched it on BBC iPlayer via our smart TV's native capabilities - i.e. not via casting from the smartphone app.

Review of "The Rose of Sebastopol" by Katherine McMahon

Not completely sure about this one. I didn't enjoy it all that much. It was a bit dull some of the time, and I found myself grinding through it very slowly, which is never a good sign. Some of the writing felt very clunky, like it could have done with a further edit.

And yet I kept going, partly because I wanted to find out what happened to the characters, and along the way I found a lot that I hadn't known about Victorian medicine, and battlefield medicine (apparently the Russians invented triage), and about the Crimean War - I hadn't appreciated quite how bloody that was, almost like a trial run for WW1.