Lockdown Reading

IF, like me, you enjoy travel with your history, then I can recommend Eric Newby's The Big Red Train Ride.
It tells how Newby, who is best known for A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush, journeyed by train from Moscow to the Pacific in 1977.
Paul Theroux praised it as "the best kind of travel book," and it has received plenty of other good reviews.

Better red

The region Newby passed through, along with his wife, a photographer and a Soviet minder, has plenty of history, which Newby frequently alludes to.
But 1977 is 43 years ago, which arguably makes the book a historical document in its own right.
Newby certainly provides insight into life in a communist regime that, inefficient as it was, must nevertheless have seemed assured of survival, if not prosperity, for many decades to come.
The Soviet Union officially formed in 1922 and broke up in 1991, which means Newby (born 1919, died 2006) both ante- and post-dated it.
I bought the book via Amazon when it became clear I would run out of good reads during the lockdown, and regard the purchase as well worth £2.55 (most of which, I am fairly sure, was the cost of shipping).