Recharged

The past several days were spent diurnally reading Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Montefiore. It is difficult to accurately depict the pleasure I derived from this text. While i disagree with certain central assertions - it was the suicide of Stalin's wife which spiralled his paranoia to the manifestation of the Terror - the text was rich with detail and I found a rare depth of appreciation for it.

I am now enjoying another holiday gift, Kaputt by an Italian writer named Malaparte about his time as a journalist on the Ostfront. Harrowing - to state the obvious.