STUMP » Articles » Meep's Bookshelf: Get Free E-Books by Russian Dissidents NOW! » 29 August 2017, 14:54

Two important books are currently free in kindle format on Amazon, until Saturday, September 2:

TO BUILD A CASTLE BY VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY

I’ve reviewed this book in a few posts:
Never Forget: Thoughts on To Build A Castle – a Dissident Memoir by Vladimir Bukovsky

To Build a Castle: Still Relevant Story of a Fighter for Freedom

But don’t take my word for it. Take Tom Stoppard’s:

“This is a landmark book and a human document that remains vital.” —Sir Tom Stoppard, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Shakespeare in Love

…and writer of lots of other famous stuff as well.

Download the book for free on Amazon til Sept 2

Other comments by famous people/publications:

“A huge story we must not forget. Even inside prison, a revolt of the mind is possible.” —Masha Alyokhina, co-founder of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot, who read To Build a Castle while serving time as a prisoner of conscience

“This book is important.” —Former US President Ronald Reagan

“If human bravery were a book, it would be To Build a Castle. Bukovsky’s memoir serves as testimony to the horrors of totalitarianism, a reference manual of the Soviet gulag during the Brezhnev years, and an unforgettable tribute to the courage of dissidents like Bukovsky. Unfortunately, the book is a reminder we still very much need today, when Western moral equivalence would have us believe that such monsters no longer exist. They do, and ‘To Build a Castle’ is an essential guide to understanding them, and how to fight them.” —Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation

….

“It is one of the great books of the 20th Century.” —John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary and former speechwriter for George H. W. Bush

….
“A gripping and evocative account of the evil empire from a man who helped bring it down.” —Edward Lucas, Senior Editor, The Economist, author of The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West
….
“Vladimir Bukovsky was the heart and soul of the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union. In To Build a Castle, he describes in telling prose what it meant to fight against overwhelming odds, to defend principles that others thought did not exist – and to prevail.” —David Satter, journalist and author of The Less You Know the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin

Get it now, while it’s free!

ALLEGATIONS BY ALEXANDER LITVENENKO

I have not read this one yet, though I did get a copy. (So many dissident books, so much time!)

But the distinction for this one is that Litvenenko was poisoned, possibly by ex-KGB guys. You can dwell on particular assassination theories, but it’s pretty clear he was murdered outright due to his political activism, no matter who did it.

Download the kindle version for free until September 2.

Comments:

Alexander Litvinenko was a member of Russia’s FSB, its secret service formerly known as the KGB. Claiming he was ordered to assassinate a Russian tycoon, he was arrested twice before fleeing to the UK. There, he spoke and wrote frequently against what he called the “mafia state” of contemporary Russia under President Putin. Litvinenko was murdered with radioactive poison in 2006 in London. This collection of writings and interviews — curated and translated by another daring dissenter, Pavel Stroilov — lives up to its title, making one claim after another against the FSB and the regime which Litvinenko fled.

This book is more current, but I recommend checking out Bukovsky’s first to understand how the Soviet Union “worked”.