Journal Entry 1 by shemchin from Plano, Texas USA on Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Amazon.com Review
In telling the story of the duel that killed Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia's great poet, writer Serena Vitale does something more exciting than simply putting together a biographical chronology of the man's life. In place of the usual plod through life and works, Vitale focuses on the extraordinary events of the end of Pushkin's life, and works backwards and sideways, as it were, to provide a quirkily rich portrait of the man. She is successful in part because she writes like a novelist instead of an ordinary biographer and she makes connections and assessments worthy of the lively mind of Pushkin himself. Take, for instance, the book's title: an anecdote about Pushkin's clothing noted by a contemporary ("Pushkin's bekesh was missing a button at the back, at waist height ... clearly they were not looking after him") leads Vitale not into contemplation of the adequacy of the many servants who attended the poet, but rather into the way the missing button "resembles the stress accent that suddenly breaks loose from the iamb and vanishes into the void" in a typical Pushkinian line of verse. Pushkin's Button is bursting at the seams with surprising and illuminating perspectives such as this. --Adam Roberts 

Journal Entry 2 by shemchin at Ochten, Gelderland Netherlands on Saturday, July 17, 2010

Released 1 yr ago (7/17/2010 UTC) at Ochten, Gelderland Netherlands

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Wish list book

‘little Gifts of KINDNESS’ 2010 Daily Calendar: 04/07/2010
Random Acts of Kindness 2010 Daily Calendar: 03/31/2010
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY CARD
TEXAS PLAYING CARDS: 9 of spades
52 TOKENS OF AFFECTION CARD by Lynn Gordon: An Engraved Token 

Journal Entry 3 by Xamantha at Ochten, Gelderland Netherlands on Friday, August 13, 2010

Hooray, a Pushkin book! And a nice one as well!

I have a weird reason to collect books from and about this Russian poet: my cat. Haha, already said it was a weird reason!
Puschkin is our 20+ y.o. grey tabby. He was already living here when I moved in with my lover, who named the cat after a character from a James Bond movie. So Puschkin has seen our love grow into marriage and although 4 other cats joined our household since then, we still see him as our 'main' cat, the nestor of the family.
So when I bought a book by the writer Pushkin, a new collection was born: the Puschkin shelf! Got books by/about the author in many languages and both hubby and I enjoy going through the titles.

This book will be read and added to the collection afterwards! Very happy with it, thank you Shemchin! 

Journal Entry 4 by Xamantha at Ochten, Gelderland Netherlands on Friday, August 13, 2010

Hooray, a Pushkin book! And a nice one as well!

I have a weird reason to collect books from and about this Russian poet: my cat. Haha, already said it was a weird reason!
Puschkin is our 20+ y.o. grey tabby. He was already living here when I moved in with my lover, who named the cat after a character from a James Bond movie. So Puschkin has seen our love grow into marriage and although 4 other cats joined our household since then, we still see him as our 'main' cat, the nestor of the family.
So when I bought a book by the writer Pushkin, a new collection was born: the Puschkin shelf! Got books by/about the author in many languages and both hubby and I enjoy going through the titles.

This book will be read and added to the collection afterwards! Very happy with it, thank you Shemchin!