WHAT'S COOKING IN THE KREMLIN From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork

Someone thought that having the subjects quoted in this audiobook speak in a thick (almost comically so) Russian accent was a good idea. It was not. In fact, the accents distract from a compelling audiobook. The text itself is chockablock with tidbits of information about the eating habits of the famous: Lenin had little love for food, Stalin preferred his native Georgian dishes, and the Romanovs ate opulently almost to the very end. The work tells a lot of inside stories about those who cooked for them and adds fine stuff on how those eating under duress in Ukraine survived and how the Soviet army ate in Afghanistan. More's the pity, then, that this audiobook is surely better on the page. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2023]