Lazy Sunday Service

I'm presently reading Leningrad: Siege and Symphony by Brian Moynahan.  Rather than a straightforward telling of the devastating 900 day siege of the great city, Moynahan weaves in the story of the writing of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, dedicated to the city in which he lived and worked, which was performed in the Philharmonia Hall in August 1942 by a full orchestra of starved musicians pulled from the front lines and work places.  What Moynahan's account reveals is that the city had been under siege prior to the German invasion through Stalin's purges, with the war heightening the terror and suffering, and that this is captured in Shostakovich's work.  So far it's a fascinating but harrowing book, with a casualty rate in the hundreds of thousands, with plenty of resilience and fear and a few glimmers of hope.

My posts this week
Review of The Spy Who Changed the World by Mike Rossiter
Review of Villain by Shuichi Yoshida
Waiting for the NKVD