Colin Thubron
If ever there was a time for two books on the heart of the USSR and Central Europe, it is now. Susan Richards's re- markable Epics of Everyday Life (Viking, £15.99) is an account of the author's meeting with Russians as they emerge naked into a new age. Travelling between Moscow, Siberia and the Caucasus, she confronts a kaleidoscope of misgivings, euphoria and bewilderment. She takes nothing for granted. All her conversations — her questionings, doubts, reflections — are informed by a blend of critical acumen and imaginative sympathy. A beautiful book.
Farther to the west, Claudio Magris's Danube (now in paperback, Collins Har- vill, £7.95) is not just the portrait of a river but the journey of a polymathic mind. Filled with history and anecdote, philoso- phy and incident, playfulness and insight, this book is above all meditative and individualistic. Magris's section on Vienna, for instance, ignores the usual glories of the city and gives us essays on the crime museum, Wittgenstein, the central cemet- ery, Marcus Aurelius, and the author's uncle Otto — until he has somehow conveyed the elusive spirit of the city itself: its art of living happily on the brink of nothing.
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