I’ve been reading Dostoyevsky this year and he’s one of my favourite authors. I think I’m turning into a book snob 🤣 because 2023 has been a year of some brilliant reads of literary fiction that when I pick up a current popular read book, I get bored.

If a book isn’t making me toss and turn at night, move me with a story or some unforgettable characters, make me experience it as if I was in that time and place or somehow stir some emotion into me (anger, crying, or obsession) then it’s a time waster for me.

I simply don’t do books I can’t obsess over.

With House of the Dead, this is one to obsess over. After all, what’s not to like about learning how humans live and survive in a freezing Siberian jail?

This book transformed Dostoyevsky and his writing so what’s not to like?

I had to read this book first before I got into Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov so I could recognise some of the characters he wrote about in House of the Dead.

One of my best reads for 2023. I kept raving about this book at our monthly book club at our local library. They thought I was mad! If anything, I’d love to find a literary classics book club to attend because all book clubs seem to cover modern books…..