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My choice for the “dedication you loved“ #ISpyBingo square.

A rather harrowing middle-grade memoir about growing up Jewish in the Soviet Union, which honestly sounds as awful as any Western propaganda portrayed it. His family has secrets it's dangerous to ask about, and they worry he won't be “useful“ to the state--until they discover the drawings he made while sleeping under a table. The whimsical pictures break up the trauma somewhat. cont.

The author spends more time talking about Trump than the subject of the biography.

So much more than a spy novel, Gabriel‘s Moon is a book about humans being - or not being - who you think they are. Gabriel Pax is a likable enough protagonist, but thematically, espionage is the real character here. We‘re on a need to know basis, and Boyd makes sure the reader discovers things at the same time Pax does. Side note: my lungs and liver hurt just thinking about the excessive nicotine and booze contaminating Pax‘s body.

July was a bit of a low month reading-wise, but I did enjoy the first in Boyd‘s series featuring reluctant spy Gabriel Dax

#12BooksOf2025

#November #ISpy @TheAromaOfBooks

#ISpy My #October List @TheAromaOfBooks

Next year, all 12 boards all year! (plus the bonus boards). Also --- probably my first BINGO of the year with his one (I did October, November, and December for three months).

This was packed with so much information that at times it felt more like a recitation of names and dates. With all of the smuggling and secret police, it should have been more engaging.

This was an interesting read about Kim Philby, who was spying for the Soviets the entire time he rose through the ranks of Cold War era MI6. He even managed to talk his way out of it when he first fell under suspicion. Something about the audio did make my mind drift away from time to time, but I don‘t know if that was just me.

This was very interesting. At times the author treated the uneducated people who strived to raise their social status through communism with condescension. Saying that some people were promoted past their knowledge and talents was redundant. Monied people are also promoted in error😳.The bits about the Polish Home Army and the clergy were packed with insight. Communism in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslavakia, and Poland is described in depth.

Giles Milton is a writer and best-selling historian. This very readable and informative book explores Berlin between 1945 and 1950 sets out how the agreement between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference set the seeds for the Berlin Blockade and the Cold War. Extensively footnoted and drawing on personal papers from Colonel Frank Howley it‘s particularly good on the specifics of governing and everyday life in post-war Berlin.