Sophie Pinkham

‘Something Resembling Normal Life’

Paek Nam-nyong’s ‘Friend’ tells ordinary stories of love and divorce in 1980s North Korea.

Living by Lies

Joshua Yaffa’s ‘Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia’

My Quarantine: Savoring the Ramen Western

Tampopo’s ode to the oral ends with a shot of a woman breastfeeding on a sunny park bench. As the credits roll, the camera closes in on the blissful face of the firmly latched infant. Suck, slurp, lick, share: these are joys of living.

Realists of the Soviet Fantasy

Artists like Deineka and Samokhvalov managed to produce valuable work while navigating the shoals of Soviet doctrine.

Blood on the Ice

Bathsheba Demuth’s ‘Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait’

Ukraine’s New Leading Man

The Chernobyl Syndrome

Three new books on the disaster and our radioactive world