Red plenty

 by Francis Spufford.  After making a splash in England, Spufford's newest novel is likely to do the same in the U.S. If you think that a novel about the planned economy of the USSR from the 1950s through the 1970s would be boring, think again. Loosely based on real events, each of the book's interconnected vignettes gives insight into the bureaucrats, economists, and scientists who created the Soviet economy and all that it represented. From the voice of Khrushchev in the upper echelon of the Communist Party, to the story of Zoya, a young female biologist sent to study at a lab in Siberia, Spufford's narrative offers penetrating looks at an era rarely examined in this kind of human detail. Although the historical element can be daunting, Spufford's explanatory notes and references help readers navigate the more difficult sections. By teetering delicately between history and fiction, the novel leaves readers with a sense of the period that could not have been achieved with a straight, factual approach. --Booklist (Check Catalog)