A Good Read

I've just started this novel and I'm impressed. I like the way that the story evolves from the characters' minds so the author keeps herself at a distance. The tense atmosphere of the setting too helps to create a three dimensional view of Leningrad in the former Soviet Union. The author has done her research too as there is an extensive bibliography at the back of the novel; how often do you see that nowadays? So it's a definite recommendation. It also seems to be a very domestic novel almost like a Vermeer painting with its intense focus on the domestic setting of the growing family so it's quite an education too for me. 
Anyway it's time for lunch and then the cinema to see The Illusionist a French animation that so many people are talking about now.