gift

"'Harry, this is Leonard. I just wanted you to know I watched your film on me and it struck me I never thanked you enough at the time for the magnificent gift you gave with that film. Call me.' Then he left his personal number.' – Harry Rasky, April 2000. No other book about Leonard Cohen gets so close to the man, his city, his poems and songs, his friends, his background, and the many original influences...

In the vast Kazakh steppes of the crumbling Soviet Empire, Alyosha has finished his army service and is promised a gift from his deaf commander: an everlasting steel tooth. As he waits for it in the infirmary, he agrees to help out a medical officer, and they set out on a journey that takes them all the way to the kingdom of the dead. Oleg Pavlov's kaleidoscope of a tale is peopled with soldiers and...