Recommended by Ellen J., who writes, This past winter as the Olympics were being held in Sochi, I revisited Russia in my reading. John Boyne’s novel, The House of Special Purpose, caught my attention because it featured the czar’s Winter Palace, now the world class art museum known as The Hermitage which we visited in 1989. In The House of Special Purpose, the reader experiences the contrast between the poverty-stricken lives of the Russian peasants and their powerful czars through the eyes of the main character, Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev, who is randomly plucked from his poor village to live and work for the czar’s family. As Georgy grows to manhood in the service of the Czar’s family, he and the reader get to know Rasputin and the family of Nicolas and Alexandra. This is also a heart-breaking love story spanning several decades, told in a series of flashbacks by Georgy as he contemplates a return visit to the Russia he and his beloved wife escaped during the Russian Revolution. This is a lovely book for those interested a sweeping love story set in revolutionary Russia, as long as they aren’t bothered by some serious artistic license taken by the author.

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