By Aurora Malave, CSEEES Summer 2025 Intern

Looking for a way to fill up all your extra free time this summer? Immerse yourself in a good book with these engaging recommendations from the faculty and staff at the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies. From cooking and linguistics; to philosophy, one of these books is bound to catch your eye.

On The Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome with Love and Pasta 

Jen Lin-Liu

Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.

“During her odyssey, she has many adventures, cooking lessons, and talks with women in varied political situations. It’s a different kind of travelogue that also includes some recipes to try. More than ten years after its publication, I think it is still very relevant. It makes me hungry just writing about it!” - Maryann Walther-Keisel (CSEEES Office Coordinator) 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.

“I love how Kundera’s writing uses existentialist questions to shape the lives of his characters and the trajectories of their stories. His characters are often looking for meaning while simultaneously grappling with the absurdity and unpredictability of life and that’s something that deeply resonates with me (as I’m sure it might with others).” - Alicia Baca (CSEEES Outreach Coordinator)

The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History

Serhii Plokhy

As a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, Serhii Plokhy offers a definitive account of the current conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault—on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament—the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia’s ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable.

In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe.

“Plokhy is a leading scholar of Ukrainian history, and this book provides important historical background to the current war in Ukraine.” -David Hoffman (Professor of History)

Green Mountains: Walking the Caucasus with Recipes

Caroline Eden

Beginning in Armenia, moving northwards through Georgia and ending at the Black Sea, Green Mountains weaves together the enchanting geography and the cult of the kitchen that prevails within these two countries. Tales of testing hikes and unpredictable terrain are punctuated by the foods Eden eats for respite – citrus, tea, apricots, mountain greens and magical cheeses – and the stories she uncovers.

Sharing both the deep comfort and satisfaction of a meal served after a long walk, and the unique relationships she forms with her hosts, Eden offers readers unique insights into the culture and food of these two countries. With meticulously researched histories, a catalogue of recipes from her travels, and rich, compelling stories, this is a travel book like no other.

“Even for those who don’t already know the region well, Eden’s writing and photography are beautiful, her recipes work, and her stories make for good reading. If you are interested in food, travel, and culture, you’ll like this book. If you aren’t able to travel this summer, you can travel through Green Mountains.” - Emma Pratt (CSEEES Assistant Director)

The Empusium

Olga Tokarczuk 

In September 1913, Mieczysław, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrived at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in Görbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

“Her newly translated novel, The Empusium, was published in Polish in 2022 and in English in 2024. Subtitled ‘a health resort horror story,’ it plays on Thomas Mann’s 1924 The Magic Mountain. This ‘one hundred year turn,’ as we sometimes call it in Russian, fascinates me—revisiting history and especially literary genres a century later often results in a kind of ‘rhyme,’ one in which the second element comments on and completes the first. Reading The Empusium has launched me on a new research project, and I continue to think about the book even months after finishing it.” - Angela Brintlinger (CSEEES Director)

Contested Tongues: Language Politics and Cultural Correction in Ukraine

Laada Bilaniuk

During the controversial 2004 elections that led to the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, cultural and linguistic differences threatened to break apart the country. Contested Tongues explains the complex linguistic and cultural politics in a bilingual country where the two main languages are closely related but their statuses are hotly contested. Laada Bilaniuk finds that the social divisions in Ukraine are historically rooted, ideologically constructed, and inseparable from linguistic practice. She does not take the labeled categories as givens but questions what "Ukrainian" and "Russian" mean to different people, and how the boundaries between these categories may be blurred in unstable times. Through a focus on mixed language and purism, the author examines the power dynamics of linguistic and cultural correction, through which people seek either to confer or to deny others social legitimacy. 

“I recommend this book because it illustrates how language operates as a social and political force in contested territories, while also showing how individuals navigate and negotiate their speech practices in ways that transcend political binaries. Given the current situation, this text may offer a helpful contextualization without reinforcing simplistic polarities. “- Laura Siragusa (Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures)