On the Strong Read recommendation of Dr J, I hopped on The Russian Debutante’s Handbook with a quickness. I had a feeling that I would enjoy Gary Shteyngart’s sensibility from reading an interview with Jeffrey Eugenides at Bookslut. I was not mistaken. The book is an absurdist adventure of Russian immigrant Vladimir’s poorly thought-out stab at assimilation. I particularly enjoyed Shteyngart’s use of language and his satirical eye. For example, when describing a crowd of fiercely communist revolutionary babushkas in Prava, he describes their little dogs as agit-pups. That killed me for some reason. Shteyngart also mentioned, in passing, an old man ordering the vegetarian liver at a restaurant. This is a particular pet peeve of mine; vegetarian sausage, tofu-rkey, etc. It was a quick throw away line, but it had me chuckling. Having now read the book, I am somewhat surprised at how much praise was heaped on this book. It’s an engaging, humorous tale, sure. I’m not sure that it reaches “BIG IMPORTANT BOOK” status. But whatever. You could bring much worse books to the beach this summer. Gary Shteyngart is an original voice, and I recommend picking this up. And it’s priced to move used at Amazon.